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David Bruce Cassidy (b. April, 1950) is an American actor, singer
and guitarist, best known for his role as Shirley Jones's oldest son, Keith
Partridge, on The Partridge Family from 1970 to 1974. It is ironic that he is
Jones' real-life stepson.
Cassidy was the son of Irish American actor Jack Cassidy and
actress Evelyn Ward.
 Career
Prior to The Partridge Family, Cassidy appeared on Marcus Welby, M.D., The Mod
Squad, Bonanza, Adam-12 and Ironside. When he started working on The Partridge
Family, nobody knew that he could sing, until Cassidy himself brought it up. He
then took over the lead vocals for the show's recordings and quickly became a teen
idol. He played Keith Partridge, son of Shirley Partridge, who was played by
Shirley Jones, Cassidy's real-life stepmother.
Ten albums by The Partridge Family and several solo albums were produced during the
run of the show. At his peak, Cassidy was one of the world's highest paid live
entertainers. Yet, out of the approximate USD $500 million that The Partridge
Family made internationally, he was allegedly paid only $15,000. It was later
claimed that Cassidy's fan club set the all-time record for the most paid-up
members of any fan club at any one time. Cassidy's autobiography C'mon Get Happy:
Fear And Loathing On The Partridge Family Bus (1994) provides a concise and honest
account of most aspects of his pop fame, including contracts, money and his devoted
female following.
Rebelling against squeaky-clean Keith, Cassidy shocked his young fans by posing
nude in the May 11, 1972 edition of Rolling Stone magazine, for Annie
Leibovitz.
A turning point in his live rock concerts (while still filming the Partridge Family
show) was an incident where a gate stampede resulted in the death of a teenage
female fan. At a show in London's White City Stadium on 26 May 1974, 650 fans were
injured in a crush at the front of the stage. Thirty were taken to hospital, and
one fan, 14 year-old Bernadette Whelan, died on May 30 from her injuries. The
ill-fated show was the penultimate date on a world tour. A shaken Cassidy later
faced the press. After the incident, the most popular teen idol (of the time) no
longer wanted to continue his hectic week-end concert jaunts.
By this point, Cassidy had already decided to quit both touring and acting in The
Partridge Family. He released three critically well-received solo albums on RCA
between 1975 and 1977, and also starred in an episode of Police Story, for which he
received an Emmy nomination. Due to the success of the episode, NBC created a show
based on it called David Cassidy: Man Under Cover - but it was not a hit, prompting
cancellation after just one season.
Cassidy has appeared in several Broadway musicals, including a version of Little
Johnny Jones (played in the movies by James Cagney) and the original version of
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat , Time in London's West End, and Blood
Brothers opposite Petula Clark and half-brother Shaun Cassidy - among others. In
1996, he replaced Michael Crawford in the Las Vegas show EFX, turning it around,
with his complete re-write, into one of the Strip's favorite hit shows - although
Cassidy quit after injuring his foot during a performance. He also created another
show called The Rat Pack Is Back, in which he made guest appearances as Bobby
Darin, and which ran very successfully. In 2000, he wrote and appeared in the Las
Vegas show At The Copa, with Sheena Easton as both the young and old versions of
the lead character. In 2005 Cassidy played the manager of Aaron Carter's character
in the film Popstar. In 2006 he made a special guest appearance for BBC Children In
Need performing live, and then assisting host Terry Wogan with collecting donations
from the in-house studio audience.
Personal
life
Cassidy's first wife was actress Kay Lenz (of Richman, Poorman fame), whom he
married in 1977 and divorced in 1982. His second wife was South African
sports-woman Meryl Tanz, whom he married in 1984. Cassidy married his third wife
Sue Shifrin-Cassidy on March 30, 1991, with whom he has a son, Beau; he has a
daughter, Katherine, from a previous relationship.
Cassidy revealed to that he once had sex with Partridge Family co-star Susan Dey.
He said he wasn't attracted to the teenage actress when they started shooting The
Partridge Family together, but she was so determined to sleep with the pin-up that
he gave in, but quickly regretted it. Cassidy told tabloid the Glove "I find a
certain sluttiness very attractive in a woman, and Susan just didn't have it. She
was sweetness and innocence, a good girl, and I couldn't think of her as anything
but my sister.". In 1990, Cassidy hired his recalcitrant TV brother Danny Bonaduce
to do his intro/ warm-up act.
Cassidy has written a no-holds-barred memoir that was published in Great Britain in
March, 2007. There is currently no U.S publisher.“Could It Be Forever” tells of
Cassidy’s drug use, wild sex, his infatuation with Meredith Baxter, a romp with
Barbara the Butter Queen who liked to cover her sex partners with butter, and an
encounter with 1950s screen star Gina Lollobrigida. “I’ve always been very
comfortable with my sexuality and my brothers call me ‘Donk’ — as in Donkey. People
have talked about me being ‘blessed’ in my physique,” Cassidy writes in the book.
“The first time she looked me up and down and said: ‘I hear you’re a monster. I
want to meet the monster.’ Well, I decided that if I had it, there wasn’t any point
in just keeping it in the holster all the time.” A spokeswoman for Cassidy says
“Could It Be Forever” is being published in the U.K. because he is still almost as
popular there as he was in his heyday.
Discography
(solo)
Rock Me Baby
Dreams are Nuthin' More than Wishes
Cassidy Live!
The Higher They Climb
Home Is Where the Heart Is
Gettin' it in the Streets
Romance
His Greatest Hits - Live
The Best of David Cassidy
David Cassidy
Didn't You Used to Be?
Old Trick New Dog
Classic Songs
When I'm a Rock 'n' Roll Star
Then and Now
A Touch of Blue
Discography
(The Partridge Family)
The Partridge Family Album
Up To Date
Sound Magazine
Christmas Card
Shopping Bag
At Home With Their Greatest Hits
The Partridge Family Notebook
Crossword Puzzle
Bulletin Board
World of the Partridge Family
Come On Get Happy!: The Very Best of The Partridge Family
Filmography
The
Night the City Screamed (1980)
Instant Karma (1990)
Spirit of '76 (1991)
Popstar (2005)
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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David Cassidy
- Mental Projector - Biography
