I've Never Been HAPPIER

The Partridge Family alum talks about his life today and the long road he has traveled.

- Will Keck

At a lull in his career, the Partridge Family alum Danny Bonaduce used to deliver his own headshot and résumé to casting directors in disguise. "I invented a character named Speedy," he tells Closer. "I'd wear a hat, glasses and a name tag, and drop off my headshot and then get the heck out of there. I actually booked a couple of roles that way." After coming of age on The Partridge Family, Danny, 65, spent several years making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

"I could have gotten more parts if I hadn't gone off the deep end," he admits. He survived addiction, brushes with the law, questionable reality TV show appearances, and a major health crisis to find love and a new career as a radio host. Recently retired and recovered from a 2023 brain surgery to treat hydrocephalus, Danny lives a calm, peaceful life in Palm Springs, Calif., with third wife Amy. "Memory lapses sometimes come and go," he says, "but I not only have everything I ever hoped for, I have things I never thought to hope for."

How did you break into show business?

My father wrote a whole bunch of TV (including episodes of One Day at a Time, Good Times and The Andy Griffith Show).

He was kind of a jerk as a person, but a writing genius. My first movie was The Trouble With Girls, starring Elvis Presley.

He gifted me a kid's peddle car from the circus scenes.

As a child you did an episode of Bewitched with a chimpanzee. What was that like?

I am the only guy I know who has been bitten by two chimpanzees. The first was when I stuck my hand in a cage at the Philadelphia Zoo, and then five years later Elizabeth Montgomery was there when a chimp bit me on the head. I remember Elizabeth telling me, "There are kids and actors, and you're an actor."

You went to school with Michael Jackson. What was he like back then?