David Cassidy

At 67 years old, David Cassidy has this physical status:

David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his stepmother, Shirley Jones), appeared on the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family.

Cassidy rose to teen idol status as a 1970s pop sensation.

Early life

Cassidy was born in New York City's Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital, the son of singer and actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. His father was of half Irish and half German origins, and his mother was largely descended from Colonial Americans, as well as having traces in Ireland and Switzerland. His mother was one of the originals of Newark, New Jersey.

He spent his early years being raised in a middle-class neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey, as his parents were often on the road. He discovered out from neighbors' children that his parents had been separated for more than two years and hadn't told him.

Cassidy's father, who was born in 1956, married singer and actress Shirley Jones. They had three children, David's half-brothers Shaun (b. ), who had the same name. Patrick (b. 1958) Patrick (b. Ryan (b. 1962) and Ryan (b. b. (since 1966) In 1968, after completing one last session of summer school to earn credits required to obtain a high school diploma, David moved into Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones' rental house in Irvington, New York, where his half-brothers also lived. David remained in the company's mailroom, enjoying his fame as an actor/musician and simultaneously working half-days in a textile company. When his career began to flourish, he walked out.

Cassidy's father, Jack, is credited with bringing his son up with his first boss. After David Cassidy joined Universal Studios in 1969, Jack introduced him to Ruth Aarons, a former table tennis champion and close friend who later discovered her passion as a talent manager, who later discovered her passion for acting. Aarons had worked with Jack and Shirley Jones for many years and then appeared in Cassidy's half-brother Shaun. Aarons, a celebrity figure and close friend of Cassidy, became the driving force behind his on-screen success. After Cassidy earned less than $100,000 for his services on The Partridge Family in season one, Aarons discovered he was underage when he signed his deal; she then renegotiated the deal with far more comprehensive terms and a unique four-year term.

Personal life

Kay Lenz, Cassidy's first wife, married on April 3, 1977, and divorced on December 28, 1983.

In 1984, Cassidy married horse breeder Meryl Tanzy. They first met in Lexington, Kentucky, at a horse auction in 1974. In 1988, this marriage ended in divorce.

Katie Cassidy, Cassidy's daughter, was born in 1986 after an extramarital affair with fashion model Sherry Williams. Katie was raised by her mother and her stepfather, Richard Benedon, after David and Williams' divorce. David spoke out about his absence from Katie's life; in February 2017, he said, "I've never had a friendship with her." I wasn't her father. I was her biological father, but I didn't raise her. She has a completely different life. I'm proud of her. She's a natural performer. "It's impossible for me to even acknowledge how old she is now."

Cassidy married Sue Shifrin on March 30, 1991. It was Cassidy's third marriage and Shifrin's second marriage. Beau was their first child when they were born in 1991. The couple had separated in August 2013, with Shifrin filing for divorce in February 2014.

Cassidy moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2002. In 2015, he applied for bankruptcy.

Cassidy released a public service announcement for Alzheimer's disease research and prevention in 2011 – thanks to his mother, Evelyn Ward, who has the condition – and that he will campaign for the cause as often as possible. In 2012, he had intended to address Congress.

Cassidy was a long-serving Democrat. During a 2012 guest appearance on The Colbert Report, he shared his thoughts on the leading Republican presidential candidates, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. "I think both of them are the most embarrassing, sad, pathetic plight," Cassidy said. I mean, really, this is the best we can do?"

Cassidy was arrested in Florida on November 3, 2010 for driving under the influence (DUI).

In the early hours of August 21, 2013, Cassidy was arrested for DUI in Schodack, New York. He was pulled over after failing to dim his headlights as he passed a police car going in the opposite direction. Cassidy was tested for alcohol abuse after failing on a field sobriety test, resulting in a blood alcohol level of 0.1 percent, which was higher than the New York legal limit of 0.08%. Cassidy was polite and courteous, according to a 1965 hit song by singer Tom Jones, who asked the officer, "What's New, Pussycat?" Cassidy was arrested, taken to prison, and released several hours later on $2,500 bail. Cassidy was sentenced to community service, a fine, and a six-month license suspension on May 12, 2015.

Cassidy was arrested in California on suspicion of DUI on January 10, 2014, after making a wrong turn against a red light. He was arrested overnight, sentenced to inpatient rehabilitation, and put on probation for five years.

