David Cassidy

Explore about the Famous TV Actor David Cassidy, who was born in United States on April 12, 1950. Analyze David Cassidy’s net worth, age, bio, birthday, dating, height-weight, wiki. Investigate who is David Cassidy dating now? Look into this article to know how old is David Cassidy?

David Cassidy Biography

Became a teen idol for his role as Keith Partridge on the musical sitcom The Partridge Family, which eventually led to his music career. He sought success as a solo artist with hit singles such as “I Write the Songs,” “Lyin To Myself,” and ” No Bridge I Wouldn’t Cross.”

He made his professional debut in the Broadway musical The Fig Leaves are Falling in 1969 and moved to Los Angeles later that same year.

He enjoyed a successful stint in Las Vegas in the productions EFX, The Rat Pack Is Back! and At the Copa.

He was the son of actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. He was married three times, to actress Kay Lenz, Meryl Tanz and Sue Shifrin. He had a daughter named Katie and a son named Beau.

He was a competitor on Donald Trump‘s The Celebrity Apprentice in 2011.

David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was best known for his role as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his stepmother, Shirley Jones), in the 1970s musical-sitcom The Partridge Family. This role catapulted Cassidy to teen idol status as a superstar pop singer of the 1970s.

In 1956, Cassidy’s father married singer and actress Shirley Jones. They had three children: David’s half-brothers, Shaun (b. 1958), Patrick (b. 1962), and Ryan (b. 1966). In 1968, after completing one final session of summer school to obtain credits necessary to get a high-school diploma, David moved into the rental home of Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones in Irvington, New York, where his half-brothers also lived. David remained there, seeking fame 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.

As his parents were frequently touring on the road, he spent his early years being raised by his maternal grandparents in a middle-class neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1956, he found out from neighbors’ children that his parents had been divorced for over two years and had not told him.

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.

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 later found her niche as a talent manager, given her theater background. Aarons had represented Jack and Shirley Jones for several years, and later represented Cassidy’s half-brother, Shaun. Aarons became an authority figure and close friend to Cassidy, and was 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, Aarons discovered that he had been underage when he signed his contract; she then renegotiated the contract with far superior provisions and a rare four-year term.

In 1970, Cassidy took the role of Keith Partridge on the musical television show The Partridge Family. After demonstrating his singing talent, Cassidy was allowed to join the studio ensemble as the lead singer. The show proved popular, but the fame took its toll on Cassidy. In the midst of his rise to fame, Cassidy felt stifled by the show and trapped by the mass hysteria surrounding his every move. In May 1972, to alter his public image, he appeared nude on the cover of Rolling Stone in a cropped Annie Leibovitz photo; among other things, the accompanying Rolling Stone article mentioned that Cassidy was riding around New York in the back of a car “stoned and drunk.”

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. Internationally, Cassidy’s solo career eclipsed the already phenomenal success of The Partridge Family. He became an instant drawing card, with sellout concert successes in major arenas around the world. 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 resulted in riots after the show. His concert tours of the United Kingdom included sellout concerts at Wembley Stadium 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 live concerts (while still filming The Partridge Family) was a gate stampede at a show in London’s White City Stadium on May 26, 1974, when nearly 800 people were injured in a crush 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. The show was the penultimate date on a world tour. 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 the girl’s funeral into a media circus, Cassidy did not attend the service, although he spoke to Whelan’s parents and sent flowers. Cassidy stated at the time that this would haunt him until the day he died.

By this point, Cassidy had decided to quit both touring and acting in The Partridge Family, 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 #11 in the Top 40 in Great Britain before the song became 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 2 of David’s mid-70s RCA Records albums The Higher They Climb and Home Is Where the Heart Is.

Cassidy’s first wife was actress Kay Lenz, whom he married on April 3, 1977 and divorced on December 28, 1983.

In 1978, Cassidy starred in an episode of Police Story titled “A Chance to Live”, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. NBC created a series based on it, called David Cassidy: Man Undercover, but it was cancelled after one season. A decade later, the successful Fox series 21 Jump Street used the same plot, with different youthful-looking police officers infiltrating a high school.

