Love Is All That I Ever Needed. Chapter 31. Shaun, Petula And..Susan..
On July 12, 1993, on the Today Show, while talking with the program’s host, Katie Couric,
known TV personality and David’s fan, he had the guitar, but it was a new David Cassidy.
Slimmer, with shorter hair, he wore a black jacket and white shirt. Looked younger, very
boyish, happy and vulnerable. He was so happy because he was to return on Broadway for
the third time.
In June a very known English producer, Bill Kenwright asked David to come to New York to
see a musical, ‘Blood Brothers’.
Written by a famous Willy Russell in 1983, it became very popular in the UK, but not so on
Broadway where the show premiered in April 1993.
The British cast had to leave anyway, and
Bill Kenwright first persuaded Petula Clark to accept the role of Mrs Johnston.
Petula Clark, born in 1932, a multi talented singer, started her career as a child on BBC radio
and became a global star in the 60s. She was also a TV, film and stage actress, a perfectionist
and a dedicated professional.
Petula and David liked each other from the start. Even more,
there was a mutual admiration and understanding between them.
At first Bill Kenwright wanted him to be the Narrator, but David knew what role he wanted and
should play. Mickey Johnston. Bill agreed, and an idea appeared that maybe Shaun would
play the second brother.
When he retired as a teen idol in 1980, Shaun Cassidy performed on stage and TV, and in the
90s started a new career as a screenwriter and producer. At the time, he was just
recovering from a painful divorce, and at first refused.
The role of Eddie Johnston was Shaun’s
last on stage.
For David and Shaun, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work and, first of all, spend a
lot of time together. To get to know each other on the adult level. David was always a great
big brother, but when he became a superstar, he simply had no time for his step brothers, and
later was busy with his career.
The roles in ‘Blood Brothers’ were a serious commitment and
they had to move to New York for several months. They rented apartments there - David a
bigger one for himself, Sue, Beau and his nanny.
David and Shaun's joint appearance on ‘Blood Brothers’, on Broadway, was a big sensation.
They gave a lot of interviews for TV and press. In one of them they were asked if they were
alike. David said yes, both were sarcastic, but also generous, sensitive and creative. Who had
a bigger ego? Shaun said that David had. David added that he was not in competition with his
younger brother, they never had such problems.
Their debut on ‘Blood Brothers’ was on August 16. It was an amazing coincidence that in the
theater just next to The Music Box Theatre in which the musical was shown, at the same time
was the revival of 'She Loves Me’, a play for which Jack Cassidy got a Tony Award.
For David the role of Mickey Johnston was a comeback he was dreaming of for many years.
A serious, dramatic role which showed both his acting and vocal skills. He said: ’I’m really
coming up as an adult. The role has been a very important part of my evolution and growing. I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel to have had the opportunity and how much I’ve loved the
experience. I feel part of the theater community again.’
And no one knew that David Cassidy had serious health problems. During the rehearsals, he tore
both his hamstrings and was taking Advil every day. He didn’t want anybody to know that he
had terrible back and neck aches.
‘Blood Brothers’ was a very peculiar musical. From a review : ‘By rights, Willy Russell’s ‘Blood Brothers’
shouldn’t work. It’s a contemporary prince and pauper musical tragedy set in Liverpool. It
overruns by a quarter, boasts two songs of any worth, no dancing, grown actors playing
children.(..) it wipes me away without fail, every time.(..) David is a gusty revelation as the poor
but plucky Mickey, navigating the path from exuberant youth to depressed adulthood with a
depth of feeling we never knew he had in him. The price of David Cassidy’s hard earned
maturity is that it makes us feel oh-so old.’
And one more review: ’Cassidy shows that he can act, playing Mickey as a 7-year old
ragamuffin without resorting to cute stereotypes and growing before everyone’s eyes into a
tongue-tied adolescent and finally a desperate young adult. (..) His singing opportunities are
few, but he uses them well, especially in a ‘Long, Long Sunday Afternoon’, a bluesy tune he
performs near the end of the first act.’
David Cassidy played Mickey Johnston more than 800 times, on Broadway, and while touring
with the show in the USA, Canada, and in the UK. He said: ‘I never once walked through it. I
never once disrespected the responsibility of playing that role.’
At the end of ‘Blood Brothers’ run he was offered his father’s most famous role on Broadway,
in ‘She Loves Me’, but David Cassidy always wanted to move forward, and as much as he
wanted, he had other plans.
