FRAGILE PRINCE OF TEENYBOP
Jackie editor chats remarkable career and heartbreaking interviews with pop icon David Cassidy, who died at 67 after a lifetime chasing lost youth
Jackie writer and editor Nina Myskow speaks about her experiences and views on the late teenage idol
November 23, 2017
By Nina Myskow
www.thesun.co.uk
SHUFFLING into the press conference, international megastar David Cassidy kept his head down as he took his seat in front of the assembled media pack.
When the 22-year-old looked up at the dozens of reporters and photographers, his cheeks flushed rosy red.
Fragile pop icon David Cassidy died at 67 after a life chasing his lost youth
It was 1972 and the first time I’d seen the heart-throb in the flesh. He was undeniably beautiful — a sweet, androgynous face with gorgeous, floppy hair that fell around it.
But he was hardly the swaggering pop star and actor I was expecting.
It was clear to me even then that David — who died on Tuesday aged 67 — had a sensitive side.
I would go on to interview him numerous times over the years and learn just how shy and withdrawn this prince of pop really was. His stratospheric stardom was lonely.
His official fan club was the largest in pop history
He told me: “The Osmonds were a family, The Beatles were best friends but I had no one to turn to.
Back in the early Seventies, I was the editor of Jackie magazine and our readers utterly adored him.
We didn’t often have men on the cover but knew we’d have a best-selling issue with David, who found fame in US sitcom The Partridge Family.
Back then you were either Team Dave or Team Donny Osmond. The female teenage population was divided by a whisker.
Cassidy was a teen idol in the 70s
The magazine used to give away gifts. One of these was a record of two of the songs from David’s new album. I also wrote him some “words of love” to read to his Jackie fans on the record.
“I’m sitting here in my home in Malibu, California, with my trusty dog Bullseye by my side and I’m looking at the ocean,” he said.
He finished the recording by whispering in this breathy, sexy voice: “All I wish you is a whole lot of love.”
The last time I saw him, in 2012, I played it to him. We were practically nose to nose and I watched as he dropped his head, listening intently.
He made his debut in the Broadway musical The Fig Leaves are Falling in 1969
But he kept his head bowed for too long. When he finally looked up, he was in tears. He told me: “I’m listening to the voice of an innocent man.”
It was heartbreaking. He certainly wasn’t innocent any more.
I couldn’t help but think a more stable upbringing would have helped David cope better.
He spent most of his childhood with his father, Jack, and stepmother Shirley Jones.
The hit 'The Last Kiss' included backing vocals by George Michael
TV idol Jack was suave with a devilish eye for the ladies. He was an alcoholic, suffered from bipolar disease and was, by all accounts, a terrible father, walking out on the family home when David was three.
He told me Jack was “incapable of being a father” — still, David desperately wanted to make him proud.
But the more success David found, the more Jack resented him. He was as addicted to the fame as the alcohol. It was the latter that cut his life short, aged 49, in 1976.
A drunk Jack was alone in his apartment. Falling asleep, his lit cigarette started a blaze that burned all night.
Cassidy starred in The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family enjoyed much success
David hadn’t spoken to Jack in nine months, and it took 15 years of therapy for him to come to terms with their complex relationship.
In 2012 he told me: “With the perspective I have now, I would have been able to forgive him.”
Despite his demons, David was an incredible performer. I watched him striding across the stage during an early tour, wearing a white, rhinestone-encrusted jumpsuit. Girls went wild watching their pin-up.
But it was an abnormal, isolated life lived behind security guards. It was clear he wasn’t fully comfortable with the hysteria.
A teenage girl was killed at one of his concerts during a gate stampede
Universal Studios signed a deal with Cassidy in 1969
He told me: “It’s hard to describe what it’s like when you have 70,000 screaming ‘I love you’ at you.”
The fevered crowds that followed him could be dangerous. In May 1974 he played London’s White City stadium for the BBC. It was sunny and so many young, excited girls were there. For some reason I had a real sense of impending doom.
As soon as he came on stage there was an awful rush forwards. I watched from backstage as these little girls were plucked from the crush. Dozens were on stretchers.
A few days later, Bernadette Whelan, 14, unconscious since the crush, became the first fatality at a British pop concert. David was devastated. He went into a terrible decline. He felt responsible.
The star was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in 2011
Shirley Jones was married to Cassidy's father
This dangerous and bizarre life had an impact on his downfall and battle with addiction.
After his third drink-driving charge in 2014, he finally admitted he was an alcoholic. A year later he was bankrupt and forced to auction his £1.9million Florida mansion.
I couldn’t help but think back to an interview with David in 2001, where he seemed happily settled with his third wife, Sue Shifrin.
She was obviously the love of his life. They’d met years earlier but went on to marry different people. David married actress Kay Lenz in 1977, then Meryl Tanz in 1984.
Cassidy filed for bankruptcy in 2015
'I Think I Love You' was one of his biggest hits
Sue contacted him years later. He took her out and that was it.
Their son Beau was the apple of his father’s eye. David said: “Being a good father, that’s the thing I’m most proud of. When Beau says, ‘Will you come to my baseball game?’ I go. My dad would say yes and not show up.”
The singer has been arrested on multiple occasions for driving under the influence
He might like to be remembered as a good father but I’d like to remember him as a teenage idol on stage in that rhinestone jumpsuit.
It’s how I hope his fans remember him. But I’ll never forget his tears as he heard his own, young voice in that studio five years ago.
It’s the side of David I’m glad his fans didn’t get to see.
