“So bring out the smelling salts, hang on to your hats, and get ready for the surprise of your lives!”
So begins Shirley Jones‘s new autobiography. And it’s an apt introduction to ashockingly frank memoir that’s raising eyebrows—and turning Jones’s reputation as the wholesome mother Mrs. Partridge on the 1970s TV show The Partridge Family on its head.
In the memoir, Jones, 79, writes about her career from when she became a star in the 1950s movie adaptations of Oklahoma! and Carousel to her years on The Partridge Family. But it’s her surprisingly honest reminiscences about her marriage to Jack Cassidy and her love life that’s making headlines.
Here are five of the biggest revelations from Shirley Jones, which hit shelves this week.
1. Shirley Jones has little in common with Mrs. Partridge
In the memoir, Jones makes it clear that her image as the wholesome mother fans knew her as on television doesn’t reflect her true nature. “I am nowhere near as breezy and uncomplicated as Mrs. Partridge,” Jones writes in the book. “And I’m not a spoiled Hollywood movie star or a jaded TV icon, either.”
2. She had—and has—a steamy love life.
Writing about her marriage to Cassidy, Jones reveals that the actor was well-endowed and a skilled lover in the bedroom. She also writes of their menage a trois with a young female dancer (her opinion of the experience? “Yuck,” she told the AP), and revealed that Cassidy was attracted to both men and women, was repeatedly unfaithful to her, and that she tolerated it.
And she still has plenty of vitality in her current marriage to comedian Marty Ingels. “Luckily, Marty thinks I’ve still got a beautiful body, even though it is old, and every now and again I take all of my clothes off in front of him … and he loves it,” Jones writes.
3. The best kisser among Jones’s costars was Burt Lancaster.
Out of all of her co-stars, including Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart, Burt Lancaster was her favorite—and he was the best kisser of them all, she told Good Morning America. She shared the screen with Lancaster in the 1960 film Elmer Gantry, and won an Oscar for the role.
Jones also writes that Richard Widmark, who she costarred with in the 1961 filmTwo Rode Together, was the only co-star she ever fell in love with.
4. She originally wanted to be a veterinarian.
Before making it big in Hollywood, Jones had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. “I’m a nut about animals,” she told Good Morning America. “I wanted to do that, but I was given a gift.” She admitted she sometimes wished she had followed that path, and that the glitz of an acting career never seemed that exciting. “I liked my job, but when I came home, I never thought of it,” she said.
5. She’s relishing her golden years.
Jones said it took the maturity of old age to finally feel comfortable sharing all these intimate details. “I never would have written this book if I weren’t the age I am now,” she told the AP. Looking back on her life in the audio recording ofShirley Jones, she says she’s not ashamed of any of it. “What came to me is, ‘I did this, and obviously I loved it when I was doing it,” she said. “I had a great time. I have no regrets whatsoever.”
