In the 1970s, Shaun was known for his work on television shows and on arena stages performing hit songs like \u201cDo You Believe in Magic\u201d and “That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll.” He also hailed from a very famous family:\u00a0his mom is Oscar-winning actress Shirley Jones, 91<\/a>; his dad is Tony-winning actor Jack Cassidy, who died in an apartment fire in 1976; and his half-brother is fellow teen idol\u00a0David<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0The Partridge Family\u00a0fame,\u00a0who died in 2017 of liver failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n In an interview on the podcast\u00a0Nostalgia Tonight With Joe Sibia<\/a>, Cassidy noted that his father was “a wildly talented man.”<\/p>\n But while Jack was a “Tony Award-winner on Broadway, actor, singer, Emmy-nominee in TV, famous for playing villains on shows like\u00a0Columbo,” Shaun noted he also had a difficult time with the success of his own sons and of his wife.<\/p>\n “But he had taken a backseat to my mother,” Shaun said on the podcast. “My mother was an Academy Award winner and a very big movie star before The Partridge Family. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Shaun, 67, continued: “And by the way, that was his shortcoming. A lot of parents would have been very proud of their son or their wife, for that matter.”<\/p>\n \u201cBut, you know, my father had a big ego,\u201c he said. “And I think, like a lot of performers had a sort of core insecurity that he was looking for an audience to fill.”<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n Danny Feld\/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty<\/p>\n Shaun Cassidy, Shirley Jones, David, Ryan and Patrick Cassidy<\/p>\n He added that losing his father when he was young meant that he got to “write the script of how your\u00a0life\u00a0with that person would have been, had they lived.”<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to just write the story that I would have gotten closer with my dad, he would have been proud of me,” he said.<\/p>\n Speaking to PEOPLE in September 2025, Shaun described his\u00a0<\/a>father as a bit of a \u201cphony,\u201d at least publicly.<\/p>\n![\"\u00a0Danny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/038dad638a2a2444a5b27371ef71b997.jpeg\"\/)
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