David Cassidy on the Web
Cassidy on the Biebs, 'Apprentice'
March 3, 2011
By BILL HARRIS
http://jam.canoe.ca
David Cassidy
From one pop icon to another, David Cassidy was asked if he has any advice for Justin Bieber.
"I never started as young as he did, and it's a very different world now," said Cassidy, the most famous TV/music crossover star of the 1970s. "It's odd, it's a lawyer-manager-marketing career now. You know, I just worked.
"But the advice I would give Justin Bieber is this: Do not work in this profession unless it's your passion. Whatever you choose to do, love what you do. And never, ever accept a job as a singer or an actor or a performer -- where the public has access to what you do -- for money.
"If you do good work, everything else will follow. What I find kind of fascinating now is that a lot of young people, it's not like they're following their careers. It's not, 'I want to do really good work.' It's about, 'I want to be really rich and famous.' And that is so different."
Speaking of rich and famous, Donald Trump will be Cassidy's boss on the new season of The Celebrity Apprentice, which debuts Sunday on NBC and Global. Cassidy also still performs live regularly, and he'll be in Canada on Friday for a concert at Casino Rama, north of Toronto.
"When you talk about live performances, playing my hits and doing concerts, I didn't do that for 15 years," said Cassidy, who parlayed his role as Keith on The Partridge Family into pop-rock superstardom. "Then around 2001, 2002, I started doing live shows and concerts again. I really never wanted to tour any more, having done so much of that in my life, but I wanted to play.
"And I love the songs. I love to play them. I'm not even shy about telling you. The time I spent away from them made me hungry for them again."
Cassidy never had any hunger for reality TV prior to The Celebrity Apprentice.
"When they called and asked if I would do it, my initial response was, 'Of course not,' " said Cassidy, 60. "But then they told me I could raise up to a million dollars for charity, and I re-thought it."
OK, so technically Cassidy is going against his advice to Bieber with regard to doing things for money. But we're talking charity here, not "selling out" for personal gain.
"The Celebrity Apprentice is hard work, it's no joke," Cassidy said. "But I've done a lot of charity work in my life and will continue to do so, ever since Eunice Shriver called me and asked me to become the junior chairman of the Special Olympics back in 1971."
All things considered, Justin Bieber will be very fortunate if his fans prove to be as loyal as David Cassidy's fans have been through the decades.
"Having people living outside your gate at home, that in itself exhausts you," Cassidy recalled with a chuckle. "And I still deal with a lot of it, believe it or not. They're older. Most. It's not like people consistently chase me everywhere. They pursue me in a different way.
"But I'm flattered that they care so much about me, and it has been a great ride to go back and play the songs that impacted millions of people all over the world. I feel so humbled by it, to be honest."
