David Cassidy on the Web
Who's grousing about the Partridges?
Not David Cassidy ... he's made a career of the 1970s sitcom
June 18, 2007
By Doug Foley
The Hamilton Spectator
It was only a four-year gig but David Cassidy turned The Partridge Family into a lifelong vocation.
Almost 35 years after the rock 'n' roll family sitcom left the TV airwaves, David Cassidy is still living off it.
Not big buck royalties, mind you, but at least enough to live comfortably and with enough pop culture cachet to still be a recognizable name and to spin out yet another autobiography.
You wouldn't think Cassidy would have much more to say after writing C''mon Get Happy: Fear And Loathing On The Partridge Family Bus in 1994 but here comes David Cassidy, Could It Be Forever, My Story (Headline Publishing, $24.95).
The answer to that title question would seem to be yes, it could be forever at this point.
Like Micky Dolenz of The Monkees, who graced this page himself a few weeks ago, David Cassidy is still working and still in the news -- even if he has to blow his own trumpet in his new autobio to be there.
Cassidy was one of several pretty-boy, made-for-TV stars who blossomed into full-fledged music superstars and enjoyed much more than the Warholian 15 minutes of fame.
At his peak in the mid-'70s, his fan club members outnumbered even the Beatles at their peak, his pretty-boy posters were only outsold by Farrah Fawcett-Majors' famous shag and nipples shot, he had seven hit albums between '72 and '76 and grossed as much as $130,000 a concert, a huge take for the time.
Cassidy triggered his own David-mania around the world. He was the undisputed king of the teen magazine world and lived the superstar life to the fullest, seldom lacking for attractive female company and hobnobbing with big name celebrities.
On the downside are an infamous 1974 London concert at which a 14-year-old girl was trampled to death and hundreds injured, two failed marriages, drug and alcohol problems and a revealing Rolling Stone pictorial and story that helped spell the end of his career.
In his own words and those of family, friends and business acquaintances, he records it all in his new book.
Anyone with fond memories of The Partridge Family or who ever hung a David Cassidy poster over their bed should find it an enjoyable read and an interesting insight into what happened after the screaming stopped in 1974 when he says he retired.
Today, at 57, Cassidy raises thoroughbred horses and is still a pretty good-looking guy (we leave any questions of cosmetic surgery up to you) who seems to be happy.
And if that ain't a song cue to a flashback, we don't know what it is:
'Hello world here's a song that we're singing / Come on get happy
A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringing / We'll make you happy.'
- Come On Get Happy, The Partridge Family
Welcome to September 1970 and Cassidy's main claim to fame, The Partridge Family TV program, in which the then 20-year-old had second billing, playing oldest son to Shirley Jones, his real-life stepmom.
Jones played Shirley Partridge, a widowed mom raising five kids in an American suburban world seemingly free of drugs, racial tensions or problem children. Mom joined her kids in forming The Partridge Family band and they hit it big in show biz, much like the real-life family band, The Cowsills, on whom the show was based.
Cassidy played the oldest kid, Keith, the band's lead singer and soon to be the world's leading heartthrob.
On the show, the band recorded the song I Think I Love You, which crossed over to the real pop charts and reigned as No. 1 for three weeks in November of 1970, ending the five-week run of The Jackson 5's I'll Be There.
The Partridges were subsequently knocked off by The Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, which gave way after one week to George Harrison's My Sweet Lord.
The Partridge Family released 10 albums and the show placed in the top 20 in an era dominated by All in the Family, Sanford and Son and The Waltons.
But in the new book, there is quite a lead-in until Cassidy even gets to The Partridge Family.
There are his early years in New York City as the child of divorce, a move to Los Angeles and growing up in the permissive southern California culture of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, in which our author happily immersed himself.
Cassidy, currently married to wife No. 3 and a father of two, was born in New York City, April 12, 1950, to acting parents, Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward.
They divorced when Cassidy was five and his dad went on to win a Broadway Tony Award and marry Shirley Jones, an Oscar-winning actress (best supporting for Elmer Gantry) and the queen of the big screen musical, starring in Oklahoma!, Carousel and The Music Man.
Jack Cassidy was, by his son's accounts, fast-living, hard-drinking and emotionally scrambled.
Cassidy returns throughout the book to the subject of his dad but shuns a Mommie Dearest approach for a more sympathetic understanding of the man and a respect for his prodigious talents.
Jack Cassidy turned down the part of Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was a role written specifically for him based on the work he did on the 1967 sitcom, He and She, as vainglorious actor Oscar North.
Cassidy did lots of TV and played actor John Barrymore in the film W.C. Fields and Me in 1976, the same year he died in a house fire after falling asleep on a couch with a smoke at age 49.
The younger Cassidy followed in his dad's acting footsteps appearing on TV shows Marcus Welby, M.D., The Mod Squad, Bonanza and Ironside before hitting it big as a Partridge.
That made for a quite a ride, but Cassidy says he has never been happier than he is today.
And if that ain't another song cue ...
'Travelin' along there's a song that we're singin' / Come on get happy
A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringin' / We'll make you happy / Come on get happy'
