THE owner of this sofa will be sitting with the superstars for the rest of his or her life. It was one of two settees backstage during the Summer Pops, and has has been covered with autographs from some of the world's biggest names.

            Now the ECHO is offering its readers, businesses on Merseyside, and music fans all over the world the chance to bid for the sofa over the internet - to boost the ECHO's Sunrise Fund, which helps charities all over the region.

            Paul Simon, Elton John, BB King, Shirley Bassey, David Cassidy, Tony Bennett, Meat Loaf and Boy George are just a few of the names to have signed the sofas.

            And one has been donated to us by the Furniture Outlet Village, of Liver Industrial Estate in Long Lane, Aintree.

            Joe Kershaw, who runs the company with brother Phil, said: "When we supplied furniture to the dressing rooms at the Summer Pops we agreed with CMP Entertainment that the two sofas would be a brilliant ideal to raise money for charity.

            "One went to the CMP for their appeal and we had one which we wanted to donate to local charities - and what better way than through the ECHO's Sunrise Fund.

            "We are local lads from West Derby, the ECHO is local and to think local charities will benefit is something we are proud of.

            Joe, 41, and brother Phil, 44, have been in the furniture business for 12 years and they say the sofa will be on display in their shop at Unit G4, at Liver Industrial Estate, so people can see what they're bidding for.

            Phil added: "We will have it sectioned off in the store  because it is a star in its own right - a VIS - Very Important Sofa.  We're sure people will come along to photograph it because it is priceless. We will deliver it anywhere on Merseyside."

            Liverpool ECHO editor Mark Dickinson said: "This is a fantastic gesture from Joe and Phil and we're delighted they've chosen the Sunrise Fund to support. "Anyone can bid from individuals to companies and whoever buys it will be owning a piece of history."

         How to bid

            BIDDING for the unique sofa starts at a reserve price of £2002 - to mark the fact that it was created during the 2002 Summer Pops.

            And to show what a fantastic item it is, Liverpool Film Studios boss, Colin McKeown, has put in the first bid at the asking price.

            Bids open on Wednesday, August 14 on the Liverpool ECHO website: www.icliverpool.co.uk

            Bids for the sofa will be accepted online at www.icliverpool.co.uk from Wednesday, August 14, until bids close midnight on  August 21.

         Sofa so good

            ONE woman who can vouch for the appeal of the signed sofa is Claudia Hartley, a legal executive from New Brighton.

            She was lucky enough to win the sister sofa in the Summer Pops grand raffle on the final night of the month-long festival.

            Claudia, who won the sofa after going to see Paul Simon show perform, told the ECHO: "My friends couldn't believe it.

            "I was imagining all the stars who have signed it from David Cassidy to Shirley Bassey and, of course, THE Paul Simon himself.

            "There were plenty of big names so many to choose from a who's who of superstars.

            "It will be great as an attraction when visitors come to my house. I will make sure it is on display but I do need to keep the cats away from it they don't know how valuable it is."

            The raffle was the idea of Michael Bentwood a racing driver managed by Summer Pops promoter Chas Cole.

            It raised £3,100 for Professor Sid Watkins, as the  Formula 1 medical delegate and a leading neuro-surgeon.

            Michael Bentwood said : "We wanted to highlight Sid's life -saving work to people back home in his native Liverpool and felt this was the perfect way to combine Chas Cole's twin passions of music and motor-racing."
 

Katie Cassidy has defied her dad by making a new version of David's first hit single. She tells Peter Robertson why

THE TEENAGE love-child of Seventies pop idol David Cassidy is making her own bid for pop stardom - and Daddy does not approve. Katie Cassidy, 15, is trying to launch her singing career with the same song, I Think I Love You, which made her father's name 32 years ago.

"I recorded I Think I Love You and got a record deal because I wanted to do it on my own and didn't want him to help or have anything to do with it, " Katie explains. "After I did it, I told him and he doesn't think I should be doing it. He hasn't given a reason. I think it's because he wants me to be 18.

