Ex-teen heart-throb’s riches to rags life ends
UNITED STATES: David Cassidy, a singer and actor whose androgynous features and jaunty voice made him a 1970s teen heartthrob on the The Partridge Family television show, died yesterday aged 67.
Cassidy, who was diagnosed with dementia in his 60s, entered a Florida hospital over the weekend and succumbed to organ failure.
His family said Cassidy died surrounded by loved ones ‘‘with joy in his heart and free from the pain that had gripped him for so long’’.
With a look that emulated many rock stars of the day, Cassidy was cast at 19 in The Partridge Family for his sex appeal to girls, not his singing.
When the show’s producers discovered Cassidy’s melodious voice, he became the lead singer in the family band.
He played the teenager Keith Partridge whose widowed mother – portrayed by his stepmother, Shirley Jones – formed a touring pop band with her offspring, travelling to gigs in a multi-coloured bus.
The sitcom produced a number of hit songs, including I Think I Love You, which reached No 1 on the Billboard chart in 1970, the year the show debuted.
The Oscar-winning Jones was his mentor as well as his co-star, and the two remained friends and collaborators long after the show ended in 1974.
On his own, as a performer who played guitar and piano in addition to singing, Cassidy sold millions of copies of his debut album, Cherish, in 1972. He drew large crowds of mostly teen and pre-teen girls at concerts around the world.
The fandom surrounding Cassidy approached the hysteria of Beatlemania a decade earlier and culminated in a stampede at a 1974 show in London. Hundreds were injured, and a 14-year-old girl caught in the crush died days later. Cassidy announced he would not stage another global concert tour.
Cassidy was born in New York in 1950 to actors Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward, and he announced his interest in show business at age 3, when he was coming home in a taxi from seeing his father in a stage show.
He continued to record albums after The Partridge Family, with sporadic success. He also performed in musical theatre but he struggled financially and declared bankruptcy in 2015.
Cassidy also confessed to abusing drugs and alcohol and was arrested multiple times for driving under the influence.
Cassidy told People magazine he was in denial for a time about his dementia. ‘‘But a part of me always knew this was coming,’’ he said.
He was married three times and is survived by his son, Beau, and his daughter, Katie, who have careers in show business.
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