Shirley Jones
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2008) |
| Shirley Jones | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | Shirley Mae Jones March 31, 1934 Charleroi, Pennsylvania |
||||||
| Spouse(s) | Jack Cassidy (1956-1974) Marty Ingels (1977-) |
||||||
|
|||||||
Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. She starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and The Music Man. Ironically, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a "bad girl" in Elmer Gantry. For younger fans, she is probably best known as Shirley Partridge, the widowed mother of five children in the television series The Partridge Family, co-starring her real-life stepson David Cassidy.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Shirley Jones was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh to Marjorie Williams and Paul Jones, owners of the Jones Brewing Company. An only child, she was named after Shirley Temple. The family later moved to nearby Smithton, Pennsylvania. She won a beauty pageant as a teenager and was crowned "Miss Pittsburgh 1952".
[edit] Career
Jones impressed Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II with her musically-trained voice and was cast as the female lead in the film adaptation of their hit play Oklahoma! in 1955. Other musicals quickly followed, including Carousel (1956), April Love (1957) and The Music Man (1962), in which she often typecast as wholesome, kind characters. However, she won an Oscar for her performance in Elmer Gantry as a woman corrupted by the title character played by Burt Lancaster. She becomes a prostitute who, when she encounters her seducer years later, takes her revenge. Jones also has an impressive stage résumé, playing the title character in the Broadway musical Maggie Flynn in 1968.
She landed the role of single mother, keyboardist and singer Shirley Partridge on the television show The Partridge Family for ABC in 1970. The character's musical children form a band, which she joins. The show was based on The Cowsills, a real-life family musical group with a squeaky-clean image of rock 'n' roll. Co-starring on the show were 20-year-old David Cassidy (Jones' real-life stepson), playing the lead guitarist and singer, and 11-year-old Danny Bonaduce, as the Bass guitar player. They and other members of the cast got along well with Jones, inside and outside of work. In its first season, the show was a hit, and David Cassidy became a teen idol. He also admitted to his stepmother he had a crush on her. The show was cancelled in 1974 after four seasons and 96 episodes due to low ratings and because her stepson was growing tired of the role.
She attempted a television comeback in 1979 with the family drama Shirley, but the series was canceled after thirteen episodes. Jones also played the "older woman" girlfriend of Drew Carey's character in several episodes of The Drew Carey Show in 1988-1989.
Jones had a stellar turn in a rare revival of Noel Coward's operetta Bitter Sweet at the Long Beach Civic Light Opera in 1983. In 2004, Shirley returned to Broadway in a revival of 42nd Street, portraying diva "Dorothy Brock", opposite her son Patrick Cassidy, the first time a mother and son were known to star together on Broadway. In July 2005, Shirley revisited the musical Carousel onstage in Massachusetts portraying "Cousin Nettie". Shirley continues to appear in venues nationwide, in concert and in speaking engagements.
In July 2006, Jones received an Emmy nomination for her supporting performance in the TV film Hidden Places. Shirley was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for the same film, but lost to Helen Mirren for Elizabeth I. She also appeared in 2006's Grandma's Boy,, produced by Adam Sandler, as a nymphomaniac senior citizen.
On November 16, 2007, Shirley Jones took stage at the Oklahoma Centennial Spectacular concert at the Ford Center celebrating Oklahoma's 100th birthday. Jones sang the songs "Oklahoma!" and "People Will Say We're In Love" from the musical Oklahoma!.
In early 2008, it was announced that Shirley would play Colleen Brady on the long-running NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives.
[edit] Personal life
Jones married actor Jack Cassidy on August 5, 1956, with whom she had three sons, Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan. David Cassidy, Jack's only child from his first marriage to actress Evelyn Ward, became her stepson. Divorcing Cassidy in 1974, she later married comic/actor Marty Ingels on November 13, 1977. Despite drastically different personalities and several separations (she filed, then withdrew, a divorce petition in 2002), they remain married.
Jones is a registered Republican who appeared at the 1988 Republican Convention and sang the National Anthem. She also sang at the 2003 lighting of the National Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C., at President George W. Bush's request.
Jones and her son Shaun Cassidy are the only mother and son to each have a song reach number one on the Billboard Charts. Jones hit #1 with The Partridges "I Think I Love You" in 1970 (sung with stepson David Cassidy). Shaun followed that in 1977 with "Da Do Ron Ron."
[edit] Filmography
|
|
Upcoming:
- Christmas Is Here Again (2008) (voice)
[edit] Television work
|
|
[edit] Stage work
|
|
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Shelley Winters for The Diary of Anne Frank |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress 1960 for Elmer Gantry |
Succeeded by Rita Moreno for West Side Story |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Shirley Jones website
- Shirley Jones at the Internet Movie Database
- Shirley Jones at the Internet Broadway Database
|
|||||
