David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy was an American actor and musician. While he was best known in the United States for his role as Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family, he was an international success in his solo career as a singer. For a period, he was the highest paid entertainer in the world.
After completing high school, Cassidy pursued acting and music. His career took off after he signed with Universal Studios in 1969, and he received roles in several TV series. Cassidy's major breakthrough came in 1970 with his portrayal of Keith Partridge on The Partridge Family, which brought him stardom and made him a 1970s teen idol. Cassidy also pursued a solo music career that led to international acclaim; his hit singles included "Cherish" and "How Can I Be Sure". Cassidy also acted in film, on television, and in musical theater.
Early life
David Bruce Cassidy was born at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City, the son of singer and actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. His father was of half Irish and half German ancestry, and his mother was descended mostly from Colonial British Americans, along with having some Irish and Swiss roots. His mother's ancestors were among the founders of Newark, New Jersey.As his parents were frequently touring 'on the road,' Cassidy was raised in his early years by his maternal grandparents Frederick and Ethel Ward. They lived in a middle-class neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1958, he learned from neighbor children that his parents had been divorced for more than two years and had not told him.
In 1956, Cassidy's father had married singer and actress Shirley Jones. They had three children together. David's half-brothers are Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan.
In 1968, after completing one final session of summer school to obtain credits necessary to get a high school diploma, David moved in with his father and Shirley Jones, and their three sons, in their home in Irvington, New York. Cassidy lived there, seeking work as an actor/musician, while simultaneously working half-days in the mailroom of a textile firm. He moved out when his career began to flourish.
Cassidy's father, Jack, is credited with setting his son up with his first manager. After David Cassidy signed with Universal Studios in 1969, Jack introduced him to former table tennis champion and close friend Ruth Aarons, who had a theater background and had found her niche as a talent manager. Aarons had represented Jack and Shirley Jones for several years and later also represented Cassidy's half-brother Shaun.
Aarons became an authority figure and close friend to Cassidy and he credits her as the driving force behind his on-screen success. After Cassidy made small wages from Screen Gems for his work on The Partridge Family during season one, when it became a great success, Aarons discovered that he had been underage when he signed his contract. She renegotiated the contract with far superior provisions and a rare four-year term.
Career
1960s
On January 2, 1969, Cassidy made his professional debut in the Broadway musical The Fig Leaves Are Falling. It closed after four performances, but a casting director saw the show and asked Cassidy to make a screen test. In 1969, he moved to Los Angeles. After signing with Universal Studios in 1969, Cassidy was featured in episodes of the television series Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Adam-12, Medical Center, and Bonanza.1970s
In 1970, Cassidy took the role of Keith Partridge on the musical television show The Partridge Family produced by Screen Gems. After demonstrating his singing talent, Cassidy was allowed to join the studio ensemble as the lead singer.Cassidy's work on The Partridge Family made him a teen idol,
but stardom took a toll on him. In the midst of his rise to fame, Cassidy felt stifled by the show and trapped by the constant attention surrounding his every move. In May 1972, to alter his public image, he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in a revealing photo by Annie Leibovitz.The accompanying Rolling Stone article mentioned that Cassidy was riding around New York in the back of a car "stoned and drunk."
Once "I Think I Love You"—the first single released by The Partridge Family pop group—became a hit, Cassidy began work on solo albums. These included Cherish and Rock Me Baby, both released in 1972. Within the first year, he had produced his own single, a cover of The Association's "Cherish" ; the song reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, number two in the United Kingdom, and number one in Australia and New Zealand. He began tours that featured The ''Partridge Family tunes and his own hits.
Cassidy achieved far greater solo chart success in the UK than in his native America, including a UK #1 cover of The Young Rascals' "How Can I Be Sure" and the double A-side single "Daydreamer" / "The Puppy Song" – a UK number one which failed to chart in the States. In Britain, Cassidy the solo star remains best known for "Daydreamer", "How Can I Be Sure", and "Could It Be Forever", all released during his 1971–75 solo chart peak.
