Sal Mineo
A book about Sal Mineo by Michael Gregg Michaud
ISBN-13: 978-0307716675
Three Rivers Press
The following are excerpts from "Sal Mineo":
"David Cassidy began to hang around the house a lot during that summer. [1965] David's stepfather had directed Sal in "The World I Want" months before. The two had become friendly, and Sal gave David the drum set he used in The Gene Krupa Story. Sal was teaching him how to play the drums, and the teenager crashed at the house and got stoned with Sal often. David said, "Sal took a genuine interest in me. He was a very caring and wonderful person, someone who made an effort to try and support people who were creative and talented."
David was straight, and Sal encouraged Susan to sleep with the fifteen-year-old. Susan and David actually fell for each other, though, and got involved. But whenever Susan saw Sal after being with David, Sal grilled her for all the details of their sexual trysts. Susan realized this was Sal’s way of “being sexual” with David, since there was no chance the two men would ever be physically intimate with each other. Sal wanted to see David “in action,” to experience David’s lovemaking skills vicariously through Susan. The couple sometimes had sex in Sal’s room. Unbeknownst to the lovers, Sal hid in the closet and watched them to satisfy his own curiosity.
Sal was not able to be in New York when Cabaret opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on November 20. Mr. and Mrs. Mineo, who considered Jill "the girl who got away," telegrammed their best wishes. Sal sent a telegram, as well, that read, "Hope you have a warm hand on your opening tonight." Jill recalled, "Sal never saw the show in New York, but David Cassidy showed up backstage one night. He said Sal told him to see the show and come backstage to see me. Sal loved those teenyboppers."
"Sal had moved to a small, Spanish-style bungalow in West Hollywood. He drove an old, black Cadillac convertible, and everything in the house was black on black. There were always a lot of young people there. David Cassidy and some of his high school friends spent many after-school hours with Sal, talking about music and jamming with their guitars. Sal liked to "hold court," controlling the conversation and listening to everyone talk. David knew that Sal had girlfriends and boyfriends, but he didn't care, either. "Sal was one of the most incredibly warm, gentle, sensitive, funny, and hip people I'd ever met," he said.
Jon Provost saw the show, and so did David Cassidy, who occasionally had an early dinner with Sal at the counter of the Rexall drugstore just a block from the Coronet Theatre. Jon Provost and Don Johnson were about the same age and shared the same blond, rather "pretty" features. Still trying to shock Jon, Sal had told him he planned to rape Don for real onstage. Jon remembered the play as very dark and very heavy. He hadn't seen Sal very often since Sal had forced himself upon him. Now, six months later, here was Sal starring in a play that Jon felt featured a similar attack. Jon said Sal, cast as the bully, "was able to live out this scenario—forcing himself on a straight, naïve, eighteen-year-old boy—night after night."
"David Cassidy arrived in London on Sunday, February 6. After a vacation in France, he stopped in England on this way back to America to promote the release of the first Partridge Family record album in the United Kingdom. He was already a recording sensation in the United States. His pop-idol status, a result of his starring role in the hit television series The Partridge Family, drew tens of thousands of youngsters to Heathrow."
David had remained friends with Sal, who understood the overwhelming weight of celebrity, and David could commiserate with him about the problems of teen idol-dom. They had always been supportive of each other.
"A couple of days later, with screaming fans and photographers in pursuit, David Cassidy made his way to Westbourne Terrace to visit and dine with Sal and Courtney. It was a startling reversal of roles. Just four years earlier Sal had befriended David, who was still in high school and flirting with the idea of a show business career. And fifteen years before, thousands of screaming fans had chased Sal through the streets, throwing themselves at him at premieres and personal appearances. "When Sal and I walked down the street in London," Courtney said, "nobody looked twice. Nobody knew him. It was bliss."
On September 9, Sal met with Murray Smith and made his feelings known about the direction his script had taken, and gave him a list of proposed changes. Later that evening, David Cassidy, who had returned to London to appear in concert, sent a car to pick up Sal and Courtney. David was Sal's only American friend to ever visit him while he lived in London."
After David’s fans had torn apart the Dorchester Hotel during his previous visit, it was impossible to find accommodations in London. He rented the yacht that Liz Taylor and Richard Burton had earlier rented when, famously, no hotel would take their dogs. The yacht, the largest privately owned boat in England at 110 feet, was docked in the Thames River between the Tower Bridge and the London Bridge. Courtney and Sal were driven to a dock, where they were taken to the yacht by a Metropolitan Water Police boat.
Still numb with shock, Courtney joined Michael Mason, Tom Korman, and David Cassidy for a get-together at Billy Belasco's house later that evening. Plans were made for Courtney, Michael, and Elliot to accompany Sal's body back to New York the next day. David Cassidy paid for the casket."
David Cassidy defended his friend in the press. "Sex, dope, and cheap thrills are discussed more than anything else at gay bars," he said. "I've heard about women I've slept with, sheep I've slept with. It's a lot of jive. There's a lot of shit-talking about everybody."
