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David Cassidy in The Apprentice (2004)

Biography

David Cassidy

Overview

  • Born
    April 12, 1950 · New York City, New York, USA
  • Died
    November 21, 2017 · Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA (organ failure)
  • Birth name
    David Bruce Cassidy
  • Height
    5′ 8″ (1.73 m)

Biography

  • David Cassidy was born on April 12, 1950 in Manhattan, to Jack Cassidy, a very skilled actor and singer, and Evelyn Ward, an actress. By the time he was five, his parents were divorced and Jack had married actress Shirley Jones, an actress who in 1955 had just made Oklahoma! (1955). When David was about 10, his mother moved to California from New Jersey. A few years later, she married a director and, like Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones, the marriage ended in divorce. David was thrown out of schools and hardly made it through one year of college. When he was eighteen, he went east to New York to perform in a play called "The Fig Leafs are Falling." He did some other spots on TV, but in 1970 he got the opportunity to play Keith Partridge on the TV show The Partridge Family (1970). (He did not know until he got the part that his real life stepmother Shirley Jones was to play his mother Shirley.) The show ended in 1974, but not the close relationship he had with his "sister" Susan Dey, who played Laurie Partridge. In 1976, David's father Jack died when his apartment caught on fire. That year, David married Kay Lenz, but they later divorced. He married again to a horse trainer in 1984, but it did not last either. In 1990, he married Sue Shifrin. He had two children, a son named Beau, with Sue, and actress Katie Cassidy. In 1994, he wrote a book about his years being Keith Partridge, and performed updated songs from the Partridge Family years.

    David died on November 21, 2017, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was sixty seven.
    - IMDb mini biography by: cdonorab

Family

  • Spouses
      Sue Shifrin(March 30, 1991 - April 27, 2016) (divorced, 1 child)
      Meryl Ann Tanz(December 15, 1984 - May 22, 1988) (divorced)
      Kay Lenz(April 3, 1977 - December 28, 1983) (divorced)
  • Children
      Katie Cassidy
      Beau Cassidy
  • Parents
      Evelyn Ward
      Jack Cassidy
      Shirley Jones
  • Relatives
      Patrick Cassidy(Half Sibling)
      Shaun Cassidy(Half Sibling)
      Ryan Cassidy(Half Sibling)

Trademarks

  • Frequently worked with stepmother Shirley Jones and/or her family
  • Often played the roles of people that were members in a rock band

Trivia

  • Out of the approximate $500 million that The Partridge Family (1970) made, he was initially paid $600 per week, but commanded upwards of $50,000 per concert appearance. His renegotiated contract boosted his weekly salary to $6,000 per week plus some participation.
  • At his peak, Cassidy was the world's highest paid live entertainer, and his official fan club was the largest in pop history - exceeding Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
  • Daughter Katie Cassidy posted on social media site Twitter: "My father's last words were 'so much wasted time'. This will be a daily reminder for me to share my gratitude with those I love, and to never waste another minute...thank you, Dad".
  • He was a close friend of John Lennon, whom he greatly admired.
  • His acting mentor was real-life former stepmother Shirley Jones, with whom he enjoyed a wonderful relationship, both in real life and while working on The Partridge Family (1970). He admitted to having a crush on Shirley since the age of 6, when his family took him to see her movie Oklahoma! (1955).

Quotes

  • (On reuniting with his ex-The Partridge Family (1970), series' star/real-life stepmother, Shirley Jones, who was asked to guest-star in Ruby & the Rockits (2009)): We paid her a lot of money. She is a wonderful actress. People forget she won an Academy Award. When I was young, she taught me a lot how to deal with the pressure and the fame, because she became a star when she was 18. I was 19.
  • (On Shirley Jones) I can't ignore her. After all, she is the mother of my brothers.
  • My father had a tremendous influence on me, and I think many children who come from broken homes, esp. when they're very early. My dad left when I was 3 1/2, and he left my mom and I. It was something in order to empower myself. I think all children, psychologically need to empower themselves, because they can't put their arms around, what it is. I made it my fault, there's something wrong with me, and it was spending time on the couch, and spending the time going through the process that I'm now the happiest ever been in my life, the most successful I've ever been in my life.
  • (On referring to young ladies who would push towards the stage to get closer to him): It scared a lot of people because there was so much hysteria surrounding my concerts, a lot of parents didn't want their daughters to come to the shows thinking that they were going to get hurt. Thank God it's not like that anymore. It's fun and it's very high energy, but it's not hysteria, thank God. People actually listen to the songs and it's great.
  • (Who told about his real-life childhood that was absolutely from "Keith Partridge"): Oh, yeah. I grew up in Southern California in the 1960's. It was very different. I was an only child as opposed to having siblings. My brothers all lived with my step-mom. I am very close to them, but we were not raised in the same house. It was a very, I would say, turbulent, fantastic from a musical standpoint and a social standpoint, (time). The Beatles broke out when I was 13. I played in garage bands and rock and roll bands when I was in junior high and high school and saw some of the great talents of all time in the local area where I lived. They were not legends at the time, kind of hard to imagine. I went to school with the drummer of The Doors' younger brother and we went and saw The Doors at The Whiskey. Buffalo Springfield played at my high school at an assembly. That kind of world.

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