David Cassidy, Heartthrob and ‘Partridge Family’ Star, Dies at 67
- 6 years ago
David Cassidy, Heartthrob and ‘Partridge Family’ Star, Dies at 67
Reviewing the 1972 concert at Madison Square Garden, held on a Saturday afternoon, Don Heckman wrote in
that the show “was less a musical event than a love feast, less a concert than a symbolic announcement of what pop music might become.”
“The focus of it all,” he added, “was David Cassidy, singer
and star of television’s ‘The Partridge Family’ and the current idol of almost every 13‐year‐old girl in America.”
Referring to the fans in the audience, Mr. Heckman added, “I suspect
that their affection had more to say about the manipulative powers of television and recordings than it did about David Cassidy.”
After “The Partridge Family” ended, Mr. Cassidy pursued an on-and-off acting and music career.
David Cassidy, the actor, singer and teen heartthrob best known as the band member with the green eyes
and the feathered haircut on “The Partridge Family,” the 1970s television show about a family band, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
His publicist, Jo-Ann Geffen, said the cause was liver failure.
According to an online biography of the Partridge Family by Ed Hogan, Mr. Cassidy
and his co-star and real-life stepmother, the Academy Award-winning actress Shirley Jones, were the only cast members on the television show heard on the group’s records — Mr. Cassidy as a lead vocalist and Ms. Jones on background vocals.
Mr. Cassidy rose to fame on “The Partridge Family” playing Keith Partridge, the eldest of five children in a family
that forms a band and goes on tour in a multicolored bus.
Reviewing the 1972 concert at Madison Square Garden, held on a Saturday afternoon, Don Heckman wrote in
that the show “was less a musical event than a love feast, less a concert than a symbolic announcement of what pop music might become.”
“The focus of it all,” he added, “was David Cassidy, singer
and star of television’s ‘The Partridge Family’ and the current idol of almost every 13‐year‐old girl in America.”
Referring to the fans in the audience, Mr. Heckman added, “I suspect
that their affection had more to say about the manipulative powers of television and recordings than it did about David Cassidy.”
After “The Partridge Family” ended, Mr. Cassidy pursued an on-and-off acting and music career.
David Cassidy, the actor, singer and teen heartthrob best known as the band member with the green eyes
and the feathered haircut on “The Partridge Family,” the 1970s television show about a family band, died on Tuesday in a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
His publicist, Jo-Ann Geffen, said the cause was liver failure.
According to an online biography of the Partridge Family by Ed Hogan, Mr. Cassidy
and his co-star and real-life stepmother, the Academy Award-winning actress Shirley Jones, were the only cast members on the television show heard on the group’s records — Mr. Cassidy as a lead vocalist and Ms. Jones on background vocals.
Mr. Cassidy rose to fame on “The Partridge Family” playing Keith Partridge, the eldest of five children in a family
that forms a band and goes on tour in a multicolored bus.