Elliot Mintz and The Cassidy Collection

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This post is going to be difficult to write, there are some reasons..Maybe the most important is , that I don't know what David Cassidy himself would have thought about The Cassidy Collection.

So  let's first watch this short amazing video, I remember when I've watched it for the first time. It was like seeing David Cassidy (from the 70s) in a new light, the way he talked, even the way he looked. Of course he looked gorgeous, soo beautiful..but I mean he looked like a real person interested in the conversation, not like a superstar bored to death by the same questions again.

It's just a fragment of the interview for Eyewitness News 7. We don't have the original air date, but I know that Elliot Mintz was an entertaintment correspondent for Eyewitness News on KABC from 1973 to 1974. I think it was made in 1973.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sD0ZSyW1YU

Elliot Mintz conversations with David Cassidy are in a league of their own. There are some reasons for it.

1. Elliot Mintz is not an average journalist so to speak. Very intelligent and very shrewd, very knowledgeable, and he is a good psychologist.. He was just 5 years older than David, but in the 70s he looked like someone much older and much more experienced than DC. 

He started making radio interviews very early , in 1963. In the 60s he was an underground DJ. He represented and was a spokeperson for (and befriended) John Lennon and  also Bob Dylan,  David Cassidy and Bobby Sherman, to name a few. He introduced David to John and Yoko .

 2. He knew DC very well, he met him in 1969,  he was David and Sam's neighbour at Laurel Canyon.

 3. He let him speak but he also didn't allow him to deviate from the topic, to forget about the questions. and David Cassidy  trusted him, they were friends.

You can hear at the beginning of that interview Elliot Mintz talking about his connections with DC..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjHw8u-qjUU

David said : 'I just flowed with it and I allowed it to take me wherever it would take me and it was a wonderful experience..' but also  ; 'I reached my goal at the age of 20..' Yes, what to do next, that was an obvious problem. 

He was much more bitter during the interviews which Elliot made, while he accompanied DC on tour in Europe in 1973. This is a great radio doc., really outstanding, we can  hear fragments of concerts, fans screaming and it's really terrifing , it's insane, it's much worse than anything I've heard on any tv doc about Cassidymania. 

We can hear conversations at DC's hotel room, even how they ordered a meal to be delivered upstairs, because David couldn't go to the restaurant.  Elliot  talking  with fans about their idol, why they loved him so much, and him talking with David .. 'I'm a plastic face that never does anything but smile' (for some people)..'the curtain between working and personal is transparent and it's all see through, you can't close the windows, there's no place you can go that's private..'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kO1zF79UqQ

And  the most important tapes - The Cassidy Collection. 

Since it was published, on Decembe 19th, 2019, it's had nearly 50 000 views. Really impressive, 3 hours (it's longer, because also includes  conversations with Elliot and 'The Last Session's producer) from about 20 hours which  Elliot Mintz recorded while being with DC in Hawai, in 1974. 

Of course, we read about those tapes earlier, David Cassidy wrote about them himself in his autobiography,  also  about Elliot, so we were maybe not so happy about them at first, but curiosity killed the cat, and  we got them for free. I waited for those tapes, and they exceeded my expectations. I was very impressed by the way Elliot Mintz conducted those conversations, the questions he asked, his tenacity in getting answers, he let DC speak, (sometimes it looks like therapy), but didn't allow him to avoid the answers.That was great. 

And also that we could hear the ocean, the waves, it was like being with David and Elliot on that beach, walking and listening. I had to remaind myself  that those conversations took place 45 years ago..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my9W-rohxVk&t=7443s

It was very moving listening how sad and disillusioned by fame, his career and showbusiness DC was. When he said that maybe he was wrong about sth he was so sure about for 20 years, something he'd have always wanted to do..

The sadness and loneliness, disappointment.. I'm grateful I could listen to those tapes. Maybe Elliot Mintz will post more, but I will not listen to them.  I feel he already has published enough..


, maybe even more than he should...



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