November 3, 2001: OK Magazine (England UK)

Since his '70s heyday as a teen heart-throb in The Partridge Family, David Cassidy has concentrated on acting. Now he's back with a new album.

Seventies heart-throb David Cassidy has returned to the UK for his first tour for 15 years, promoting his brand-new album, Then And Now. Released last month, the album is a collection of the greatest hits throughout his 33-year-long career. Cassidy shot to fame at the age of 19, starring in The Partridge Family. He acquired a huge fan base and by the age of 21 was the highest paid performer in the world. The pressures of fame led him to 'retire' at the tender age of 24, but within two years his career was back on track when he took to the Broadway stage. David, 51, lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Sue, and their ten-year-oldson, Beau. He joins us as this week's special guest on OK! On Air.

How did it feel, having your first number one over here with How Can I Be Sure?

I'd been working in the US and doing well, but the fans over here were unbelievably enthusiastic. It was really wild. We have such a kinship between our countries it felt like it was an extension of the US for me. I've missed it here. Back in the '70s there was hysteria and it was very difficult for me to get around. The world has changed so much. It was a very naive time. The audience is much more sophisticated now.

So you think the hysteria that you had has never really been equalled?

The audience is much more fragmented now. There are more radio and television stations.They don't view pop stars as demigods like they did back then. People didn't think you were actually real or human and did things like shopping. I became close friends with John Lennon and he always said the grass is a little greener in the US. Because we lived there we could only come for a certain amount of time and then leave. That had something to do with it as well.

Tell us about being in The Partridge Family, the show about a family of musicians...

The shows were written by some of the best artists of all time. They taught me a lot. It became obvious shortly after I was cast that I was the musician and the singer and the rest of them were actors. They tried to make a big deal out of us. They would say, "You guys, are really popular now", and I was going through hell trying to get in and out of the studio itself in the mornings. The show was very well cast and it was very well crafted.

What music were you into?

The music in the mid to late '60s was what I was most influenced by. I was into R&B, blues and some pretty heavy stuff. The music of the late '60s was very heavy, very electric and Hendrix was by far the most charismatic performer I've ever seen. I had a huge evening with John Lennon at my house on New Year's Eve, 1974. We played some songs together and it was a big thing because The Beatles wrote the soundtrack to my youth. They were the reason I got my guitar out.

Have you got a big band on the road?

I've got 16 people with me. They are all very serious musicians and we have become really close, being on the road for nine months. The band is really slamming. As I'm going to do my first concert tour outside the US for the first time in 10 years, I asked fans all over the world on my website what they wanted me to play. I was really surprised by the response. The number one song was Cherish.

Many people may think you have retired, even though you've been working hard...

I've been on Broadway. I did Blood Brothers with my brother Shaun for two years. I redid EFX in Las Vegas, which I starred in for two and a half years, and it was the most expensive show of all time. Lots of fans from the UK came over and saw it. I also wrote and produced The Rat Pack Is Back, which has become a big hit in Las Vegas. For the last two years I've starred in a show  I produced at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas called At The Copa. Touring round the States for the last nine months has been fantastic.

Have you still got a wide fan base?

Yes, it's really amazing in the US. I haven't been over here to see it yet, but kid fans are now grown-up, and their kids are fans.

The 1970s heart-throb is back, with a hit album and a UK tour. Even at 51, David Cassidy still makes LIZ JONES go weak at the knees.

In 1973 I made this list of what I would wear if I were meeting David Cassidy: a purple Laura Ashley smock; brown loons (new); patchwork suede belt with tassels; Toffee Blushbaby by Mary Quant. Needless to say, I looked a fright throughout the 1970s. David Cassidy, though, always looked cool.

That soft, wispy feather cut. The mauve granddad shirt allowing a peep of baby-smooth chest. Skintight denim. Hippie beads and a cowbell around his girlish neck. He was a psychedelic boy-next-door, and I was desperately in love with him. This wasn't a mere crush. I was convinced that we'd get married after I left school. I entered a disco-dancing competition for the first prize of a life-size poster - and won. I was sure I'd eventually meet him. I didn't realise that it would take 28 years.

The last time I saw David Cassidy in the flesh, he was wearing an all-in-one jump suit covered in rhinestones, and was a very distant blur across a sea of screaming 11-year-olds at White City stadium, in London. It was 1974. That was his penultimate concert as David Cassidy, teen idol. A 14-year-old fan collapsed that night and later died. Cassidy had sold 20m records, starred in a hit television series, was the highest-paid entertainer in the world by the age of 21, and his fan club was bigger than the Beatles'. But he retired from pop stardom at the height of his fame, leaving millions of girls devastated.

And now he is back, with a new album featuring his greatest hits - I Think I Love You, How Can I Be Sure, Daydreamer - and his first live appearance in this country for 15 years. In the intervening time, he has been pursuing a lucrative career as an entertainer in Las Vegas, and I've been beavering away at journalism just so that I would be ready for an opportunity like this.

