David Cassidy In The News
Former teen idol Cassidy relishes new niche
March 23, 2001
By Mel Shields
The Sacramento Bee (California)
David Cassidy has managed to fulfill one of an entertainer's most elusive dreams -- handling both career and family.
Furthermore, much of it is thanks to a corporation. Harrah's Entertainment was so impressed with Cassidy's "At the Copa" -- a combination of concert and Broadway-style musical that he co-wrote with Don Reo and that ran for 14 months in Las Vegas -- that it signed Cassidy to play throughout its 21 properties.
In exchange, Cassidy gets weeknights off.
"I've really had very little of a life," he said. "The time has come to take time for myself and for my family. The last six or seven weeks have been fantastic. I've taken care of many family matters. I'm going to Los Angeles to see my brothers."
Cassidy called recently from his Las Vegas office. He was late because he had to pick up his 10-year-old son from school. After the interview, he was going to attend the boy's baseball game.
"I wouldn't have been able to do that before. I was doing eight shows a week, 48 weeks a year," he said.
Still, the former "Partridge Family" member has hardly entered a Branson-style routine. He is producing "The Rat Pack Is Back," a re-creation of the old days in Las Vegas and a show he also co-wrote with Reo. In it, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra are celebrating Sinatra's birthday on Dec. 12, 1961. The show is playing at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. Cassidy had just signed another year's contract with the hotel.
The studio beckons as well. Cassidy should spend much of April and May there, recording for Universal Music, "the biggest in the world."
It's a pretty nice world "so far in this millennium" for Cassidy. He was brought in to MGM's "EFX" when star Michael Crawford didn't work out; he rewrote the role and starred in the spectacular for two years. He used that success and subsequent ones in Las Vegas "as a great springboard to go out and do a lot of dates. If not now, the opportunity may not be there for me in a year.
"We killed in Laughlin. We had the biggest weekend they had in 13 years in Atlantic City. We just opened Harrah's new property in Shreveport. I'll do some summer theater sheds this year. I'll do the Greek Theater. But mostly it's casinos. I just played at Foxwoods. I have really jelled. And you know what? It's fun!"
In the early 1970s, Cassidy was on the cover of every teen magazine in the world. He had been nominated several times for a Grammy Award and had recorded several No. 1 songs, including 1971's biggest seller, "I Think I Love You." He was starring, through coincidence, with his stepmother, Shirley Jones, in "The Partridge Family." And his international fan club was the largest in history, surpassing in membership those for Elvis Presley and the Beatles.
Cassidy, however, did not suffer the same fate as so many other teen idols. He grew up and entered into a variety of careers, performing on Broadway like his late father, Jack Cassidy ("Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"), playing the West End ("Time" with Laurence Olivier and "Blood Brothers"), guest starring in television series (Emmy-nominated for the highest-rated "Police Story" ever, for instance), and catching the Las Vegas wave at the perfect moment.
"As far as live concerts go, I've moved in and out of them over the years," he said. "It isn't as if I've gotten tired of them and every few years I have to come back. I am so blessed right now. I've got a great band, 13 pieces. I've got great material. I've gone back through my whole catalog and come up with some things people won't expect. I sing 'Cherish' and those songs, but I've also got some early rhythm and blues and some Otis Redding."
Cassidy says he's always enjoyed the "show" part of show business, but not so much the "business" part: "One has to learn to live with that. I was playing golf today with Danny Gans and he said, 'David, as hard as it is to sustain this kind of life, don't you feel this isn't work?' And I have to agree. This is what I would do if I didn't get paid.
"It's not a matter of how much money you make. People who get obsessed with that are in trouble. That's why we have so many disposable careers now. People sell themselves short for the money.
"I'm an optimist. I mean, you have to be with my career. I've never gone out and changed my style to suit the times.
"I've had a chance to really evaluate (my life)," he said. "And I think I've got a double E ticket. For that, I feel very fortunate. The highs have been incredibly high and the lows have been really low.
"When I returned to work, I specifically chose not to compete with my earlier fame. I always made sure that the work, not my potential income or fame, was the primary reason I would choose to get involved in a particular project.
"Right now, I've exceeded the level where I was. I am just doing what I really want to do, and I hope to continue doing it before I drop."
David Cassidy performs at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Harrah's Tahoe; $42.50; (800) 427-7247.
