Shaun
Cassidy got noticed as a singer by doing some
songs for his upcoming album such as his hit "Da
Doo Ron Ron"
Shaun Cassidy wasn't sure if he
wanted to pursue an acting career and wanted to
focus on his music.
Shaun's former agent the late Ruth
Aarons originally asked Shaun's older half
brother David Cassidy to audition for the part of
Joe Hardy but turned it, cause he didn't want to
jump into another TV series so he turned it down
so asked Shaun instead.
David Cassidy was a heartthrob in
the early 70's in the sitcom "The Partridge
Family" like Shaun Cassidy was in "The
Hardy Boys" and had screaming teenage fans
and their album's were bestsellers in their
decade's.
Shaun's legendary Broadway and
screen father the late Jack Cassidy died in a
fire shortly before Shaun did "The Hardy
Boys"
Shaun toured with his mother the
Oscar winning actress Shirley Jones in 1974 doing
summer stock productions and landed the lead role
as James Preston in "On a Clear Day You Can
See Forever"
Shaun did the songtrack
"Coming Home Again" for the TV-movie
"Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway"
and starred in an independent short-film
"Born of Water" as well as having a
solo career in Germany and Australia before doing
"The Hardy Boys"
Shaun's record producer Michael
Lloyd did the same for Leif Garrett and earlier
The Osmonds.
Shaun was tipped for a lead in a
cult sci-fi B-film called "Laser Blast"
while doing "The Hardy Boys" but it was
played by a virtual unknown by the name of Kim
Milford instead.
Shaun grew up with actress Carrie
Fisher from "Star Wars"
Shaun married Playboy model Ann
Pennington after "The Hardy Boys" ended
and the original plan was that Ann's daughter had
a crush on Shaun and was going to meet him for
the first time.
Shaun did perform as a regular in
other TV shows. He was in a short-lived series
called "Breaking Away" based on the
popular movie playing Dennis Christopher's role
as the bike racer Dave Stohler but only 8
episodes were made due to a writers strike, and
the show got axed but in 1987 he did a 3 month
stint on the daytime soap "General
Hospital" playing a young drifter named
Dusty Walker (In his first appearance of the
episode, he played opposite of soap star Jack
Wagner) and did a few movies of the week.
Shaun peformed with David in the
Broadway tour of "Blood Brothers" in
1993-94 along with Petula Clark.
Shaun's first experience as a
producer and writer was his work on the cheesy
low budget made for cable horror flick
"Strays" in 1991. Although many critics
bombed it, the series was considered to be the
highest rated cable TV show during that time and
became available at video store rentals.
Shaun created the short-lived but
well acclaimed "American Gothic" and
writes the same way as Stephen King does at
making thrillers, not necessarily horror.
Shaun married actress Susan Diol in
the 1995, after separating with Ann in 1992, who
gained a reputation for acting in daytime soaps
but sadly their marriage dissolved as well.
Since Shaun retired from both
acting and singing to pursue writing and
producing for TV shows on a full time basis as
that was what his dream always has been he said
he admitted he was only half good as a singer and
considered himself an actor while he pursued it
on stage when he started in 1981 with the
priduction "Barefoot in the Park" and
even then he said he didn't feel he enjoyed it
but was waiting for his dream to become a writer
come true for him. He also rewrote some of the
Hardy Boys scripts as he was trying to learn the
true craft at writing and the producers weren't
happy with him about that.
Edmund Gilbert did numerous voice
over character's for animated film & TV. He
died recently of lung cancer. He also announced
on the opening of the TV show what the show was
going to be as well as the episode.
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