Cassidy later stated 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” (number six in the United Kingdom), 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. (The show is excerpted in the biographic film Yankee Doodle Dandy [1942], when James Cagney sings “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “The Yankee Doodle Boy”.) However, Cassidy received negative reviews, and he was replaced by another former teen idol, Donny Osmond, before the show reached Broadway. Cassidy, in turn, was himself a replacement for the lead 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 David’s half-brother Shaun Cassidy.

Cassidy married his second wife, horse breeder Meryl Tanz, in 1984. They met in 1974 at a horse sale in Lexington, Kentucky. This marriage ended in divorce in 1988.

Cassidy’s daughter, actress Katie Cassidy, was born in 1986 from a relationship with fashion model Sherry Williams. After David and Williams ended their relationship, Katie was raised by her mother and her stepfather, Richard Benedon. David has spoken of his absence from Katie’s life; in February 2017, he said, “I’ve never had a relationship 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 very talented. It’s hard for me to even accept how old she is now.”

Cassidy returned to the American top 40 with his 1990 single “Lyin’ to Myself”, released on Enigma Records, from his 1990 album David Cassidy, followed by the 1992 album Didn’t You Used to Be… on Scotti Brothers Records. In 1998, he had an adult contemporary music hit with “No Bridge I Wouldn’t Cross” from his album Old Trick New Dog on his own Slamajama Records label.

Cassidy married Sue Shifrin on March 30, 1991. It was Cassidy’s third marriage and Shifrin’s second marriage. They had one child, Beau, in 1991. In August 2013, Cassidy’s Los Angeles publicist confirmed that the couple had separated, with Shifrin filing for divorce in February 2014.

In 1994, Cassidy, in collaboration with Chip Deffaa, wrote his autobiography, C’mon, Get Happy … Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus.. In December 2019, C’mon, Get Happy was published as an E-book (by Open Road Media,ISBN 0446395315) with a new afterword by Chip Deffaa, covering the rest of Cassidy’s life.

From November 1996 to December 1998, Cassidy starred in the Las Vegas show EFX at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. In 2000, Cassidy 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, Johnny Flamingo. His 2001 album Then and Now went platinum internationally and returned Cassidy to the top five of the UK album charts for the first time since 1974. In 2005, Cassidy played the manager of Aaron Carter’s character in the film Popstar. He co-starred alongside his half-brother Patrick in a short-lived 2009 ABC Family comedy series titled Ruby & The Rockits, a show created by Shaun.

Cassidy moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2002. He filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

Cassidy also wrote a memoir, Could It Be Forever? My Story, published in the United Kingdom in March 2007, which gives further details about his personal life.

In 2008, Cassidy publicly admitted he had an alcohol problem.

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

In 2011, Cassidy recorded a public service announcement for Alzheimer’s disease research and prevention – due to his mother, Evelyn Ward, having the condition – and said that he would campaign for that cause whenever possible. He planned to address Congress in 2012.

Cassidy was one of the contestants on Celebrity Apprentice in 2011.

Cassidy was a long-time registered Democrat. During a 2012 guest appearance on The Colbert Report he expressed his views on the leading Republican candidates for president, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Cassidy stated, “I believe the both of them are the most embarrassing, sad, pathetic … I mean, really, this is the best we can do?”

Cassidy was a long-time registered Democrat. During a 2012 guest appearance on The Colbert Report he expressed his views on the leading Republican candidates for president, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Cassidy stated, “I believe the both of them are the most embarrassing, sad, pathetic … I mean, really, this is the best we can do?”

Cassidy was arrested on suspicion of DUI in California on January 10, 2014 after he made an illegal right turn against a red light. He was held overnight in jail, ordered to undergo inpatient rehabilitation, and was placed on probation for five years.

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. Within the first year, he had produced his own single, a cover of The Association’s “Cherish” (from the album of the same title); the song reached number nine in the United States, number two in the United Kingdom (a double A-side with “Could It Be Forever”), and number one in Australia and New Zealand. He began tours that featured Partridge tunes and his own hits. Cassidy achieved far greater solo chart success in the UK than in his native America, including a cover of The Young Rascals’ “How Can I Be Sure” and the double A-side single “Daydreamer” / “The Puppy Song” – two UK number ones 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” (UK number 2/US number 37), all released during his 1972–73 solo chart peak. 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 managed to come to terms with his bubblegum pop beginnings.

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

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