sentences:  Shirley Jones had already been signed as mother Shirley Partridge and star of the show.Surviving members of the Cowsill family have more recently suggested that in fact they were the leading contenders for the child roles, but the deal was wrecked because their tyrannical father insisted that his own wife should play the mother role, despite the producers' insistence that Jones's casting in the role of Mrs Partridge was not negotiable.The pilot was filmed in December 1969.