Tony Award winner Jack Cassidy hails from Queens
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | MARCH 20-MARCH 26, 2020 17
In conjunction with the
Greater Astoria Historical
Society, TimesLedger Newspapers
presents noteworthy
events in the borough’s
history.
Born John Joseph Edward
Cassidy on March 5, 1927 in Richmond
Hill, actor and singer Jack
Cassidy was a Tony Award recipient
and father of 1970s teen idols
David Cassidy and Shaun Cassidy.
In a career spanning four decades,
the actor of stage, screen
and television appeared in numerous
Broadway musicals. He won a
Tony Award in one production and
was nominated three other times.
He also acted in a number of
films and television shows seemingly
too numerous to count. He
was approved for a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005,
but is still not listed on the List of
Stars on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame Wikipedia page as having
his own star.
The Queens native began his
career on stage in the 1943 musical
“Something for the Boys,”
starring Astoria native Ethel Merman,
as a member of the chorus.
He found steady work in the chorus
on Broadway throughout the
1940s, and found his first stage acting
role in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
“South Pacific” in 1952.
Cassidy also toured nationally
and internationally performing in
musicals including “Oklahoma!,”
“Gypsy,” and “Camelot” up until
the 1970s. It was on stage that he
garnered perhaps his greatest recognition,
winning a Tony Award
for Best Featured Actor in a Musical
for “She Loves Me” in 1963.
The versatile talent soon
branched out into television,
where he was a frequent guest
star from the 1950s to the 1970s in
series such as “Gunsmoke,” “Bewitched,”
“Get Smart,” “Hawaii
Five-O,” “Columbo” and “Barnaby
Jones.” On screen, Cassidy costarred
alongside Clint Eastwood
in the 1975 action thriller “The
Eiger Sanction.”
The following year, he even portrayed
acting legend John Barrymore
in “W.C Fields and Me.” On
screen and television, he usually
inhabited characters with urbane,
confident and dramatic personalities,
perhaps best exemplified by
his performance in this 1976 biographical
film.
In his personal life, Jack Cassidy
was married twice. His first
wife was actress Evelyn Ward, and
their son David became a 1970s
teen heartthrob. Cassidy then
married actress Shirley Jones,
and together they had three more
sons, two of whom also became actors.
Their son Shaun is best known
as a star in the 1970s TV series
“The Hardy Boys” and as a top-40
pop singer. David, Jack’s son from
his first marriage, went on to star
in the musical sitcom “The Partridge
Family” alongside his second
wife. Shirley Jones later noted
in her 2013 memoir that Jack was
bisexual and in fact had an affair
with the much older Cole Porter,
who incidentally wrote the music
and lyrics to Something for the
Boys.
Jack Cassidy died tragically
in a fire in his apartment on Dec.
11, 1976. After a night of partying
at bars around West Hollywood,
Cassidy returned home alone, lit
a cigarette and fell asleep on his
sofa, only to perish in the ensuing
fire.
For further info, call the Greater
Astoria Historical Society at 718-
278-0700 or www.astorialic.org.
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