Shaun Cassidy Recalls Doing Magic Act for Jennifer Aniston's 5th Birthday: 'Weird Little Part of My Life' (Exclusive)

"I was really young," Cassidy says of his teenage performances as Cassadini

Shaun Cassidy has birthday history with Jennifer Aniston.

The multi-talented star, whose self-penned show, “The Magic of the Midnight Sky,” kicked off a five-night, sold-out tour in New York City on Wednesday, was once also a magician who performed at children’s birthday parties, including one thrown for a little girl by the name of Jennifer Aniston.

“I did her fifth birthday. I was really young and she’s even younger, and I did her magic show,” Cassidy recalls of his "Cassadini" magic act. "The only reason I knew this is because I knew who John Aniston was, her dad. My parents knew who he was." (The Days of Our Lives daytime-soap legend died last November at age 89.)

Show business in all its forms was the family norm for Cassidy, who as a kid often wrote songs while banging away on neighbor Rosemary Clooney’s piano as her kids played basketball with their cousin George Clooney.

“And by the way, there are many people, adults now, in our business... I did a magic show for the wife of the president of Netflix, I just found out," Cassidy says. "So this is just a weird little part of my life. [People say] ‘you know, you did a magic show at my house in 1972!’”

Related: Inside '70s Teen Idol Shaun Cassidy's Return to Performing: 'Something I Never Thought I'd Do Again' (Exclusive)

On the whole, Cassidy sees his career trajectory as just that — a little “weird.”

“I mean, I had a very explosive first act and then at 21, went into hiding," says the former teen idol, who gave up the pop star life in 1980. "I don't know if that was conscious, probably was. And I don't know what inspired that other than I think I was consciously, having had this enormous success and not necessarily wanting to continue on the path of a performer.”

In 1993, Cassidy created and wrote his first television pilot, American Gothic. In the years since, he’s garnered a multitude of credits as a creator, writer and producer in the TV world for projects like Roar (starring a young Heath Ledger), Invasion, and, most recently, New Amsterdam, which ran for five seasons on NBC.

Related: 'New Amsterdam' Series Finale: How It Ended and Who Wound Up Together

Cassidy’s creative impulse has been lifelong — he’s a lover of theater and playwriting and just plain old writing, something he really leaned into after his twenties.

“I stepped out into the world in a much quieter way, as a writer by the time I turned 30. Art is a great way to work through our stuff. It's also a great way to escape,” he says. “And as a little boy, I would be at the piano or I'd be at an easel, making stuff. I love to make stuff, I'm a producer. And then in my teens, I found a guitar and started singing and writing. And in my thirties on, I found a keypad and I've been writing stories. But again, never directly about me or my family, and of course that's what informs everything.”

Related: '70s Teen Idol Shaun Cassidy on Playing Pittsburgh the Same Night as Taylor Swift: 'She's Brilliant' (Exclusive)

Now his family is front and center in his new show, which finds him performing live in front of audiences for the first time since 1993 and 1994, when he appeared with his late brother David in the Broadway musical Blood Brothers.

“My story, even though it may be unique on the surface, it really is universal. My show's a survival story, and it's really fun and it's funny. Surprisingly funny, I think," he says. "And it's sexy and it's romantic and it's emotional, and it's revealing, and it has been incredibly illuminating for me to go through this process.”

For more on this story and exclusive interview with Shaun Cassidy, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday. 

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