David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was known for his role as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his stepmother Shirley Jones), in the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family, which led to his becoming one of popular culture\'s teen idols and superstar pop singers of the 1970s. He later had a career in both acting and music.\n', '

Cassidy was born at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City, the son of singer and actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. His father was of half Irish and half German ancestry, and his mother was descended mostly from Colonial Americans, along with some Irish and Swiss roots. His mother\'s ancestors were among the founders of Newark, New Jersey.\n', '

As his parents were frequently touring on the road, he spent his early years being raised by his maternal grandparents in a middle-class neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1956, he found out from neighbors\' children that his parents had been divorced for over two years and had not told him. His parents had decided that, because he was so young, it would be better for his emotional stability to not discuss it at that time.[citation needed] They also reasoned that because they were gone so often with theater productions, home life after the divorce was not that much different, so there was no need to tell David. \n', '

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