‘Post reporter looks back on the time David Cassidy phoned him from Florida
David Cassidy was once the biggest star on earth. Following his death earlier this week, Andy Smart recalls a conversation they had back in 2005 before a concert performance in Nottingham
By Gemma Toulson
Nottingham Post
www.nottinghampost.com
November 22, 2017
David Cassidy is mobbed by fans at the height of his fame
David Cassidy was once the biggest star on earth. Following his death earlier this week, Andy Smart recalls a conversation they had back in 2005 before a concert performance in Nottingham.
The death of 70s teen idol David Cassidy has left an army of fans around the world in mourning.
The truth is, when Cassidy was topping the charts with songs like I Think I Love You, Cherish and How Can I Be Sure, he boasted a bigger fan club than either Elvis Presley or the Beatles.
He was the teen idol of the decade, caught in the eye of a celebrity storm which had a massive impact on his life and his health.
We talked about that back in 2005 when I interviewed Cassidy ahead of a nostalgic appearance at the Nottingham Arena along with those other teen sensations the Osmonds.
It was a late afternoon in June 2005 when he rang my home number from Miami. That rarely happens.
When they have a show or record to promote, the big stars usually get a flunky to make all the arrangements, provide the journalist with a number to call, at a set time, and then sit back and wait.
But not Cassidy. He preferred the personal touch and was quite prepared to organise his own life.
And he came across as one of the most charming, personable and engaging showbiz celebrities I have ever encountered.
At the height of his fame, he could send teenage girls into hysterics without singing a note.
Yet he had no great pretensions, no discernible ego, despite having just been voted America’s number one TV idol... ever.
It wasn’t so much an interview, more like a chat between friends which lasted for the best part of an hour. Speaking from his ocean-front property in sunny south Florida, Cassidy didn’t duck any questions or avoid any issues regarding his incredible life.
He emerged from the musical sitcom The Partridge Family to become one of the biggest stars on the planet – but he told me it was a phenomenon that came with a curse that wannabe pop stars would do well to heed.
“It was an insane way to live. I could not go anywhere. I was so burnt from the overwork and stress. There was a kidnap threat, I had to move house, live with an FBI agent. You cannot imagine the madness. I could not go to the bathroom alone.
“My life was completely and totally taken over by work. I worked all day long, every lunch hour I did photo shoots and interviews.
“After we wrapped at 7pm, I would drive over the hills to Hollywood and begin recording. Every weekend, I went on tour doing four shows all over the country — and this is a large country — fly back and start again, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
“You lose your identity, no social life, nothing but work, it’s not healthy... a totally different reality.”
It was something he would talk to John Lennon about on the many occasions they got together.
“Talking to John Lennon helped a lot. John was such an interesting, complex, humorous, creative genius.
“I see the sadness and the tragedy of Michael Jackson and of Elvis, and fortunately for the boys from Liverpool, they got it — that this isn’t real.”
Born into a showbiz family — actors Evelyn Ward and Jack Cassidy were his parents — David said that, from the age of three, he never really wanted to do anything else, once he had seen his dad on Broadway.
His parents split when he was young and he grew up in LA during the revolutionary 60s, then headed back to New York to earn his acting spurs.
His first pro job — it closed after four days — was on Broadway. But it was enough for a TV producer to see his potential and the good-looking teenager was hoisted into a series of dramas — Ironside, Bonanza, The Mod Squad, Marcus Welby MD, FBI — all leading to the part of Keith Partridge.
David remembered the bizarre experience when he turned up for his screen test and spotted his stepmother, Shirley Jones, on the set.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. She posed the same question and when the realisation that they were cast as screen son and daughter dawned, it was a real “Oh my god” moment.
Fate had dealt David a royal flush.
As the whole teen idol thing exploded, he turned to Shirley for guidance. She had gone through something similar, starring in Oklahoma at 19.
“You know, we both appeared on the cover of Life magazine at about the same age. It’s quite remarkable.”
Just about every girl in the US under 17 became a fan of Cassidy, 25 million of them watching each episode of The Partridge Family — a fatherless family of six who decide to form a rock band and tour the country in a psychedelically-painted school bus.
Cassidy was cast as the squeaky clean guitar-playing 16-year-old Kevin and, while the role might have filled the dreams of pre-pubescent American teenagers, it wasn’t the real David Cassidy.
“I was an all-American red-blooded guy.
“I never wanted to be a teen idol. I accepted it reluctantly. I was just an actor trying to make a living. It’s not the kind of thing I pursued, it just happened.”
He put the record straight with a bare-all interview in Rolling Stone magazine — including the celebrated Annie Liebowitz nude photographs. “At the time, that was the real me, all the other teen mag stuff was fabricated.
“I was brought up in an environment, very liberal, southern California in the 1960s. A social, political, sexual revolution was going on and I was a teenager growing up in it. It was an exciting time to be alive. I wouldn’t trade it for another time in the history of the world.”
His career expanded in all directions – writer, director, producer – and the rewards followed, the gold records, the Tonys.
By 2005, and one of several appearances he made in Nottingham over the latter years of his career, the pace of his life had lessened.
He had no great ambitions to return to the days of chart success and idolisation. All he wanted to do was get up on stage and revisit all those great old hits for his fans.
He returned to Nottingham two years later and continued to work around the world. But, at the same time, he was fighting a long-term battle with alcoholism, and beset with money troubles.
Earlier this year, Cassidy revealed that he was living with dementia, the condition that his mother suffered from at the end of her life, and he announced his retirement from performing.
The end came on Monday, just three days after he was admitted to hospital suffering from organ failure. He was 67.
Although never a great fan of his middle-of-the-road pop, in that 2005 article, I described Cassidy as “Mr Nice Guy”. Not a bad epitaph for one of the biggest stars the music business has ever seen.
