Love Is All That I Ever Needed. A David Cassidy Biography. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 The Divorce

David Bruce Cassidy was born on April 12, 1950 in New York City. He was born into show business, it was running in his blood. His parents were young and glamorous working actors. Jack Cassidy was 23 years old, Evelyn Ward 3 years older, both very busy with their career, frequently touring and absent. David spent his early years with his maternal grandparents in West Orange, New Jersey, just 20 miles from New York.

He felt he was different from other kids, didn’t exactly fit in, his school friends’ parents didn’t look like his, they had ordinary jobs, like his grandfather, Frederic Ward, who all his life worked as a utility meter reader. David was a small child, slightly built, and had to wear glasses. During his life he underwent 5 eye operations. It wasn't easy to be the youngest, and not to have a brother or a sister. Someone to fight with, but also to play with, and to share love, good and bad experiences. He was a lonely child, brought up by honest, decent people - his grandparents.

When he was born, his grandmother, Ethel, was 59, his granddad Frederic, 61. Besides Evelyn, they had 5 more children, but she was the only one who survived, and David only grandchild. They were good for him, both hard working and very religious. But when David was older, he had no problems with doing what he wanted. They didn’t know how to control him. How to discipline him. How to help this lonely boy, so sweet and smiling and shy but also very secretive, who liked going his own way. The boy with a natural wonderful voice, the boy with the obvious musical talent. He liked singing in a choir and he started playing piano when he was 5. His grandma taught him.

David didn’t like school : the discipline, the way the pupils were treated. When he wasn’t interested in a subject, he couldn’t concentrate. He was good at math and had a logical mind. He just didn’t like school as an institution. It was something to complete before real life could start and he always knew he wanted to be an actor, like his parents. Only things which would help him achieve that goal interested David and he never had any problems learning them. Like the songs his father played for him or those he listened to on the radio. It was enough to hear a song once and remember it - everything, the melody and the lyrics - and sing it.

His grandparents had their own modest house at 23 Elm Street in West Orange. Pleasant surroundings with a lot of places to play outdoors. Safe, because everyone knew each other, They loved him. It was Frederic who took David for the first time to Yankee Stadium and it was one of the happiest memories of his childhood. They watched horse races on TV together and David had a real passion for horses. It started when he stayed at home with the mumps and saw the movie, ‘The Homestretch’. He said. “I loved the racing scenes and begged my mum and my grandparents to take me to the races” (1). By the time David was seven, he was riding ponies, took part in races, and became an avid horseback rider. In 1985 while David was on the UK TV programme called ‘Saturday Picture Show’, he was asked : “What would you like to have become if you hadn’t become a popstar?”. The answer was immediately, “A jockey”.(2)

So even though his parents were nearly always absent, David was looked after very well, with love and care. Everything was done for him. There were a lot of uncles, aunts and cousins to feel a part of a family. But something happened that left its mark on his life and emotional development forever. For the rest of his days, deep inside, David Cassidy stayed that little boy hurt so deeply by his own parents.

He loved his beautiful mother, Evelyn Ward. In his autobiography, ‘Could It Be Forever ? My Story.’, published when David was 57, he didn’t write a single harsh word about her. Only with tenderness and understanding. He knew that because she was the only surviving child, and what’s more nearly died when 10 years old, her parents treated her like a little princess.

In the 50s she was often away, touring. When in the early 60s David became very undisciplined and wild, she was very worried. It was one of the reasons Evelyn decided to move to Los Angeles. David wrote that his mom was great, but a lax disciplinarian.”(3).

When he was a teen, she let him do everything he wanted. He had no responsibilities except school. Evelyn’s only reaction after 15-year old David told her about smoking dope, was telling him about her own experiences with drugs. She turned a blind eye to the fact that her teenage son brought girls to his room and had sex with them. He started smoking cigarettes when he was 13. Yes, it was Hollywood, the 60s, and she was an actress. But as David wrote himself she was more a friend than a parent.

She had own problems, a single working mother, disappointed and frustrated, also because never had the success she wanted. But it’s difficult to understand why Evelyn Ward let her son find out about her divorce with Jack Cassidy that way.

When they were married, Jack lived in West Orange for free. She loved him even though he never was a good husband or a father. His career and his needs were the most important. He left her for a younger, glamorous girl, Shirley Jones, a beautiful and famous movie star. It was hard and painful and the divorce was his fault. He was the guilty party.

There is no good way to tell a child about divorce. But Evelyn Ward thought only about herself, it was an opportunity for revenge. David was nearly six years old when he heard about his parents’ divorce while playing with some friends out in the street, outside his grandparents’ house. Terrified and hurt, he ran home to his mother seeking comfort and reassurance that it was not true. She told him to ask his father about it when he came next week. And Jack confirmed, ‘Yes, we are divorced’. Just like that.

Did Evelyn want to punish Jack this way ? She obviously didn’t think about her young son and how to help him get to terms with this situation. They should have told him together.

For the rest of his life, David Cassidy had problems with trusting people and was sure that, sooner or later, everyone would leave him. Like Jack did. To avoid pain, he tried not to be involved. He often was the first to leave a relationship or a friendship. He preferred to trust his instinct rather than people, even those who wished him well. He didn’t believe that people really liked him. So many times in his life he felt like a failure.

The moment his father confirmed what he’d heard was true, had terrible consequences. “Whatever problems I have today with trusting people, whatever problems I have with dealing with rejection, with loss - and I’m hypersensitive about abandonment, about needing people around me to be consistent and loving - have their origins in that moment.”(4)

1. October 17, 2002, Daily Racing Forum

2.https://www.davidcassidy.com/fansite/TvFilmPages/1985SaturdayPictureShow.html

3.David Cassidy :’Could It Be Forever ?’, 2007, p.18

4.David Cassidy : Could It Be Forever?, 2007, p.5

Chapter 2

https://talkingaboutdavid.blogspot.com/2023/04/love-is-all-that-i-ever-needed-david_13.html?m=1

Chapter 3

https://talkingaboutdavid.blogspot.com/2023/04/love-is-all-that-i-ever-needed-david_22.html

Chapter 4

https://talkingaboutdavid.blogspot.com/2023/04/love-is-all-that-i-ever-needed-chapter.html?m=1

Chapter 5

https://talkingaboutdavid.blogspot.com/2023/04/love-is-all-that-i-ever-needed-chapter_24.html