The 70s became very popular again. The fashion, music and also The Partridge Family. There
were reruns of the show on TV. MTV even ran a Partridge Family marathon in July 1993.
There was a lot of talking about David Cassidy and his upcoming autobiography.
He was honored on the ‘This Is Your Life’ program, and David looked genuinely surprised by
it and very moved by the invited guests.
There were members of his family: his mother, wife,
son, his half brothers, Shirley Jones, Danny Bonaduce, there was the video greetings from
Petula Clark, and 106 year old George Abbott who gave David the first job in 1968.
There was
also Susan Dey in person, and their meeting was very emotional. They hugged, she had a
present for David and told him ‘I love you’. Everyone could see that Sue Shifrin wasn’t happy
about it, and also David looked a little bit confused by the situation and Susan's display of
emotions. At the end of the program, he sang a great version of ‘I Think I Love You’.
David had many projects, like always. He wrote a music theme for a popular sitcom ‘The John
Laroquette’. He was a guest on many talk shows. In May 1994 he told in an interview how
much his life had changed for the better because of his family. David said that he was ready to give everything of himself in his professional life, but: ‘My personal life is where I’ve always
been able to pull down the curtain.’ And it was true. David talked a lot about his career, his
problems, but he never gave names, and he did a lot of things undercover.
So David Cassidy's autobiography, ‘C’mon Get Happy, Fear And Loathing On The Partridge
Family Bus’, written with the help of Chip Deffaa, and published in June 1994, was truly
sensational. It became a bestseller and the talk of the town. David was invited everywhere to
the most famous American talk shows. He became a real celebrity.
He promoted his book at the main American bookstores. There were notes in the press that
he kept his fans at the distance. No pictures, no handshakes, no autographs. He just signed
his book, and that’s all.
David changed. He became very businesslike and tense. His eyes
were sad also because he simply suffered physical pain. He earned a lot of money on ‘Blood
Brothers’, but performing everyday was very demanding.
So what did David Cassidy write in his book? He said: “When you agree to tell the truth about
something you’ve got to say ‘I’m not going to tell a little lie here.” Everyone who bought his book (Warner Books $11,99) could read that when a teen David did
a lot of drugs, was kicked out of high school (more than once), loved sex from a very early
age, and Jack Cassidy was a terrible father and a bisexual alcoholic. He revealed that he was
in love with Meredith Baxter, got to know Gina Lollobrigida, spent a night with four girls at the
Playboy Mansion, and generally had sex everywhere and with a lot of strangers.
That he was
used and was working like a slave while being a teen idol. He also wrote about Susan Dey.
Something he later regretted. He disclosed that she had a crush on him and wanted to have
sex. And David wrote in detail about their unsuccessful night together.
There was one sentence about Susan Dey which everybody wrote and talked about. ‘She
lacked the slutty aspect of a female I always found so attractive.’
Susan said in an interview for TV Guide: “I found it to be a tremendous, terrible violation. And
tacky. Real tacky. My first reaction was - 'that poor desperate soul’, because I was asked to
write a book like that years ago, and I said, ‘No, that’s not what I want to do.”. Susan said that
a book would not affect their relationship. ‘There is no relationship.’
Writing about the sexual encounter with Susan was very unexpected and difficult to explain.
David always said that for him she was like a younger sister, a dear friend, and he didn’t write
about having sex with any other known person he dated during his life. We would never know
the reasons he had for including this memory in his book. We do know that he regretted it, and
it was the end of his friendship with Susan Dey. They never met again.
Chip Deffaa, the book ghost writer, after David died in November 2017, wrote a moving
memory about the times they worked together in the 90s. “Offstage, there was an enormous
sadness in him, a lot of insecurity, a lot of loneliness. When he was really depressed, really in
a dark mood, you really felt it. (..) I liked him and told him so. He responded, ‘You may like me now. When you get to know me better, you probably won’t like me so much, And you’ll probably
turn on me. Everybody does..’(..) He carried his hurts with him. In interviews he used his best
acting skills, offstage he was frank in saying that very little gave him satisfaction, that life was
a real struggle. The only happy memories he had were before he ever tasted fame…’
David Cassidy :’Could It Be Forever?”, 2007, p.380
Comments
Post a Comment