"It hurts, because he's my father and all fathers should support what their child does. He doesn't really know how. He could say: 'I don't approve of you doing this but I'll support your decision, ' instead of saying: 'No, I don't want to have anything to do with this, I don't support you, you shouldn't be doing this.' He's supposed to be a father. He knows my mum would never let me do something that's going to hurt me or change me."

Katie's mother is Sherry Benedon, a 49-year-old former model and actress who met David Cassidy in June 1970 when she auditioned for a part in The Partridge Family, the TV series which turned him into a heart-throb and superstar.

Sherry, who appeared in episodes of Hawaii Five-O and The Love Boat, recalls: "I didn't get the job on The Partridge Family but David took me out to dinner that night. He was really cute and charming. I wasn't interested in  the part any more; I was just interested in the cute boy."

Sherry went on to enjoy an on-off relationship with Cassidy in the Seventies and Eighties, a period in which he was married twice (to Kay Lenz and Meryl-Ann Tanz) and she was married once. "I was divorced from my husband, Dean, when I had Katie. When I told David I was pregnant he was OK with it but he had some difficulty adjusting to the concept of being a father."

Sherry has two daughters - Jaime, 20, and Jenna, 18 - by Dean. When Katie was born, on November 25, 1986, David was in England. "He saw Katie as a baby but I don't want to get into detail about how often, " she says.

Katie remembers things differently. "I've known him since fourth grade."

Sherry, who has been with her second husband, physician Richard Benedon, since Katie was four (they married in 1991), adds: "Richard has been the person raising Katie with me. She calls him Dad also.

In my opinion, David's lifestyle is not conducive to children and I would never have raised my kids in the lifestyle that an entertainer lives."

Sherry, Richard, Jaime, Jenna and Katie live in a gated community in Calabasas, just outside Los Angeles, a few hours away from David's luxury six-bedroom mansion in Las Vegas, where he lives with his current wife, songwriter Sue Shifrin, and their 11-year-old son, Beau. "David supports Katie financially but perhaps not as he should do and is able to, " Sherry reveals.

David Cassidy has rarely said anything publicly about Katie. In fact, although she looks far more like him than his son does, it is as if Beau is his only child. His website, www.davidcassidy. com, which does not mention her, contains links to many related websites but noticeably not to www.katiecassidy. org.

When David was the subject of an edition of ITV's Stars In Their Lives recently, he was joined in the studio by Beau but no mention was made of Katie.

In a recent interview, having raved about Beau, he was asked if he would have liked to have had any more children and replied: "No. I'm happy. My personal feeling is that less is more in terms of the quality time that you can spend. You have to spread yourself too thin with too many kids."

SHERRY admits she has been partly responsible for the secrecy surrounding Katie. "For years I had an agreement with David that Katie would not be brought into his public life. I have wanted it that way because she has had a very normal childhood and a wonderful, stable foundation. Only in the past few years has he been talking about her at all. But once she started doing her music, he hasn't been as supportive as she would like. He wishes she was older because of the circumstances of being an entertainer at such a young age.

"I agree with him but he can only base his decisions on his experiences. I just feel that the stability and criteria that my husband and I have is different to what he was used to. David was raised in a show business family; Katie was raised in an everyday atmosphere but Katie has her own agenda much different to his."

Katie agrees. "My dad needs to know that my mum does what's right for me and she's not going to allow something bad to happen. I was raised differently to him, I'm planning on going to college and I'm planning on having a family.

"I'll also be going a different route because I'm not on a TV show and I'll handle things differently.

When he was going into it, he thought it was his career for life but I'm not thinking like that."

In what could be construed as a thinly veiled dig at David's self-confessed battle with alcohol in the past (he now says "drink 
doesn't work for me"),Katie adds: "When things go bad, I look and say: 'Maybe there'll be bumps in the road, ' but I try to turn all the negatives into positive things because you have to keep your head high and not let it stress you out." Asked if she thinks her father has been stressed out by show business, she replies:

"Definitely. I think it's because he's older and it's his career and life but this is something I do for fun."