Cassidy was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on suspicion of leaving the scene of a car accident, improper lane change, expired tags, and driving with a suspended license on September 9, 2015.

Cassidy confessed to having an alcohol problem in 2008.

Following a performance in Agoura Hills, California, in which Cassidy had trouble recalling the lyrics of songs he had been performing for nearly 50 years and appeared to have fallen off stage, he announced that he was suffering from any further performing. He said that dementia had affected his mother and grandfather at the end of their lives, and that "I was in denial, but a part of me knew this was coming."

Cassidy became ill at a recording studio and was hospitalized later in 2017. In a later phone call with an A&E producer, he said he had just met with his doctor, that he had liver disease, and that his life had "changed dramatically." Cassidy said he was awake and near death for the first few days after the incident, but that his memories had returned. Cassidy claimed that "no sign of [dementia] at this point in [his] life," adding that "[it] was complete alcohol poisoning]—and the truth is, I lied about my alcohol consumption." "You know, I did it to myself, man," Cassidy said. To mask the pain and emptiness, I did it to myself." Cassidy told his family and others that he had stopped drinking.

Cassidy was hospitalized with liver and kidney disease on November 18, 2017 and was critically ill in a medically induced coma. He came out of the coma two days later and remained in fragile but stable health. Doctors hoped to hold Cassidy stable until a liver transplant was available, but the doctor died of liver disease on November 21, 2017, at the age of 67. "So much wasted time," Katie Cassidy's daughter says.

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Career

Cassidy made his professional debut in the Broadway musical The Fig Leaves Are Falling on January 2, 1969. It ended after four performances, but a casting director spotted the performance and asked Cassidy to do a screen test. He migrated to Los Angeles in 1969. Cassidy was featured in episodes of Universal Studios' documentary film Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Adam-12, Medical Center, and Bonanza after signing with Universal Studios in 1969.

Cassidy appeared on the musical television show The Partridge Family in 1970. Cassidy was accepted as the lead singer after demonstrating his singing skills. (He and Shirley Jones were the only television cast members to appear on any Partridge Family films.)

The show was well-reced, but Cassidy's fortune took its toll. Cassidy felt stifled by the show and enveloped by mass hysteria surrounding his every move during his meteoric rise to fame. 92 - 95 years old In May 1972, he appeared nude on the back of a Leibovitz photo; among other things, Cassidy was riding around New York in the back of a vehicle that was "stoned and inebriated."

Cassidy began work on solo albums, including Cherish and Rock Me Baby, which were first released by the Partridge Family pop group in 1972. He had produced his own single, a cover of The Association's "Cherish" album (from the album of the same name), and number nine in the United Kingdom (a double A-side with "Could It Be Forever"), as well as number one in Australia and New Zealand within the first year. He began selling tours that featured Partridge tunes and his own hits.

Cassidy's solo chart success in the United Kingdom was much greater in the United Kingdom than in his home country, including a remix of "How Can I Be Sure" by The Young Rascals and "The Puppy Song," a UK number one that failed to chart in the United States. Cassidy, the solo artist in the United Kingdom, is best known for "How Can I Be Sure" and "Do Will It Be Forever" ("UK number 37), which were both released during his solo chart peak in 1972–73.

For a brief time, he was the highest paid entertainer in the country when he began his solo career. Cassidy's fan base at the peak of his career was greater than that of any other pop celebrity, such as The Beatles or Elvis Presley. In the fan magazine David Cassidy, a fictionalized version of him appeared. Su Gumen, a Turkish comics designer, had many of the magazine's issues signed. Cassidy said he was dissatisfied with his appearance in the magazines, which sanitized his image in a 1993 interview. In 1983, his fanclub named him after him in the International Star Registry. Cassidy said in his autobiography that he was overwhelmed by his fanbase and that "it's become impossible for me to go in a store or even walk down the street without being stopped by people."

Despite wanting to be a well-known rock musician as Mick Jagger, his channel to fame launched him into the ranks of teen idol, a brand he loot until much later in life, when he finally came to terms with his pop idol roots. During the series, ten albums by The Partridge Family and five solo albums by Cassidy were released, with the majority selling more than a million copies each.

