Love Is All That I Ever Needed. Chapter 4. The Next Teen Idol
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Two weeks after graduation in the early fall of 1968, David filled his backpack and went to New York. The time came, at last, to make his dream come true.
His father always kept telling him that becoming a good, reliable, respected actor was a slow, difficult process, a lot of hard work, everything should be achieved in small steps. David was full of enthusiasm and hope. At first, nothing was as he expected.
Living with Jack for the first time in his life was also a
difficult experience. His father was controlling, demanding and introduced some rules David
never had before and rebelled against them. They quarreled a lot.
David was born in New York City, but never really lived there, so he didn’t have any friends
and small chances to make new ones. He commuted long hours to his boring work. He was
the youngest in the mailroom of the Deering-Milliken Textile Factory, the other workers were
middle-aged.
After work he attended acting classes and took part in countless auditions -
about 200 of them, before he got his first role at the end of October of 1968.
For David that time was like eternity. It was so depressing hearing every day, on each audition,
‘Thank you. Next one..’. He tried for any kind of role, on Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off
Broadway, and off-off-off Broadway, in commercials, and even roles that didn’t pay.
For an
18-year-old, it was a hard lesson. He started to lose faith in his talent and the career he’d
chosen.
His friends in LA enjoyed their lives. Some of them went to college. David knew that way was
not for him, all he ever wanted was to be an actor. He had to keep going and wouldn’t give up.
But he felt lonely. He missed the life he had in LA - girls and even drugs, and most of all his
friends. He enjoyed letters from Kevin, who had the makings of a writer rather than an actor,
and who also struggled to get a job in LA.
In fact David got the first role pretty quickly. There is a note in "Indianapolis Star", published
on November 1, 1968 that ‘Jack Cassidy’s son will make his B’way debut in ‘Fig Leaves Are
Falling’23 He was on cloud nine. He got a role, and he was to be paid money for it. For David
it was a fortune, $175 a week, four times more than he got at his part-time job. He phoned his
boss to announce that he was quitting, and the next phone call was to his father. It was a great
success for David and a moment of glory and sheer happiness. He was so proud of himself,
and hoped Jack would be too.
That play, ‘The Fig Leaves Are Falling’ is still remembered after 55 years. First of all, as one
of the biggest flops in Broadway's history. Also that in spite of 17 previews and only 4
performances Dorothy Loudon won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance and
was nominated for the Tony Award. And it’s remembered because of David Cassidy’s stage
debut.
From the start, there were many problems. Originally titled ‘Birth is the Coward’s Way Out’, it
was a love story built around a stagnant 20-year marriage. Known names, besides Dorothy
Loundon, were Barry Nelson and Jenny O’Hara. The first director was a popular stage, TV
and film actor, Jack Klugman. He left production prior to rehearsals, and legendary George
Abbott was hired. At the time 83-years old, a true Broadway giant, with a reputation of ‘show
doctor’, was often called to supervise changes when something was going wrong.
But no one
and nothing could have helped ‘The Fig Leaves Are Falling’.
During the production a lot was changed. Some characters disappeared, and the music
numbers were shifted from one character to another.
We can read in The Fig Leaves Are
Falling Playbill, : ‘David Cassidy (Billy) will be making his Broadway debut in this production.
He is no stranger to theater life, since he is the son of Jack Cassidy (..) The young man made
his theatrical debut back in 1960 in a summer stock production of The Pajama Game and was
last seen in the 1967 Los Angeles Theatre Company production of ‘And So To Bed.”.
More
notes about David’s debut appeared in the press, for example in a column called ‘Jack
O’Brian’s New York’s Voice of Broadway’26.From the beginning everybody knew whose son
he was.
The musical premiered at the Broadhurst Theatre on January 2, 1969, and closed on January
6, after four performances. At the end, there were more people on stage than in the audience.
It must have been a difficult and valuable lesson for David. He worked hard for two months
before the musical debuted, he learned a lot about Broadway and how working there looked
like. That it was a long and winding road and that only big stars really were important.
We can
read in a review from January 1969, : “Miss Loudon is the best thing in ‘Fig Leaves Are Falling’,
primarily because she has the best material - a reasonably good character to play, a number
of charming scenes and three numbers that offer opportunities.”
In that review David is
mentioned as ‘young Cassidy’. At least George Abbott thought David was very talented.
David, and his manager, Ruth Aarons, had to decide what to do: stay in New York and try
Broadway again or return to Hollywood. A casting director from CBS saw him in one of ‘Fig
Leaves’ previews and wanted David to screen-test for a movie.
David Cassidy returned to Los
Angeles. He didn’t get the role in a movie called ‘Hail Hero’. Five actors were tested, and he looked
the youngest. The son of a movie star got it - Michael Douglas. Michael was 6 years older
than David and had a university degree.
David again lived with his mother. After her second divorce, she moved to a 2-bedroom
apartment and wasn’t very happy having to support her adult son. She didn’t get the career
she wanted. There were just some TV roles, and besides she never liked Hollywood. After her
mother, Ethel died in 1967, Evelyn Ward wanted to leave for West Orange and take care of
her 80-year old father.