Does she think the idea of her pursuing a show business career stresses him out? "I'm sure it does but I don't know if he would admit it."

Sherry says she has never been a David Cassidy fan and hasn't brought Katie up on his music. "He gave me one album but I don't even remember the name of it. I was more interested in him as a person. We didn't even have a copy of The Partridge Family's I Think I Love You until a friend of Katie recently gave her one."

KATIE says: "I've never watched The Partridge Family but I've seen stuff about him on TV. Music back then was a lot different. He's a really good entertainer and performer but I don't know if people my age would watch." The fact that Katie is trying to establish her own pop career with the song that was her father's debut hit single may be interpreted by some as an attempt to wind him up but she insists it's coincidental.

"I never thought I was going to be a singer. I thought I'd enjoy acting more, but I met the producer Joel Diamond at a drugstore near my home and we started talking. He said he wanted to hear me sing and Mum told him who my dad was.

He said: 'That's so weird!' because he'd just finished cutting I Think I Love You for someone to record.

It made me feel like I was supposed to record it.

When I told my dad, he was OK with it and when he heard it about two months ago, he said it was cool. I don't think it matters what song I'm singing.

I think it's more that I'm doing it. The only thing he's said is: 'I want you to know this is a hard business, and there are ups and downs in it.' " Being the daughter of a former pop icon is, says Katie, "an advantage and a disadvantage. Yes, it helps get your foot in the door but I get questions as though it's about him and me, when really I feel it's more about me. I know I'm going to get questions about him - I remade his song and I'm his daughter."

Did she think about using a different surname?

"No, because that's my name. I'm hoping that after this people will start buying my singles not because I'm David Cassidy's daughter but because I'm a new artist and they've heard my song and like it.

"I'm going back into the studio to record more songs in August, so I'll be able to go out on tour.

Hopefully I'll have another single in September."

Another David Cassidy song perhaps? "No, I'm definitely not going to record any more of his songs."

Katie's recording of I Think I Love You is a dance track, reminiscent of Britney Spears.

Released by Artemis records, it is available on the Internet but has yet to rank in the US charts. Katie recently made her first public appearance at BB King's Club in California's Universal Studios. This autumn she will appear in the TV documentary Pop Rocks and hopes to release an album in February.

Would she like to be as successful as her father?

"Hopefully, but I'll do it my own way. I want people to look up to me, for me to have a voice to say what I think - and hopefully my dad will be supportive by then. If my biological father doesn't want to have a relationship with me it'll hurt but I have a stepfather who's basically my father. He's been my parent for 11 years."
 

Former teen idol David Cassidy yesterday announced an Australian tour. He plays at Vodafone Arena on November 11. Cassidy, a former Partridge Family member and 1970s heart-throb, is a reborn theatre and musical star.

Tickets for Cassidy's show go on sale on September 6.
 

David Cassidy is here next month to promo a concert tour in November. 
 

NEW YORK (AP) - After spending five years chronicling the rise, fall, and redemption of rock's biggest and wackiest stars, "Behind the Music" narrator Jim Forbes admits there are some phrases he gets sick of repeating. 

No, it's not the now famous line about hitting "rock bottom." 

"You know the line that's always bugged me? 'He or she was only X years old when he or she died,'" Forbes says with a laugh. "Well, you always want to live longer. 

"I fight so hard not to become a caricature of myself, and not to become a cliche, and to deliver those lines with sincerity." 

Despite — or perhaps because of — its sometimes predictable formula, the VH1 biography series has become one of television's most copied and parodied shows. 

'"Behind the Music' in five years has already managed to make it to `The Simpsons.' Need we say more?" said Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. The animated show won an Emmy for its satire episode, "The Simpsons: Behind the Laughter." 

