Shaun Cassidy, the noted actor, singer, producer, and second-eldest son of the late legend Jack Cassidy, remembers his father as a “complicated” man.
“He basically invented this public persona with an accent that didn’t exist in any country ever,” Shaun told PEOPLE on Sunday. Recalling growing up alongside Jack’s two other sons with the Oscar-winning actress Shirley Jones, Shaun shared, “Patrick and Ryan and I would be like, ‘What is up with this dude?’…. I mean, it seemed so phony to us, and that wasn’t like who he was. I’m not sure he ever really figured out who he was.”
It’s been nearly 50 years since Jack Cassidy’s premature death in a house fire in West Hollywood. His legacy lives on as the Tony- and Grammy-winning star of the musical She Loves Me, based on the 1937 Hungarian play Parfumerie that was subsequently adapted into the 1940 Hollywood classic The Shop Around the Corner and the eternal 1998 romcom You’ve Got Mail.
Shaun, who also has a half-brother in The Partridge Family star and late teen idol David Cassidy, remembers Jack as “not a good father — and I don’t say that with disrespect. I just say it with objectivity.”
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Yet he also said he ” wouldn’t have traded him for the world. I got so many gifts from him, so many.” Though he “didn’t get the dad who went to my Little League games or took me on camping trips or any of that stuff,” he said he still remembers “going out in public with them as a little kid, everyone was in love with my mother, and everybody was sort of dazzled by my father…. I remember being proud of that, feeling like, ‘Oh, isn’t that cool?'”
Getty
While David and Patrick followed in their father’s footsteps onto the stage and into the living rooms of families across the country via roles in series like The Love Boat and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Shaun forged a different path.
The 66-year-old son of the Cassidy dynasty did take on memorable parts in series like The Hardy Boys and General Hospital, but he also became a recording artist, singing widely circulated covers of hits by acts like The Crystals, Eric Carmen, and David Bowie. He then segued into behind-the-camera roles writing, producing, and creating series like the short-lived Sam Raimi-produced, Heath Ledger-starring Roar, and most recently, the NBC medical drama New Amsterdam.
In a 2023 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cassidy reflected on his first day shooting The Hardy Boys, which both launched him to fame and gave him some perspective on his parents.
“I think it was like 36 hours. The first day of work, I’m still living at home, like with my parents. And I go to work at 5 in the morning…. We’re shooting on the back lot at Universal in a graveyard. It’s getting later and later, and they keep breaking for the eighth dinner — more steaks at 4 in the morning! And I’m thinking, ‘Is this what my parents have been doing all these years?'”
