Dante Daniel Bonaduce (; born August 13, 1959) is an American radio personality, actor, television personality, and professional wrestler. Bonaduce is the son of veteran TV writer and producer Joseph Bonaduce (The Dick Van Dyke Show, One Day at a Time, and others). Bonaduce became famous as a child actor of the 1970s on the TV sitcom The Partridge Family. He co-starred as Danny Partridge, the wisecracking, redheaded middle son of the singing family band (headed by Shirley Jones), and he portrayed the fictional pop group's bass guitar player.
Since then, Bonaduce has starred in several other TV series, including the VH1 reality show Breaking Bonaduce in 2005, radio shows in Los Angeles and Philadelphia and has been hosting a morning talk/music show at Seattle radio station KZOK-FM since November 14, 2011.
Early life
By his own account, Bonaduce grew up in a dysfunctional family and suffered severe physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father, TV writer and producer Joseph Bonaduce, while his mother Betty could only stand by helplessly.
Career
Acting
Bonaduce made a small appearance in the Bewitched season 5 episode "Going Ape", which aired on February 27, 1969, as a young boy in the park whose chimpanzee follows Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Tabitha (Erin Murphy) home.
Danny Bonaduce had a substantial role on The Ghost & Mrs. Muir on the first-season episode Jonathan Tells It Like It Was, aired March 1, 1969. He played competitor Danny Shoemaker in a history essay contest with Mrs. Muir's son Jonathan. Danny's father Joseph Bonaduce wrote the episode.
In The Partridge Family Bonaduce played the role of Danny Partridge, a member of the musical Partridge family. In the show, the Partridges were a family band that toured the country in their hip, Mondrian-inspired, painted school bus. Danny Partridge played bass guitar for the band and his younger siblings, Tracy and Chris, contributed to the band as percussionists. The series ran for four seasons, from 1970 to 1974 and, in 2003, Bonaduce was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award for his role on the series.
Bonaduce made several movies during and after the run of The Partridge Family, including Corvette Summer (1978) starring Mark Hamill. Hamill and Bonaduce played high school students who went in search of a stolen customized Corvette Stingray. Bonaduce also made guest appearances on several TV shows, including the television action drama CHiPs. His career withered in the early 1980s.
Bonaduce and Partridge Family co-star Dave Madden made cameo appearances in a 1994 episode of Married... with Children. That same year, he appeared on an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast. He has also guest-starred in the first two episodes of the seventh season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and as the son of Shirley Jones's character in the fourth season of The Drew Carey Show. Bonaduce has appeared as himself on the detective series Monk and on the show Girlfriends. Bonaduce guest-starred with J. D. Roth (with whom he would later reunite for Breaking Bonaduce) on a celebrity episode of Sex Wars. In 1999, Bonaduce appeared in the Christmas episode, "Sabrina, Nipping at Your Nose", of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.
During his radio work, Bonaduce was the host of the segment "Bonaduce's Buzz" as part of WMAQ-TV's morning newscast First Thing in The Morning with Art Norman and Allison Rosati in 1994; but he left the station the following year to concentrate on his syndicated talk show.
During the 1995–96 TV season, Bonaduce was the host of Danny!, a syndicated talk show featuring the house band The Critics.
From 2001 to 2003, Bonaduce co-hosted The Other Half, a daytime talk show positioned as a complementary show to The View, on which he starred with Mario Lopez, Dick Clark, and cosmetic surgeon Dr. Jan Adams (who was later replaced by actor Dorian Gregory). During this time, he was also a Hollywood correspondent for the Australian morning show Today.
In 2005, Bonaduce starred in Breaking Bonaduce a VH1 reality show about his turbulent life with his wife Gretchen.
In 2006, he had a recurring role in the crime scene drama CSI as a character known as Izzy Delancy – a once great, but philandering, rock star, the victim of the infamous miniature killer. He also hosted the short-lived tabloid-themed game show Starface, on Game Show Network. In 2007, Bonaduce was both host and judge of the show I Know My Kid's a Star, a reality show on VH1 featuring parents and children trying to break into show business. He also appeared as a judge on the Australian version of the show, My Kid's a Star.