After launching his solo musical career, he was for a short time the highest paid entertainer in the world. At the peak of his career, Cassidy's fan club was larger than that of any other musical group or pop star, including The Beatles or Elvis Presley. A fictionalized version of him starred in the fan magazine David Cassidy. Many of its issues were signed by Turkish comics creator Su Gumen.
In a 1993 interview, Cassidy said that he was frustrated by his portrayal in the magazines, which sanitized his image. His fan club nicknamed a star after him in the International Star Registry in 1983. In his autobiography, Cassidy said that he felt overwhelmed by his fanbase, and said that "it became impossible for me to go in a store or even walk down the street without being stopped by people."
Cassidy was best known for his work on The Partridge Family, which aired until March 1974. Though he wanted to become a respected rock musician along the lines of Mick Jagger, his channel to stardom launched him into the ranks of teen idol, a brand he loathed until much later in life when he came to terms with his pop idol beginnings. Ten albums by The Partridge Family and five solo albums by Cassidy were produced during the series, with most selling more than a million copies each.
In certain countries, Cassidy's solo career eclipsed the phenomenal success of The Partridge Family. He became an instant drawing card, with sellout concert successes at major arenas in certain countries. These concerts produced mass hysteria, resulting in the media coining the term "Cassidymania". For example, he played to two sellout crowds of 56,000 each at the Houston Astrodome in Texas over one weekend in 1972. His concert in New York's Madison Square Garden sold out in one day and was followed by riots after the show. His concert tours of the United Kingdom included sellout concerts at Wembley Arena in 1973. In Australia in 1974, the mass hysteria was such that calls were made to have him deported from the country, especially after the madness at his 33,000-person audience concert at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
A turning point in Cassidy's career occurred at the penultimate show on a world tour in London's White City Stadium on May 26, 1974. On that date, nearly 800 people were injured in a stampede at the front of the stage. Thirty were taken to the hospital, and a 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Whelan, died four days later at London's Hammersmith Hospital without regaining consciousness. A deeply affected Cassidy faced the press, trying to make sense of what had happened. Out of respect for the family and to avoid turning Whelan's funeral into a media circus, Cassidy did not attend the service. He spoke privately to Whelan's parents and sent flowers. Cassidy stated at the time that the girl's death would haunt him until the day he died.
By this point, Cassidy had decided to quit touring, concentrating instead on recording and songwriting. International success continued, mostly in Great Britain, Germany, Japan and South Africa, when he released three well-received solo albums and several hit singles on RCA in 1975 and 1976. Cassidy became the first recording artist to have a hit with "I Write the Songs", peaking at No. 11 in the Top 30 in Great Britain before the song became known as Barry Manilow's signature tune. Cassidy co-produced the recording with the song's author-composer, Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys. The two artists collaborated on two of Cassidy's mid-70s RCA Records albums The Higher They Climb and Home Is Where the Heart Is.
In 1978, Cassidy starred in an episode of Police Story titled "A Chance to Live", for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series at the 30th Primetime Emmy Awards. NBC created a series based on it, called David Cassidy: Man Undercover'', but it was cancelled after one season.
1980s
Cassidy later said that he was broke by the 1980s, despite being successful and highly paid. In 1985, music success continued with the Arista release of the single "The Last Kiss", with backing vocals by George Michael, which was included on the album Romance. These went gold in Europe and Australia, and Cassidy supported them with a sellout tour of the United Kingdom, which resulted in the Greatest Hits Live compilation of 1986. Michael cited Cassidy as a major career influence and interviewed Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper.Cassidy performed in musical theater. In 1981, he toured in a revival of a pre-Broadway production of Little Johnny Jones, a show originally produced in 1904 with music, lyrics, and book by George M. Cohan. However, Cassidy received negative reviews, and he was replaced by another former teen idol, Donny Osmond, before the show reached Broadway. Cassidy, in turn, replaced Doug Voet as the lead character Joseph in the original 1982 Broadway production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Cassidy also appeared in London's West End production of Time and returned to Broadway in Blood Brothers alongside Petula Clark and his half-brother Shaun Cassidy.