Former Teen Idol Shaun Cassidy Slams ‘Complicated’ Late Actor Dad Jack: ‘He Was Not a Good Father’

Former teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy has slammed his late actor-dad, Jack Cassidy, as a fraud who spoke with a fake British-type accent and was more interested in his career — “yet I wouldn’t have traded him for the world,” he told People.

Cassidy, who tragically died at 49 in a fire ignited by a lit cigarette he’d dropped when he fell asleep on his couch in 1976, famously played the villain in Clint Eastwood’s 1975 hit The Eiger Sanction and guested in numerous TV shows like Columbo, McCloud and Hawaii Five-O.

He fathered Partridge Family star David with first wife Evelyn Ward and Shaun, 67, and his brothers Patrick, 63, and Ryan, 59, with second spouse Shirley Jones, the Elmer Gantry Oscar winner and Partridge Family mom.

Looking back, teen singing idol Shaun recalls: “My dad was so complicated. He basically invented this public persona with an accent that didn’t exist in any country ever.

“He was not a good father — and I don’t say that with disrespect. I just say it with objectivity. And yet I wouldn’t have traded him for the world. I got so many gifts from him, so many.”

According to Shaun, star of TV’s The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, Jack was an absentee father.

“I didn’t get the dad who went to my Little League games or took me on camping trips or any of that stuff.”

“My mom did. My mom showed up for a lot of that stuff, but she was also gone a lot. She was making movies around the world. I think one of the reasons she took the Partridge Family job is because she wanted to be close to home.”

Jack wed Shirley in 1956 and divorced in 1975, a year before his death.

Shaun notes the people his parents played in roles were not who they really were.

“The public has an idea of who they are,” he says. “If you grow up in a family of show folk, everything is very presentational.

“I had very, very few photographs of our family just sitting around the living room. Almost all the pictures I have were taken by professional photographers, often for magazines.”