Beloved ‘70s Teen Idol Opens Up About ‘Carrying the Torch’ For His Legendary Family
- - Beloved ‘70s Teen Idol Opens Up About ‘Carrying the Torch’ For His Legendary Family
Victoria MillerJanuary 13, 2026 at 6:39 PM
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Shaun Cassidy is sharing memories of his family during his music and storytelling tour, The Road to Us Tour. In a January 2026 interview with Nostalgia Tonight With Joe Sibia on AM 70 The Answer, the beloved ‘70s heartthrob revealed that he shares stories about his late father and brother, Jack and David Cassidy, as well as his mother, Shirley Jones, during his show.
“I carry a lot of my dad with me. I talk about him in my show,” Cassidy shared. “I talk about David a lot in my show, and my mom. I feel like I’m kind of carrying the torch for my whole family in the show.”
Cassidy’s father, Jack, was a Tony Award-winning actor who died tragically in a fire in 1976 at age 49. His half-brother, David, who became a pop superstar in The Partridge Family, died in 2017 at age 67. Cassidy’s mother, fellow Partridge Family alum Shirley, is still alive at age 91, but has long retired from acting and singing.
In the new interview, Cassidy shared details on the unusual dynamic he grew up with in the show business family.
“My father was a wildly talented man,” Cassidy shared. “A Tony Award-winner on Broadway, actor, singer, Emmy-nominee in TV, famous for playing villains on shows like Columbo. He had taken a backseat to my mother. And then along comes David. And David becomes kind of the biggest thing in the world for a while. And he had a hard time with it.”
Cassidy said his father’s jealousy was his “shortcoming.” “But, you know, my father had a big ego,“ he said.
Shirley Jones, Jack Cassidy, and David Cassidy. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)Photo by Ron Galella on Getty Images
In February 2025, Cassidy told the Sibling Revelry podcast that the sudden death of their father in 1976 brought him closer to David, who hadn’t handled his Partridge Family fame well and had been estranged from the family.
“I mean, our father died when I was 18,” he said. “My older brother David, we were estranged, which was rough, but in a strange way, his loss bonded us. I literally remember the day he died, the four [brothers] hugging and crying and sort of forging this, like, ‘He will live in us.’”
In the Nostalgia Tonight interview, Cassidy also revealed his final conversation with his famous father.
“The last time I saw my father, I told him that I got the job on The Hardy Boys, and he knew Glenn Larson, who was the producer. And Glenn, back in the day, was like Aaron Spelling,” Cassidy recalled. “I would like to think that having … gone through it with my mother and David, he would have been more accepting of it and maybe even proud of [my success href="https://parade.com/living/success-quotes"].”
“One of the blessings of losing people when you’re a young person, is you get to write the script of how your life with that person would have been had they lived,” he added. “I’d like to just write the story that I would have gotten closer with my dad, he would have been proud of me.”
Shaun Cassidy’s 50-city The Road to Us Tour runs through March 2026 and features songs and stories from the beloved star’s 50-year career.
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This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 13, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
