David Cassidy on the Web
Forever and a day
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Sunday Star Times
www.stuff.co.nz
Whatever happens to... former teen heart-throbs? Paul Little meets with David Cassidy to find out.
David Cassidy arrives at the rehearsal with a choice of shirts for his performance on Paul Holmes' new talk show Whatever Happened To... ? The former Partridge Family star would prefer to wear the white but is happy to go with the blue if that makes things easier for the lighting people.
He plans his entrance. What he would like to do is jump on to the lap of one of the three fans who will be meeting their idol live on the show that night. He tells Holmes that if his answers go on too long during recording the host should just give him a firm nod and he'll wind up. Cassidy answers all the rehearsal questions at length, and it's clear that what he most likes talking about is his father.
With men, it's nearly always about their fathers, and David Cassidy is no exception. "My father was probably the best theatrical actor," he tells me later, with more loyalty than accuracy.
Jack Cassidy, divorced early from David's mother, actress Evelyn Ward, seldom saw his son, let alone had what could be called a relationship with him. So naturally David tried to get his attention and affection by emulating him. Trouble was, he became a bigger star than his father could ever be, and Jack found that very hard to take.
"I was doing it for him so much," says Cassidy of his career. "But I didn't know the severity of his illness, of his being bipolar. We didn't have medication for that. My father would be alive today if we had. Half the United States is on it now."
David Cassidy is in Auckland for two nights, playing the role of former teen heart-throb. However, if you passed him in the street you wouldn't look at him twice. He's not tall, and the way he is dressed doesn't ask for attention, although later, recording the show, one too many shirt buttons is undone. Without Keith Partridge's mullety hair, the face has lost the soft androgyny that made him such an unthreatening object of affection for pubescent girls and their watchful mums.
He may be nearly 60, but the skin is unlined, if a little tight. It's tempting to ask what his grooming routine is, but there are only so many hours in a day. He favours anyone he's speaking to with his full attention and it's in those eyes and the occasional flash of brilliant smile that Keith can be seen beneath the surface.
Last weekend he played to 16,000 people in Indianapolis. There's a new CD in November, the updated autobiography, Could It Be Forever: My Story, is out, and right now "I'm on my way to LA, where my brothers and I are producing a pilot for a network TV show."
The Partridge Family Rest Home? There's the obligatory coyness about details. "It's nothing to do with legality. It's just superstition. But we're going to produce it together, and one of my brothers and I are gonna be in it. My brother Patrick and my brother Sean and I have a very funny idea." He's looking forward to having some fun with his image "anything I can do to take the piss out of myself".
These days Cassidy is used to getting "Would you sign this for my grandmother?" autograph requests. From 1970 to 1974, thanks to the family-forms-a-band sitcom The Partridge Family and his solo career, he was the biggest teen idol ever, if measured in terms of tears, screams and God knows what other physiological reactions his presence generated.
"There was no video then, no DVD, no internet, and there were just three television networks. In those days unless you were sitting in front of the TV set, you missed it. It was all much more potent. With television, being on the cover of all these magazines and being on the radio, you could gather the world in with not much. Now we live in an age of immediacy. We devour things. We can watch an artist over and over on DVD."
The stresses that go with such fame are the stuff of 1000 showbiz sob stories, but none the less true for that.
"It made me an incredibly successful young guy, and I never cursed it, even though it robbed me of my own identity. I touched millions of people."
He made millions too, though not for David Cassidy. Showbiz sob story no2 star finds himself broke at 25.
He was paid a salary for the TV show and didn't own the face that sold millions of magazines and pieces of merchandise. Why is this story repeated over and over again?
"I'll tell you why," volunteers the victim. "In my case, I trusted people. I was 19 when it began. I had no business education. I had virtually no education. I was working 18 hours a day, seven days a week. I never went to the bank. I trusted the people who'd been around my father and stepmother (Partridge co-star Shirley Jones) and manager. All of us got robbed, but I was making 10 or 100 times more than everybody else, so I was the big loser."
It only came to light when Cassidy pulled back on work and the money to cover the fraud stopped rolling in.
"It was really very shocking. And sometimes I bless it. Because I think if I had continued to be the kind of wealthy I should be now, it would be what I call `stupid rich'.
"I'm just a well-off guy because I work really hard. I've worked on so many projects and every night gone out and reminded myself of what it was like when I couldn't get a job."
He's pulling back on the work now, looking for "balance, being a father, family man, person who isn't just driven" at 57, trying to be a good father to 16-year-old Beau, whose mother, Sue Shifrin, has been his wife for 17 years. He also has a daughter. Katie, 20, from a relationship that doesn't get talked about, is establishing herself as an actress. Given his experience with his own father, how does he feel about his children becoming performers?
"I'm good about it. Now."
. Whatever Happened To... , TV One, Tuesday, 8.30pm. David Cassidy appears September 18.
