Shirley Jones - Personal Life

Personal Life

On August 5, 1956, Jones married actor Jack Cassidy, 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 and Ingels wrote an autobiography based on their quirky relationship/marriage, Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story (William Morrow and Company, in 1990, co-written with Mickey Herskowitz, ISBN 0-688-08457-5).

Jones was friends with her late co-star Gordon MacRae and his ex-wife Sheila, and he was named godfather to her first son, Shaun Cassidy. She also admitted that she had a crush on MacRae and was starstruck when she worked opposite him on Oklahoma! and states she is the one who convinced MacRae to take the part as Billy Bigelow in Carousel. Frank Sinatra, who had originally been cast, suddenly dropped out during the first days of filming because each scene had to be shot twice. Once in CinemaScope 55 (a wider-than-usual, 55 millimeter, 6-track stereo system.) and once in 35mm CinemaScope. Sinatra felt that he should have been paid twice because technically he was shooting two films. Three weeks after he left, they found a way to film the scene once on 55mm, then transfer it onto 35mm.

On the evening of December 11, 1976, after Jones had refused an offer of reconciliation from Jack Cassidy, she received news that her ex-husband's penthouse apartment was on fire. Apparently, the fire started from his lit cigarette when he fell asleep on the couch; the following morning, firefighters found Cassidy's body inside the gutted apartment. Jack "wanted to come back (to me) right up to the day he died", Jones said in a 1983 newspaper interview. "And as I realized later, I wanted him. That's the terrible part. Much as I love Marty and have a wonderful relationship – I'd say this with Marty sitting here – I'm not sure if Jack were alive I'd be married to Marty." Jones was 20 years old when she met Cassidy, who was eight years her senior and refers to him as the most influential person in her life.

Jones is a supporter of PETA.

Jones is the grandmother of nine: Caitlin, Jake, Juliet, Caleb, Roan, Lila and Marian Cassidy, from son Shaun, and Cole and Jack, from son Patrick.