Cassidy's solo career eclipsed The Partridge Family's already stellar success. With sellout concert performances in major arenas around the world, he became a hit on the world stage. Mass hysteria followed the coining of the phrase "Cassidymania" in the media. For example, he performed at the Houston Astrodome in Texas over a weekend in 1972. His concert in Madison Square Garden, New York, sold out in one day and triggered violent protests after the performance. In 1973, David Atkinson's concert tours of the United Kingdom featured sell-out shows at Wembley Stadium. The mass hysteria in Australia in 1974 was so widespread that calls were made to have him barred from the country, particularly after the hysteria at his 33,000-strong audience concert at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

A gate stampede at the penultimate show on a world tour in London's White City Stadium on May 26, 1974, when nearly 800 people were injured in a stampede at the front of the stage, was a turning point in Cassidy's live concerts (while still filming The Partridge Family). Thirty people were admitted to the hospital, but Bernadette Whelan, a 14-year-old girl, died four days later at London's Hammersmith Hospital without regaining consciousness.

Cassidy, a deeply affected woman, appeared in the media to try to make sense of what had happened. Cassidy did not attend the service out of respect for the family and to prevent the girl's funeral from turning into a media circus, although he talked to Whelan's parents and sent flowers. Cassidy said at the time that this would haunt him until the day he died.

Cassidy had already departed from touring and acting in The Partridge Family, instead focusing on recording and songwriting. Since he released three well-received solo albums and several hit singles on RCA in 1975 and 1976, international success soared, mainly in Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and South Africa. Cassidy became the first recording artist to have a success with "I Write the Songs," and the album debuted at No. 118. Before the song became Barry Manilow's signature song, it ranked 11 in the top 30 in the United Kingdom. Cassidy co-produced the album with Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys, the song's author-composer. On two of David's mid-70s RCA Records albums The Higher They Climb and Home Is Where the Heart Is.

Cassidy appeared in "A Chance to Live" in 1978, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. David Cassidy: Man Undercover, a NBC series based on it, was cancelled after one season. The same plot was maintained a decade later in the Fox series 21 Jump Street, with more youthful-looking police officers infiltrating a high school.

Despite being a success and highly paid, Cassidy later revealed he was broke in the 1980s. With the Arista release of "The Last Kiss" (number six in the United Kingdom), music success continued in 1985 (number six in the United Kingdom), with backing vocals by George Michael, which was included on the album Romance. They went gold in Europe and Australia, and Cassidy supported them with a sell-out tour of the United Kingdom that culminated in the Greatest Hits Live compilation of 1986. Michael cited Cassidy as a significant work influence, as well as an interview with Cassidy for David Litchfield's Ritz Newspaper.

Cassidy appeared in a musical theater. He appeared in 1981 in a revival of a pre-Broadway production of Little Johnny Jones, a show that was first performed in 1904 with music, lyrics, and book by George M. Cohan. (The show is excerpted from "Get My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy," a biographical film starring James Cagney ("1942], where James Cagney appears on "Give My Regards to Broadway" and "The Yankee Doodle Boy" in the biographical film Yankee Doodle Dandy [1942].) Cassidy received critical feedback, and he was replaced by Donny Osmond, another teen idol, before the show reached Broadway. Cassidy, in turn, was himself a replacement for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat's lead. Cassidy appeared in Time in London and returned to Broadway with Petula Clark and David's half-brother Shaun Cassidy.

Cassidy's 1990 single "Lyin' to Myself," released on Enigma Records from his 1990 album David Cassidy, was followed by the 1992 album Didn't You Used to Be..." on Scotti Brothers Records. "No Bridge I Wouldn't Cross" from his album Old Trick New Dog on his own Slamajama Records label in 1998.

Cassidy appeared in the Las Vegas show EFX from November 1996 to December 1998 at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Cassidy wrote and appeared on Sheena Easton's At the Copa in Las Vegas in 2000 as both the young and old versions of the lead character, Johnny Flamingo. For the first time since 1974, his 2001 album Then and Now went platinum internationally and returned Cassidy to the top of the UK charts for the first time since 1974. Cassidy played Aaron Carter's character in the film Popstar in 2005. In a short-lived 2009 ABC Family comedy series called Ruby & The Rockits, a Shaun-created program, he co-starred alongside his half-brother Patrick.

Cassidy was one of the Celebrity Apprentice contestants in 2011.

Cassidy's fans remained at his concerts in question-and-answer sessions as the days of "Cassidymania" faded. Cassidy appeared at The Villages, Florida, in August 2016, greeting and answering questions from those of the audience who had been following the event for nearly half a century.

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