"The Rat Pack Is Back" at the Sahara is scrambling to find a new "Frank" after the mutual agreement that Steve Lippia's last night as the Sinatra figure will be this Sunday. 

"I love the security and the camaraderie, but it also can become a bit confining at times," Lippia says of the revue he joined in the fall of 2000. 

Lippia has been getting offers to perform as a solo act in Atlantic City and with pops orchestras, but "Rat Pack" doesn't have a full-time understudy to give him the kind of vacation time he seeks. 

"We both have reasonable concerns," Lippia says of himself and the producers, entertainer David Cassidy and his partner Don Reo. "They've been frustrated because they're having trouble finding substitutes and they're not very accepting of anybody else coming in." 

And while "they treated me extremely well," Lippia says he realizes "the show itself is really the star no matter how great a job I try to do." 

Lippia already had a taste of solo stardom in November 1998, when a team of Frank Sinatra's '80s-era associates plucked him from the Florida country club circuit to headline an enclosed lounge at the Rio. 

The singer was contracted through the end of March, but the scheduling issue came to a head over dates he had booked before then. ... (Mike Weatherford's entertainment column) 
 

Fresh off the grapevine: 
I hear David Cassidy, co-producer of "The Rat Pack is Back!" (Sahara), has approached Bill Acosta about replacing Steve Lippia as Frank Sinatra's character. Lippia recently announced he is leaving the show. 

With Sheena Easton over at the Hilton, you have to give it to the girl! When she was at the Rio in the Copa show with David Cassidy, we were all wondering if she would have an audience for her solo performance. She has shown us that she is truly making the numbers work!
 

Growing up as the hottest teen-pop idol of the early '70s, and living to tell the tale, David Cassidy became a renaissance man. He parlayed his TV role as singer Keith Partridge into other acting parts and solo albums, reviving his career in the '90s with hit shows on Broadway and later in Las Vegas.

Now 51, Cassidy is again in demand -- as David Cassidy, pop idol.

Which, as Keith Partridge surely would say, is groovy. It's more gratifying than starring in a stage show, Cassidy said. "I'm there being me, and my fans are just there to see me." (Thanks to reruns, they aren't just the 30- and 40-somethings who once made Cassidy's fan club bigger than those of the Beatles or Elvis Presley.)

And while some celebrities chafe at the role that made them famous, Cassidy is happy to be remembered as the dreamy guy who rode around with his musical family (including real-life stepmom Shirley Jones) in a multicolored bus. "I love that," Cassidy said. "A lot of my material and a lot of my show is about celebrating that."

Indeed, his latest album is "Then and Now" -- a newly recorded collection of Partridge hits ("I Think I Love You," "I Woke Up in Love This Morning," "I Can Feel Your Heartbeat"), solo singles ("Cherish," "Rock Me Baby"), covers of old favorites ("How Can I Be Sure," "Cry" and an especially impressive "Ain't No Sunshine") and a few recent numbers ("Ricky's Tune" was on a 1998 indie release).

"It's just gone platinum in the UK -- it's a very exciting thing," said Cassidy, who's been back in the studio to record another track for the slightly different U.S. version, scheduled for a May 7 release. Tours of Europe and another go-round in the States will follow.

For "Then and Now," Cassidy started with master tapes from "The David Cassidy Story," an autobiography he produced for ABC in 2000. Additional recording was done in New York and England -- where Cassidy sang and played guitar and his band played live, rather than each musician recording a separate track. "It was so cool for me to do it the way I used to do it," he said.

Cassidy had wanted to record Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" since the first time he heard it, driving down the 405 freeway in the early '70s, he said.

The one song that seems out of place is "I Write the Songs" -- unless you know the history. Cassidy originally cut the song with members of the Beach Boys and America for his 1975 album, "The Higher They Climb the Harder They Fall," and had a big hit with it overseas -- but his label, RCA, "said it wouldn't be a hit in America," he recalled. It was later that Barry Manilow recorded the song and proved RCA wrong.

The Partridge connection will be especially strong for Cassidy's Valentine's Day show at the Grove of Anaheim with TV sibling Danny Bonaduce acting as the opener. The two remained friends over the years -- Cassidy said he was one of the few who stuck by Bonaduce, now a morning personality for LA radio station Star 98.7 FM, throughout his well-publicized problems
with drugs and the law.

"This is going to be the one and only date that he does," Cassidy said. "He actually has some anxiety about it" -- Bonaduce worried about having new material, so Cassidy told him to do the same thing he'd done last time they'd shared a stage. Bonaduce protested, Cassidy said: "I can't -- it's about me being in jail!"

The Anaheim show will also be noteworthy as a sort of closing night. "For the last time, I'm going to do two or three songs from the "Copa" show," he said. "At the Copa" was the big-band show he did at Las Vegas' Rio in 2000. "I'm not going to bring horns with me after this."

Cassidy actually closed "Copa" so he could spend more time with his family -- wife Sue Shifrin-Cassidy and their son, 11-year-old Beau. "I was working 46 weeks a year, producing two shows simultaneously ('The Rat Pack is Back!' is still running) and starring in one," he said. So he started a sort of commuter tour, flying out from Las Vegas for a couple shows each week and keeping his band (many teach master classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas) on retainer.

Working as an actor, singer, songwriter and/or producer, he said, "is a blessing, but it can also be a curse," he said. "I can't do all of it at the same time ALL the time."

He's been juggling so many lately that he doesn't have much time to tend to his true passion, horses. Then again, he's happy to be so busy. "I know what the alternative is," he said with a chuckle, referring to a post-Partridge dry spell that lasted into the '80s.