“You just don’t understand how big he was, Scotty! He was bigger than Elvis! Bigger than the Beatles!”
“Yeah, but that was a long time ago, Victor.”
“Doesn’t matter. Women still go crazy for him! Seriously! Even after all those years, they still throw their panties at him!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! …Of course, the women are a lot older now, so their panties are bigger: Now, when they throw ‘em, they slowly float down. Kind of like a parachute.”
About a dozen years ago, I worked with a gentleman named Victor B. He coordinated logistics with the musicians and entertainers our “corporate overlord” booked, and then he’d brief me on what to expect before I intro’d myself to their managers. By the time we got to David Cassidy, we had worked together on 40 or 50 different singers and comedians, so we had a pretty good feel for each other.
Victor was a little older than me and was fighting cancer. (Sadly, he passed away about 10 years ago.) But he had been around the music scene for a long time; it took a lot to impress him.
And he was VERY impressed with David Cassidy.
Victor worked with David decades earlier, and was chewing my ear off about it: “He’s amazing! You won’t believe how talented he is! Nobody works an audience better! You’re in for a real treat, Scotty!”
“The Partridge Family” aired from 1970 to 1974, so I was too young to remember it. I mean, I was aware of David Cassidy, but only in the context of him being the quintessential “teen idol” for my Mom’s Boomer-aged friends. (Susan Dey I knew a little better, since I was a fan of “LA Law.”) I had never seen a single episode of “The Partridge Family” before — or ever bought a David Cassidy album. Not my thing.
But right away, I could tell something was different: Boomers were going gaga for Cassidy!
In the PR world, you’re not “technically” supposed to bribe journalists. But it’s considered fair game to “trade creatively” with ‘em, so whenever we booked a big-name entertainer, I’d try to reserve a bunch of tickets for myself — so I could give ‘em away.
It was never a blatant quid pro quo: It was more like, after we’d do an interview somewhere, if the celeb and the journalist were hitting it off, I’d “free up” a few VIP tickets and invite ‘em backstage. No money ever traded hands, but the tickets still had financial value, of course. (And afterwards, I’d make sure our photographer got some nice pics of the journalist and/or their date with the celeb. Two or three days later, I’d email ‘em over. It helped cement my media relationships and ensure that the next celeb I pitched to ‘em would be treated well, too.)
Most journalists would happily grab all the freebies they could, but one reporter in particular — she worked at the Tampa Bay Times — adamantly refused every perk I offered. (And Lord, I tried!)
Until I offered her backstage passes to meet David Cassidy.
She was a liberal, go-for-the-jugular, no-nonsense reporter, who had tangled with my “corporate overlord” in the past. I liked her and respected her, but she was someone you needed keep your eye on; I wanted to get her on my side. Finally, I had discovered her weakness: Like millions of women of her generation, she had an unrequited schoolgirl crush on David Cassidy — and screw those journalistic ethics, she wasn’t gonna turn that down!
It was the only bribe she ever accepted from me.
After Victor had built up Cassidy as this ultra-talented musical prodigy, I was excited to watch him perform. And his audience was so excited! That’s the beauty of being at a live venue: You really do feed off the energy of the crowd.
But before the show even began, Victor was worried: When he went to say hi to him during warmups, Cassidy didn’t recognize him.
And they had worked together for years.
It was a bad show. Mentally, vocally, and physically, David Cassidy wasn’t there.
He was lost on stage.
We knew Cassidy had an issue with alcohol. He had been arrested for driving under the influence in the past and went public about it in 2008. A few years later, he announced that he had been diagnosed with dementia.
Naturally, there was an outpouring of love and support from his fans.
But before he died in 2017 of liver and kidney failure, Cassidy admitted that it was a lie: He never had dementia.
Instead, he was an unrepentant alcoholic. And remember how he told everyone he quit drinking?
He never quit.
“I have a liver disease,” he told A&E in one of his final interviews. “There is no sign of me having dementia at this stage of my life. It was complete alcohol poisoning. …The fact is that I lied about my drinking. I did this to myself to cover up the sadness and the emptiness.”
He was only 67.
Victor valiantly — and VERY courageously — fought against his cancer diagnosis until the very end. Instead of being sad and empty, he was brave and heroic. He gave it everything he had.
Cassidy chose a different path.
According to his daughter, Katie Cassidy, his last words were, “So much wasted time.”
From teen idol to cautionary tale.
And all that wasted time.
