For the generation of TV viewers that grew up watching and singing along to the adventures of The Partridge Family, Danny Bonaduce is a very familiar face.
As the wisecracking, redheaded middle son of the singing family band, Danny became one of the most famous child actors of the 1970s. Sadly, reports claim that Danny has struggled with health issues of late.
His fans became very worried in 2022 when he announced that he had to take a step back due to a mysterious illness.
A few months later, the former child actor has finally spilled the truth and decided to shed some light on his illness – and it actually makes for quite the sad read…
Of course, it doesn’t matter if you’re a famous actor or an average joe – feeling good and being healthy is the most important thing in life.
The older we get, the more we realize how lucky we are to experience life and all that it entails. Being sick, fighting disease, or simply struggling with your health in any way is challenging. Things become all the more tricky when someone feels bad but doesn’t get the help they need or a proper diagnosis from the doctors.
The worry of not knowing what is wrong can often be at as problematic as the physical pain itself, sometimes even more so. Unfortunately, this is something that actor Danny Bonaduce has experienced over the past year.
When The Partridge Family debuted on September 25, 1970, it would change Danny’s life forever. The show catapulted young talent like David Cassidy and Susan Dey into stardom – and made Danny Bonaduce a huge teen idol in the process.
It’s fair to say many a young girl had crushes on Danny back then.
“We had 21-year-old girls hanging around our house all night,” Danny’s mother, Betty, told People magazine in 1992.
“I was the witch who wouldn’t let them in.”
Naturally, Danny didn’t mind back then. From the window of his home in suburban Los Angeles, he enjoyed the sight of girls waiting outside for him.
“They’d open their shirts and have notes written on their bodies – DANNY, WE LOVE YOU’. I put my autograph on a lot of flesh,” Danny told The Age.
When the show ended in 1974, Danny was just 14 years old and had $350,000 in his bank account. He was high on fame and got to hang out with other young celebrities, including Michael Jackson, who was 16 years at the time.
“I spent my childhood on jet planes and with mayors. I didn’t play baseball, but I did ride on an elephant. I missed out on football but I flew on the Concorde. I totally lucked out,” he said.
After his success on The Partridge Family, Danny tried to land jobs on other sitcoms, but he had a hard time finding a role that suited him. He appeared in several movies, but in the early 1980s, his career withered. Casting agents told him that he was “not funny anymore” and that he wasn’t “cute anymore.”
After moving away from Hollywood, Danny became an on-air radio personality in the late 1980s. But he also took the time to focus a lot on his private life.
Aged 26, he married a Japanese woman, Setsuko Hattori. They had met in a restaurant and, according to newspapers, Danny married Setsuko so that she could get at a green card. Their union only lasted three years.
Two years after divorcing Setsuko, Bonaduce went on a blind date to meet Gretchen Hillmer, actress and entrepreneur. Danny was in the midst of trying to kick-start his radio career in Phoenix, but decided to take some time off to meet Gretchen.
In a somewhat unorthodox move, they married that same day. This time, though, it was real love, at least in the first few years of their union. Danny and Gretchen stayed together for over 16 years, raising two children along the way.
In 2007, the couple divorced. Gretchen, six years younger than Danny, later claimed that their marriage was rocky and full of craziness. She also wrote a book about her marriage and living a life together with a former child star. According to Gretchen, her ex-husband struggled with inner demons and compulsive behavior.
After splitting up with Gretchen, Danny started dating his current wife, Amy Railsback. The couple first laid eyes on each other at a Starbucks in the Los Angeles area.
Danny proposed to Amy in 2009, and the couple married a year after. The private ceremony was held in Maui, Hawaii, with only a wedding coordinator and minister on hand.
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