I am to interview him at his home in Vegas, even though this means 23 hours in the air for just two hours on his brown leather sofa. I pack my bag with a selection of clothes that, despite being updated from the 1970s, still includes a pair of platforms.

After a 15-minute taxi ride along the strip, I am deposited outside his house. He has a very dirty wheelie bin. A little boy aged about 10 opens the huge white security gates. "Are you here to see my dad?" he grins, showing a complete set of braces and eyes just like David's. I am crestfallen. David has moved on. The little boy leads me past a huge swimming pool and up some steps to his dad's office, so that I can conduct my first ever interview with a pop star who is older than I am.

"Did I ever go out with Susan Dey?" he repeats, incredulous.

"Yes, you know, like to the pictures or anything?"

This is something that has always bothered me. Cassidy's co-star in The Partridge Family, the series that ran from 1970 to 1974 and catapulted him to fame, had straight, shiny hair and American teeth, and although she played his younger sister, I was certain they were up to something. Sitting in Cassidy's den, surrounded by photos of my idol in his prime, I spy a picture of Susan Dey, and although she is wearing a giant crocheted poncho, the old jealousy comes flooding back.

"I was never attracted to Susan," he sighs. (Hurrah!) "I haven't spoken to her for 20 years. Anyway, when were we supposed to go out, and where would we have gone without being mobbed? We were filming all day, then I would go straight to the recording studio to work on my solo stuff until midnight. Then I would go home, go to bed, and get up at dawn the next day to do it all over again. I never had a social life. I'd never had a drink, I'd never even had a cigarette. Looking back, it's as if it happened to another person."

As he leans forward to sip his tea, I spy a grey chest hair. Still, he is remarkably well preserved at 51 (he hasn't had plastic surgery, but I suspect he dyes his hair). "I can still remember vivid details, though - the journeys to and from a concert, because every trip was always so mad, with fans banging on the roof of the van. I remember staying at the Dorchester with thousands of girls outside, singing the songs off the Cherish album."

That was the last time he was ever allowed to stay in a hotel in Britain - he was barred because of the chaos caused by the fans and had to stay at Lord Montagu's home in Beaulieu. Similarly, he was never able to appear on Top of the Pops because it was too dangerous, so instead he flew into Heathrow, gave a performance on the Tarmac, and flew straight out again. He says he never once went through British customs because he was always manhandled by police onto a waiting helicopter.

"But what about the groupies?" I persisted. "Wasn't it really tempting having girls throw themselves at you?"

"I wasn't attracted to little girls," he says, flatly. His wife, Sue, pops her head round the door to check that we are okay; I suspect she thinks I am about to tear his shirt off. "Keith, the character I played in The Partridge Family, was 16, but I was in my twenties. While girls were screaming outside, I'd be up in my room, playing Hendrix on my guitar and sleeping with the most beautiful women in the world." Oh.

"But why did you retire at the height of your fame?" I try not to sound petulant.

"I wanted my life back. I locked myself in my room and didn't come out again for nine months. I stopped doing The Partridge Family and a lot of people were unhappy about that - I was putting them out of work. But I was able to start doing all those things I had never done because I was always working - I started drinking, just because I knew I didn't have to get up the next day. I missed about six dental appointments."

It was the beginning of a very bleak few years. His father, the actor Jack Cassidy, died, and his marriage to the actress Kay Lenz broke up after only a year. His father had left his mother when he was very young, and Cassidy saw him only sporadically. "I was always terrified of him," he says now. "I swore I wouldn't be like him if I ever had a child." By coincidence, his stepmother, Shirley Jones, played his mother in The Partridge Family. "She wasn't old enough to play my mother, she was only in her early thirties. My father went from being Shirley Jones's husband to David Cassidy's father. He didn't take my fame very well."

But by the mid-1980s he had landed the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Broadway, starred in Time and Blood Brothers, then moved to Vegas to star in, write and direct a string of hit shows. He has probably earned more money from this second career than he ever did as a pop star - he now owns a string of racehorses. Why, then, would he want to put himself through the hell of touring again, and why rerelease all those songs that probably only remind him of tie-dye and enormous flares?

"I haven't sung those songs since the 1970s, so I'm not tired of them," he says. "I managed to contact all the original session musicians, and we rerecorded them, live, in the exact same studio. The only difference this time around was that I had to take more naps."

David Cassidy plays Manchester Apollo, November 9; Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, November 11; Newcastle City Hall, November 14; Hammersmith Apollo, London, November 16 and 17

Pop heart-throb David Cassidy has never forgotten the ecstatic welcome he received the first time he set foot on Scots soil.

The date was May 24, 1974, and the singer had arrived at Glasgow Airport for a concert at Shawfield Stadium, home of Clyde FC.

