Partridge Family’s Clutch Tambourine Player Suzanne Crough is Dead at 52

 
The red-haired pixie playing a tambourine in the background of many a “Partridge Family” musical number has died. Suzanne Crough, a.k.a. Tracy Partridge, the youngest daughter of a TV clan that generated a slew of hits in the 1970s, died this week at 52 in Nevada.


“I can’t tell you the number of sacrifices she made in order for me to get through law school and for our kids,” Crough’s husband, William Condray, told the Associated Press. “She was truly a devout mother.”
Though no cause of death was specified in news reports, Las Vegas police said Crough suffered “a medical episode,” as the Associated Press reported, and that the cause of her death was “not suspicious.”

The Partridge Family”: back row, from left, cast members Shirley Jones, Dave Madden, David Cassidy, Susan Dey; and front row, from left, Brian Forster, Danny Bonaduce and Suzanne Crough. (Sony Pictures Television via AP)

Those too young to remember David Cassidy before DUIs and Danny Bonaduce before talk radio may not appreciate the pervasive influence of the Partridges on American popular culture.