David returned to his former lifestyle, spending time with old friends, also trying to get some
TV roles. At last, in the fall of 1969 he was hired and became very busy. He was doing one
TV series after another, and he had to go to school again.
David first appeared on one of the episodes of a short-lived series called ‘Survivors’. It aired
on November 7, 1969 on ABC. Unfortunately, there is no existing copy of that episode or even
a single photo of David in it.
On December 25, 1969 ‘Ironside’ with David was aired on NBC. Just a few days later the
viewers across America could watch him on ‘The FBI’ episode that aired on January 4, 1970
on ABC.
Suddenly everybody wanted to write about the young actor. Tiger Beat started gathering
information. On The Daily Gleason an article appeared at the end of 1969 about 19-year old
David Cassidy, called ‘Sleepy Actor’. That he was working a lot, and four nights a week, from 7 to
10 pm according to his father's demand, attended Los Angeles City College. But why did David
return to school?
The end of the 60s wasn’t a peaceful time. There was still war in Vietnam, and unrest all over
the country. On November 15, 1969 one of the biggest anti-war marches in USA history, with
500,000 demonstrators, took place in Washington, D.C. Two weeks later two lotteries were
held to determine the order of call to military service in the Vietnam War, for men born from
January 1, 1944 to December 31, 1950.
Young men of call-up age sought to avoid or delay their military service and there were some
legal ways to do that. Among other things, attending college might grant a determent.
Sam
Hyman was really scared. His draw number was 31, and he joined the National Guard to avoid
going to Vietnam.
Jack insisted that David had to go to college even though he had a safe draw number. David
was majoring in Psychology.
The rest of his TV guest appearances in 1970 were:
‘Marcus Welby’ aired on January 13 on ABC,
‘Adam-12’ aired on February 14 on NBC,
the next day also on NBC David was on ‘Bonanza’,
‘Medical Centre’ aired on April 1, on CBC,
‘Mod Squad’ aired on April 7 on ABC.
They were good dramatic, memorable roles. He looked very young and vulnerable. David was
noticed and praised for his acting. From a review, : ‘Ironside was a sad tale of a ghetto boy
with a weak father, a tarantula of a mother and a girl friend in a mental hospital. He is a
reluctant member of a gang that steals on demand. David Cassidy, son of Jack Cassidy is
good in his first starring role’.
In the April issue of Tiger Beat appeared a picture of David and a lot of info about his hobbies,
favorites, likes and dislikes, personal and professional ambitions. That issue was prepared in
January/February, and nn the photo David’s hair is quite long. At the time, he already filmed a
pilot for The Partridge Family, but it wasn’t picked as a series yet.
David Cassidy's pre-The Partridge Family’s roles. He played a son kidnapped with his mother,
a drug addict, a thief, and a liar. He was fascinating on ‘Bonanza'. Billy was so conflicted with
everybody, trusted no one and angry with the whole world to the point that we really believe
he could have been a murderer.
The most famous was his guest appearance on ‘Marcus Welby, M.D’. His character, diabetic
Michael Ambrose, was another teen fighting with his own father. It was the first season of that
extremely popular TV series. Everybody watched it. David wore very posh clothes on the set.
In one scene he was shirtless, and for the first time we can see him wearing a crest ring he
got from Jack on Christmas. It was the exact duplicate of the ring Jack wore himself, inside
was inscribed, ‘Life Love and Happiness - Dad’.
There were a lot of close-ups of his face. It was a very emotional performance. His father was
played by experienced stage, film and TV actor John McMartin (in 1970 they would meet again
on the set of ‘The Partridge Family’). David's performance, at the time so young and
inexperienced, matched John Martin’s, a Broadway’s veteran.
David was very satisfied with that role and very proud when Robert Young, a famous actor
who played physician Marcus Welby, wrote him later a letter complimenting David on his
acting.
The episode with David Cassidy, called ‘Fun and Games and Michael Ambrose’ was aired on
January 12, 1970.
Girls from all over America began to send letters to popular newspapers
and magazines asking questions and seeking info about the beautiful boy. “Who is he?”
There was a picture of David on the cover of the May issue of FaVE! magazine. The biggest
photo was Bobby Sherman’s. Inside the magazine, an article written by Loudy Powell,
(probably in March 1970), called, ‘His name is David Cassidy (he sings too)’. FaVE! got
hundreds of letters asking about the new star. We can read that he was shy and, “..his hazel
eyes are huge, bottomless and fringed with the blackest, longest lashes ever’. That he had
just made a pilot for a new series, and, :’if we are lucky and the show sells you’ll be seeing
David every week this fall!!’. That he loved music and was very excited that he would soon be
cutting his first record. And moving into a house in Hollywood Hills with his wire-haired, nutty
terrier called Sam. And yes he liked girls, especially with long straight hair, no matter what
color, but maybe he noticed blondes first.
In February 1970 there were some people who knew the name of the next American teen idol.
Charles Laufer, the Tiger Beat publisher, first saw David on ‘Marcus Welby :
‘A kid comes on,
and he's got diabetes. I didn’t know who he was, but he was raw-boned and vulnerable, and I thought, this kid’s terrific. So I waited for the credits. The next day I came into the office and
said, ‘Who the hell is David Cassidy?”
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