SHIRLEY JONES MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

EVEN THOUGH she was named after Hollywood darling Shirley Temple, Shirley Mae Jones didn't catch the showbiz bug growing up in Smithton, Pa.

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"I wanted to be a veterinarian," she said. "I adored animals, raised everything in the world." But with a gift for singing, she'd quickly spread her wings-finding her way from beauty pageants to her Broadway debut in South Pacific and beyond. She continued to work while raising sons Shaun, Patrick and Ryan (from her first marriage to actor Jack Cassidy), and mentored stepson David on The Partridge Family. Yet Shirley, who turns 90 on March 31, confessed she has an innate sense of how best to look after herself.

As she told Closer, "I'm never beyond saying, 'OK, I can do it on my own.' I'm very strong about myself and that's a good thing."

1 1955 ACTING UP  "I was very young and very naive," reflected Shirley of her screen debut in Oklahoma!. Yet when she went for her screen test, the director, Fred Zinnemann, "came up to me and he said, 'Have you ever acted before a camera before?' I said, 'No.' And he said, 'Well, don't change a thing. You're a natural.""

2 1961 MADE FOR Her role in Elmer  Gantry not only won Shirley an Oscar but, as she once told Closer, "it made me an actress. At the time, you were one person: You were an actress or you were a singer. I was known as a singer."