Love Is All That I Ever Needed. Chapter 13. A Teen Idol Love Life..
David still had some concerts to play in November and early December of 1971. He could look
with pride at what he achieved.
Nearly all his albums and singles recorded for The Partridge
Family were in Top 10. He became a superstar, a teen idol. He earned a lot of money and was
a millionaire at the age of 21.
In October his pic was on the cover of Life, one of the most
prestigious and popular magazines in the country. Inside a long article was published about
him and more glossy photographs were included.
But he was tired and suffered because of lack of privacy. Even at home. Fans discovered
where he lived, and some people slept outside the gate, trying to get inside. No one was in
control of it, and sometimes when David returned home from work there was a party going on.
Girls were often waiting for him in the pool. He liked girls, enjoyed their company and he really
liked sex, but he was worried about the security. David lost some things, which were probably
stolen. Among the lost items was the gold record he got for ‘I Think I Love You’.
He bought a new, expensive house, he could afford it. The old stone house, with a guest
house behind it (Sam Hyman lived there), in Encino. At the time it was a suburb of Los
Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley. A two and a half acre estate with an orange orchard.
The beautiful rustic house with a lot of wood inside. There was a country feeling and David
truly loved this house and enjoyed decorating and even painting it himself.
He felt safe there.
There was an electric gate with a buzzer. No more uninvited guests. He had pets, dogs and
cats. A place to work and to rest. Home. At last.
Everybody was interested in David’s love life. Did he have that one special girl? Did he want
to marry? Why not? He was constantly asked about it. In teen magazines there were a lot of
articles about how unlucky in love he was.
Of course, it wasn’t without a reason. A teen idol
should be single and available. And David, like no other teen idol, was an object of love and
lust on a global scale. Millions of girls were dreaming of him. His fans, mostly very young girls,
but also boys, felt that he aroused in them feelings they couldn’t even define themselves.
Being his fan meant that it was also a kind of first sexual experience for many of this generation
of pre teens and teens from the first part of the 70s. David Cassidy knew about it very well.
Always.
Laurel Dann saw one of David’s concerts.’’Their (fans) eyes betrayed fondness for their idol
(..) Their adoration for David Cassidy is somehow sexual - naive, innocent, pure - but sexual,
nonetheless. And no one of these ladies looked older than 12.(..) I like him, his unpretentious
stance, his willingness to give up on himself. There is no arrogance there.(..) The ladies are
satisfied (after the concert) but somehow unfulfilled, but at the age of 12 they don’t really
understand what it is they want from David Cassidy. He does.(..) Half-child, he is gentle, soft,
innocent and sexy..unjaded but really very aware".
Everything about David was sexy. The way he looked. The way he moved. His voice. His
androgynous look. His beauty and sex appeal were used to manipulate millions of girls, who
were in love with him, to buy his records and everything that was manufactured because of
him.
He looked sweet and innocent. But in fact he had a lot of sex with countless girls and
women who followed him everywhere.
Bob Claver, The Partridge Family’s producer, was asked in a taped interview for a Television
Academy, how David Cassidy responded to his celebrity status. He laughed and answered :
‘He did what any young man would do. Took advantage of some of it. You can figure that out
for yourself. He had the manna from heaven in his dressing room.’
Not only there. "Every twenty minutes that I could get free would be spent with women. In my
dressing room, in the lot, in my car, anywhere (..) So much overt sexuality was being directed
at me, and I was extremely horny.(..) Sex was just sex. It presented itself to me numerous
times during the course of a day and I could take advantage of it or not."
David wrote a lot, especially in his first autobiography, about sex he had with groupies, and
older fans who were ready for any humiliation for the opportunity to spend a couple of minutes
with him.
Why did he write so much about it?
He wanted to write how it really was. That was obviously one of the reasons. That was the
70s. People had another attitude toward sex in that pre-AIDS era. He was a superstar and
that was what a lot of rock stars did. David wasn’t an exception.
After 20 years, in 1994 when
his first book was published he remembered some of those sex adventures with a smile, and
even pride. The night he spent with four Playboy models at the Playboy Mansion, or that
famous groupie, Barbara - the Butter Queen, wanted to meet with him. It was like every man’s
dream come true. And David Cassidy always loved women and sex.
But he also wrote about it so much because probably he knew himself that those countless,
meaningless encounters with strangers, and mostly it was oral sex, were one of the reasons
he had such problems having a successful, serious relationship with one woman. Groupies
didn’t love the real David. He was a sex object, and he knew it. He was prey for many. Some
groupies later boasted that they had him and sold to the press intimate details about their
encounters.
