At just 18 years old actress Susan Dey became one of the biggest TV stars of the 1970s.
“The Partridge Family” aired from 1970 to 1974 and followed the lives of a musical family living in the fictitious city of San Pueblo, California.
Without any previous acting or singing experience Dey, who was working as a model at the time, was cast as older sister Laurie in the ABC TV hit whose singing family traveled to shows in a refurbished psychedelic school bus.
From 1970 to 1974, Dey played the role of the caring and intelligent Laurie Partridge, a main character of The Partridge Family.The show won the hearts and minds of millions of Americans and even after it fell from the television top spot in the U.S. it found fame across the pond, airing in the U.K.
ts success took its toll on the cast with Dey said to have suffered an eating disorder and her weight dropped to 92 lbs, something that a TV producer noticed and called her out on sparking a new healthier eating regime that didn’t involve starving herself.
David Cassidy, who played Keith in the show, felt a huge pressure from his rise in popularity with “mass hysteria” surrounding his every move, according to his memoir C’mon, Get Happy: Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus.
During the show’s 4-year run Cassidy became a teen idol and attracted the attention of millions of women around the world, including his co-star Susan Dey who had a big crush on the singing sensation.
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