Real-Life Couples of ‘The Partridge Family’: See Which Cast Members Dated and Who They Married

C’mon, get happy! Which is certainly easy to do when you think about The Partridge Family, the ’70s sitcom that brought us TV’s most successful musical family and turned its cast — including Susan Dey, Danny Bonaduce and, especially, David Cassidy — into teen idols, while bringing along screen legend Shirley Jones as matriarch Shirley Partridge (Academy Award winner for Elmer Gantry).

David Cassidy and Susan Dey: The real story behind the ‘Partridge Family’ couple

From 1970 to 1974, viewers couldn’t get enough of the singing Partridges, who gave us hit songs like “I Tthink I Love You” and “I Woke Up in Love This Morning,” united by common themes of romance — something very much on the minds of fans, and raising the question of whether or not the same was true behind-the-scenes. Well, what eventually came out was the fact that Susan Dey actually had a pretty serious crush on David Cassidy (son of actor Jack Cassidy) through much of the show’s production history.

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Real-Life Couples of 'Happy Days': See Who the Cast Dated and Married Off-Screen!

Happy Days was one of the biggest comedy hits on TV in the 1970s, not only tapping into that decade’s obsession with ’50s nostalgia, but capturing the hearts and imaginations of millions of viewers during its 11 season run between 1974 and 1984. It featured beloved characters that were invited into their homes week after week, […]

It’s something that Shirley Jones mentioned in her memoir, writing, “Susan Dey fell madly in love with David Cassidy, but David didn’t reciprocate her feelings. He didn’t treat her well during that time, and it broke her heart.”

Yet something did change in the sense that when The Partridge Family came to an end in 1974, the two of them actually did begin to date, though after doing so for a brief time, Cassidy realized that nothing had really changed insofar as he was concerned and he broke things off. Some have said that this really severed ties between them, yet as shown in the photo below, the duo were all smiles at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards years later.

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Although Susan Dey, who would go on to star in LA Law, never commented on the matter — and has pretty much been silent about her Partridge Family years — David Cassidy certainly did in his autobiography, Cmon, Get Happy … Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus (later adapted into a TV movie). Published in 1994, he described how during the time of the show she was “hopelessly in love” with him, and the fact that he was something of a serial dater hurt her.

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“Susan Dey was the one who really had a thing for me,” he said, “and I felt badly that I didn’t reciprocate, because I didn’t want to take advantage of her, and I also didn’t feel that way about her.”

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Real-Life Couples From 'The Brady Bunch': Who Got Together Behind-the-Scenes?

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That public disclosure pretty much broke off any connection between him and Dey and reportedly they never spoke again. Years later, and with some maturity and introspection, he would share with the media that he hadn’t really appreciated what Susan Dey was going through or feeling, and that he had been so wrapped up in his fame in the 1970s — and unless you were there, you have no idea just how big it was — that it hampered his ability to form any sort of meaningful relationship with anyone.

‘Partridge Family’ cast marriages: Where are they now?

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So, what became of the cast as a whole in terms of romance and marriage as their lives went on? Tough to say about the younger cast members. It is known that Suzanne Crough (Tracy Partridge), a mother of two, was married to William Condray from 1985 until the time of her death at the age of 52 (from cardiomyopathy) in 2015. Virtually nothing is known about Jeremy Russell Gelbwaks, who played Chris Partridge in season 1; Brian Forster, who replaced him for the rest of the series; or Rick Segall, the “Cousin Oliver” (fans of The Brady Bunch will understand) of The Partridge Family, who played “oh-so-cute” neighbor Ricky Stevens.

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'The Honeymooners' TV Show Cast: Meet the Spouses of Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Their TV Wives

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That being said, what follows is a look at the marriages of David Cassidy, Susan Day, Danny Bonaduce (the red-headed Danny Partridge), Dave Madden (Partridge Family manager Reuben Kincaid) and Shirley Jones. Five people, 12 marriages — hey, nobody promised that it would be smooth sailing.