Comedy great Marty Ingels went to his grave proudly aware his greatest role was being married to beloved “Partridge Family” icon Shirley Jones, The National ENQUIRER can reveal.
“I know when I die, the obituaries will all say ‘Shirley Jones’ husband’ and that’s fine,” Marty once told The ENQUIRER in an exclusive interview before he died on Oct. 21, succumbing to a massive stroke at age 79. “That’s great! I love her with all my heart and that will never stop.”
His grieving 81-year-old widow feels the same. “He often drove me crazy,” said Shirley, “but there’s not a day I won’t miss him and love him to my core.”
Gruff-voiced Marty — who appeared in “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster” and “Bewitched,” among other series — was star-struck when he first met Shirley at a party at fellow actor Michael Landon’s house.
The couple married three years later in 1977, and Marty couldn’t believe his luck: “I was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn and she was Miss America.”
After losing pals Joan Rivers and Dick Van Patten, Marty knew “how lucky he was to have Shirley in his life,” a friend said. “A lot of Hollywood marriages never last, but theirs was the real thing.”
