Exploring David Cassidy’s final days
Come on, get (un)happy! Proving once again that celebrity and morbidity mix in all the worst ways, “Biography” presents “David Cassidy: The Last Session” (9 p.m., A&E, TV-14) exhuming tapes of the former teen heartthrob’s last recording sessions and revealing yet more sad details about his demise.
Few television stars qualify for the description “overnight sensation,” but Cassidy graduated from a minor acting career to worldwide fame with his appearance on “The Partridge Family” in 1970. For several years, Cassidy was an object of desire for millions of post-adolescents and a genuine pop sensation.
“Biography” uses Cassidy’s own words as well as never-before-heard audio tapes from 1976 to describe the actor’s decades-long efforts to move beyond “Partridge Family” fame.
We’re also present at his final recording session, where he was making “Songs My Father Taught Me,” dedicated to his late father, actor Jack Cassidy, a veteran of Broadway, movies and television.
Like his father, Cassidy struggled with alcoholism for years. In this valedictory interview, he explains that reports of his battle with dementia were but a smokescreen to hide the alcohol poisoning behind his sudden and highly visible decline. He died last November.
PROHIBITION HISTORY
Smithsonian presents “Drinks, Crime and Prohibition” (8 p.m.), a two-part glance at a peculiar social experiment that resonates to this day. The second episode airs next Monday, June 18.
“Drinks” surveys the 50-year struggle to enact Prohibition, a campaign against consumption of alcohol that was the culture war of its day.
The “dry” temperance movement combined elements that vaguely correspond to the right- and leftwing politics of our time. On one hand, the movement to ban alcohol was an outgrowth of the 19th-century women’s movement, an effort to protect wives, mothers and children from violent, drunken men. But the movement also reflected fears of a changing America and an effort to stem the tide of urban immigrants with their Irish saloons, German beer gardens and Italian vineyards.
Like many sweeping laws, Prohibition had vast unintended consequences. The end of the liquor industry and its tax revenue necessitated the federal income tax. Enforcing Prohibition expanded the jurisdiction of federal authority to every home.
A surprising triumph of a 19th-century moral crusade, Prohibition arrived as 20th-century modernity was in full swing. With millions driving cars for the first time, listening to the radio and dancing to jazz, the Christian rectitude of the temperance movement began to seem antique, absurd and increasingly irrelevant. And few predicted how forcing alcohol into the black market would prove a boon to organized crime.
“Drink” mixes historical reenactments with period footage and photographs and features interviews with a range of authorities — from historians to mixologists and cocktail scholars. Chief among them is Daniel Okrent, whose “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” (2010, Scribner) is among the best historical books I’ve read in some time.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› Auditions continue on “So You Think You Can Dance” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14).
› If required, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors meet in Game 5 of the NBA Finals (9 p.m., ABC), with pregame entertainment from “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-14) and “NBA Countdown” (8:30 p.m., ABC). If there’s no game, look for repeats of “The Bachelorette” (8 p.m.) and “The $100,000 Pyramid” (10 p.m.)
› “People Magazine Investigates: Cults” (9 p.m., ID, TV-14) recalls Jim Jones and the Jonestown mass suicide.
› The violent, vigilante “Jennifer” campaign continues on “Dietland” (9 p.m., AMC, TV-14). AMC continues the conversation about “Dietland” with “Unapologetic With Aisha Tyler” (10 p.m., TV-14).
› A serial killer strikes close to home on “Elementary” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
› Zac Efron goes “Running Wild With Bear Grylls” (8 p.m., NBC, repeat, TV-PG).
› All-stars reign on “American Ninja Warrior” (9 p.m., NBC, repeat, TV-PG).
Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin. tvguy@gmail.com.