Before he became famous, David had a friendly attitude towards everybody. However, two
years of being a teen idol made him very distrustful. There were so many people who wanted
to meet him only because he was famous and rich. They wanted to be seen with a celebrity,
or wanted him for his money or sex.
David wrote that sex was a kind of compensation because
he couldn’t have a normal life. That he wasn't cruel and no one was hurt.
Except David.
Also because even sex became boring. It was a custom that his security men
while on tour, gathered in one room some beautiful girls, and David chose one for himself. But
he got used to it, and he said that he started playing games where only his fulfillment was
important. He knew they literally would do anything for him, the limit was only his imagination.
‘Finally I realized I was losing touch with my own sexuality’.
David was seen with some girls who accompanied him at Hollywood galas or parties.
When asked about them or when he was going to marry, he usually answered that he had no
time to be involved and very seldom dated the same girl more than once.
He was very open about his opinions on marriage and sex and wasn't afraid to speak his mind.
His courage in expressing his own views surprised the journalist from Movieland and TV Time
magazine. David told him :
’For me there will be no marriage till I know the girl intimately. First of all, a good part of
marriage is sex so sexual compatibility is important. (..) I would like to live with a girl for six
months or so to see if we are compatible.’
In 1971 some articles and photographs were published with David and a popular starlet of
many tv shows, Judy Strangis. A child actress, she took a break in her career to finish high
school when she was 16. At Rexford she met Kevin Hunter (who became her boyfriend) and
David. After Kevin died (on November 15, 1970), she dated David for a while, but it seems
they were primarily just good friends.
Judy said about David :’I’ve always had a crush on David. My boyfriend Kevin knew about
it.(..) We were at a party at ABC one night, I hadn't seen him for about a year and we ran into
each other. It was before TPF(..) Dating David is a really wonderful experience. He is intelligent
(..) He’s a complete gentleman.(..) We usually go to private parties. We went to Dave
Madden’s place in Malibu (..) David is definitely Aries. He’s very independent. Extremely
charming and considerate. Sensitive, understanding and very easy to talk to. I love his eyes
because they look so honest and they’re very, very sexy (..) He’s not ready to get serious and
I’m not either’.
Judy gave a very long and sincere interview about her friendship with Kevin Hunter and David
Cassidy for TVRadio Mirror magazine. How David was worried about Kevin because of his
addiction, and asked him to be his and Sam’s roommate at Laurel Canyon.
David dated Robyn Millan, who played Dora Kelly on Season 2’s first episode, and Federica
Meyers (or it was only a photo session with that model and aspiring actress), Karen Valentine,
from a popular tv show Room 222, and Sherry Benedon who auditioned for a role in The
Partridge Family in June 1970. And many more, but the only really important one was Meredith
Baxter.
David fell in love with her when he was 13. In 1971 they met again on the set of The Partridge
Family. She was 24 and divorced with two small children. She embodied everything he was
looking for in the ideal woman. Meredith was 3 years older, very beautiful, had long blond hair,
wonderful big eyes. She was warm and funny, smart and very independent. Bold and
determined. A hippie kind of girl. She loved music and played the guitar.
David was in love.
Meredith liked him very much.
She wrote about David in her autobiography that he was very
sweet and they laughed a lot. She found him touching, but probably not very mature for a real,
serious relationship.
She always was looking for men she could crash with and fight with. As we know Meredith
Baxter after three divorces, had her coming out as a lesbian in 2009, and in 2013 married a woman. David was gentle and polite, worshiped her, and also was extremely busy in 1971.
He simply had no time, even if he genuinely was in love. He also didn’t know how to reconcile
work and personal life.
Meredith expected more mature decisions and wanted him to spend
more time with her. Instead she read in newspapers about David’s concerts and him meeting
with other women.
It didn’t help their relationship that at the end of the year he lived in a hotel with a bodyguard
because of a kidnapping threat. When after a month, he returned home to normal life, Meredith
broke up with him. She fell in love with someone else.
David had a broken heart, and was
really unhappy. He called his later dates ‘temporary replacements’, and it took him some years
to get over Meredith.
6 David Cassidy : Could It Be Forever?’, 2007, p.146
David Cassidy, Chip Deffaa :’C’mon, Get Happy. Fear and Loathing on The Partridge Family Bus
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