Not only is "Behind the Music" VH1's longest running show, it is also the low-rated network's most consistent ratings grabber; it's currently running neck-and-neck with another biography show, "Driven," as VH1's most popular program. 

Next week, the channel celebrates "Behind the Music's" five-year anniversary with a marathon including some of its most popular and notorious episodes, hosted by the comedian Cedric the Entertainer. 

There's Shania Twain's tearful account of her parents' deaths; MC Hammer's account of his fall from stardom to bankruptcy; and Leif Garrett's awkward reunion with the friend paralyzed in an accident Garrett caused. 

"It's exploitation reality TV," Garrett says somewhat derisively. Yet he admits that his "Behind the Music" episode helped rekindle interest in his forgotten musical career. 

"The timing was really good, so it did help for sure getting people to see what I am doing now." 

Although "Behind the Music" has profiled stars such as Twain, Faith Hill and Madonna, it got its start profiling those whose luster had dimmed. The show's first subject was Milli Vanilli, the pop duo disgraced for lip-syncing to other people's voices. 

The series "came out of questions that were asked like, 'What ever happened to Milli Vanilli?'" says George Moll, its executive producer. "We didn't know exactly what the show was going to be, but we thought that there was a good documentary." 

The caveat was that the subjects had to cooperate and be willing to delve into uncomfortable topics. Fabrice Morvan of Milli Vanilli, trying to put the scandal behind him, wasn't sure he wanted to go into it again. 

"After a while, I think I felt comfortable enough to do it ... and we came to realize that maybe it would be a good thing. It would be the first interview all by myself," said Morvan. "A week after, the people on the streets were like, 'Hey man, keep doing your thing,' very supportive." 

Getting faded stars to reveal intimate secrets wasn't that difficult. Persuading successful stars like Sean "P. Diddy" Combs or Lenny Kravitz to delve into the messier aspects of their lives was more of a challenge, says Moll. 

"When we first started out, we went to artists who would give us great access ... and a lot of those acts were well beyond their prime," he says. "It took some time to get people like Madonna, Cher and people like that on board." 

Still, among the most popular "Behind the Music" episodes are those featuring C-list stars, such as David Cassidy, the Monkees and MC Hammer. 

"If you lift the celebrity element out of the story, is it still a great human drama," Moll says. 

And that makes good television, says Thompson. 

"As a professor and an academic, I would have no problem assigning several `Behind the Music' episodes to students, putting them on reserve at the library," he says. "It's a step or two higher than the average 'Where-are-they-now' documentary." 

Since "Behind the Music" first aired in 1997, biography series have proliferated: Lifetime's "Intimate Portrait" and MTV's "Diary," among others. 

But Moll says "Behind the Music" is more revealing than many. 

"There's a lot of stories that had never been told before ... we even had band members say, 'I never knew that happened to my bandmate!'" 

Over the past few years, the show has shifted from older, baby-boom performers to more contemporary acts; among recent subjects are Aaliyah, Dr. Dre and No Doubt. 

But don't expect an 'N Sync or Britney Spears edition anytime soon. 

"It's hard to do a story on an artist who's 20 years old and who has two records and grew up in the suburbs," Moll says. 

"But I'll do Eminem in a heartbeat. It's about the backstory." 
 

Ricci Martin, the son of Dean Martin and author of the recent memoir "That's Amore," will move into the Riviera's Le Bistro Theatre on Sept. 6 with a tribute to his dad.

Martin was part of the confusion surrounding the fate of "The Rat Pack Is Back" tribute show last March. TV Guide reported Martin was joining the cast, and Martin told people he was learning the show before contract renewal talks fell apart between producer David Cassidy and the Sahara.

His 11:30 p.m. show at Le Bistro will not be an impersonation, but will serve up a lot of stories about his father. Martin's drummer will be Billy Hinsche, who was the "Billy" in Dino, Desi and Billy, the 1965-era pop trio that included Ricci's late brother Dean Paul and Boulder City's own Desi Arnaz Jr.  (Mike Weatherford's entertainment column)