The Film David Wanted to Make

In March 1976, Giovanni Dadomo interviewed David Cassidy in London. For 'Sound Magazine'. They met in the morning on the same day when DC appeared on The Russell Harty Show. And maybe let's start with the song David performed at the end of that show..I know I've written about 'Then I'll Be Someone' so many times, but I love that song and to think that it was just a coincidence that we have that live recording. And it makes me think about other songs, those we don't even know about..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZFHa3QOvkI

So in the morning (the article appeared on April 3, 1976) Giovanni Dadomo met with DC at his hotel, and they talked also about David's plans for the future. What about a movie? "Well, I've read fine screenplay, but I'm not really sure I'm going to be doing it.' He has, he says, received a whole bundle of screenplays - everything from the obvious vehicles for his old blue-eyed, white-toothed Partridge Family persona to its obvious antithesis, ie hard core pornography"

But DC didn't tell that since late 1973 he wanted to make a film about John Paul Getty III. I know at least 2 short press notes about it from 1974 and 1975, and there is also an interview for New York Daily News, published in December 1978, :

 "Cassidy is now working on a special project involving John Paul Getty III, the Getty heir who lost his ear to kidnappers in Italy. 'I've bought the screenrights to his story from Elliot Mintz (!!!) It's based on 12 hours of tapes. It's a bizarre story and I see it as a good film'.

I can imagine. It was a news even in Poland, and our communist press kept informing us about that poor boy, with comments that such horrible things could happen only behind The Iron Curtain. 

John Paul Getty III, born in 1956, was one of the grandsons of American oil tycoon, John Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world. The boy lived with his hippie father in Europe. The father wasn't a good example and young  Paul was expelled from school, led a bohemian life style, lived in a squad in Rome, and earned money selling his paintings (he was very talented), even appeared in movies as extra. The Italian adult mag paid him $1000 to appear naked on the cover. It was the August issue in 1973, and at the time Paul had been imprisoned for more than a month. His family suspected he himself organized that kidnapping, btw the ransom was $ 17 million. Everything changed when one newspaper got lock of his hair and ..a human ear. He was released in December, a human wreck. A horrible story. He suffered all his life from drug and alcohol addictions. 

The film about his kidnapping was made in 2017. Directed by Ridley Scott.