I always remember being driven to Shawfield and there were fans lined up all along the pavement," said David. "They just wanted to see me go by. I thought it was the most incredible expression of love.

"I love it on this side of the Atlantic. If for any reason I couldn't live in America I'd be happy to settle in Scotland."

David will be back in Glasgow next Sunday for a concert at the Clyde Auditorium. It's part of his first UK tour in 15 years to launch his latest album, Then And Now.

And he's sure to receive another warm welcome from his Scots fans who have remained loyal over the years.

But, at 51, the still handsome David wouldn't want to live through the madness of being the focus of uncontrollable hysteria. For it almost cost him his sanity.

In 1972, David achieved a lifelong ambition when he sold out a massive concert at Madison Square Garden in his native New York.

The hysteria generated by 22,000 teen fans freaked him out. Streets around the garden were closed. Police reinforcements were called as fans overturned five limousines.

"That show should have been one of the most memorable moments of my career," recalled David.

"I gave one of my best performances. The tough New York critics raved about the show and the buzz in Manhattan was unbelievable.

"But the scenes of complete chaos and pandemonium overshadowed everything."

David felt the weight of the enormous pressures of life in pop's fast lane. He told me: "It turned out to be the loneliest night of my entire life. I was covered in a blanket, bundled into the boot of a car and driven away.

"Less than 20 minutes after I'd run off stage, I was alone in a dump of a motel across the river in Queens... with the screams of 22,000 girls ringing in my ears.

"I was lying in a bathtub. I had no money so I couldn't even buy myself a soda or a sandwich. I had no ID. I had no way of knowing when my security men were coming back to get me.

"I felt like a condemned man and realised the price I had to pay for being David Cassidy. I thought I just don't have the stomach for this anymore."

Then in 1974, tragedy struck when David arrived in the UK for a "farewell tour", which included that memorable gig at Shawfield.

The scenes of hysteria were reminiscent of the height of Beatlemania.

When David played his final UK show at White City Stadium in London 650 teenybop fans were injured in the crush.

A 14-year-old girl, BernadetteWhelan, was carried unconscious from the venue by ambulancemen after her heart stopped. She died on May 30 in the capital's Hammersmith Hospital. David was devastated.

Today - 27 years after the tragedy - he still finds it difficult to talk about that awful night.

He told me: "The media really had a go and tried to blame me for Bernadette's death. They said she had been injured in the crush. But it emerged she'd had a serious heart condition. The excitement of the concert brought on a heart attack.

"I spoke to her parents and they knew she was very ill. They told me they almost felt it would have been her wish to pass away at a David Cassidy gig. It had been her last wish to see me, so they took comfort from the fact that bernadettedied a happy girl."

It took David two more years before he managed to fully break free from the constraints of being a teen idol.

"My farewell tour had given fans a last opportunity to come and see me," said David. "I think a lot of critics thought I was trying to do a David Bowie - announce my retirement then return with an even bigger show.

"But the truth was, my shows just couldn't have got any bigger. How can you surpass hysteria and success on that scale? I needed to stop. Enough was enough."

It took along time before he was able to lead a normal day-to-day life. He recalled: "It was months before I could even feel comfortable about going out in public alone.

"The first thing I had to do was to tryto re-establish my friendships again.

"I'd had no social life between the ages of 19 and 24. I'd done nothing but workwhen most other guys had gone to college or got drunk with their friends.

"I don't blame anybody for it. I'd wanted to be a success, but I got on this runaway train and just kept hanging on. I should never have let it go so far."

David became close friends with John Lennon, who was living in New York. The ex-Beatle gave him some advice about how to cope with the pressure.

Like Lennon, the singer suffered what he now refers to as "three dark years" addicted to booze and drugs.

"John was one of the few peoplewho actually understood what I'd been going through," revealed David.

"He had wanted to experience what it was like to be a normal person again - doing things such as walking down the street or going to a movie."

David first shot to fame in 1970 when ABC Television cast him in The Partridge Family. His performance as Keith Partridge - oppositereal-life stepmum Shirley Jones - launched one of the most spectacular careers in showbiz history.

In the early 70s, The Partridge Family stormed the charts with classic singles such as I Think I Love You and It's One Of Those Nights.

David embarked on a parallel solo career which included the hits, Could It Be Forever, How Can I Be Sure and Daydreamer.

But his pin-up image sparked controversy with the show's producers, especially after he posed naked on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, a famous shot captured by renowned rock photographer Annie Leibovitz.

TV bosses felt the pose was too risqué for the show's wholesome image - but David won the right to continue as a sex symbol after threatening to quit the show.

At 21, he was the world's highest paid entertainer. His official fan club became the largest in pop history - exceeding those of Elvis Presley and The Beatles. With record sales of more than 25 million, it was hard for David to turn his back on the music industry.

He conquered Broadway, playing the lead in the musical, Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

In 1985, he made a brief return to the pop charts with The Last Kiss - which featured mate George Michael on backing vocals.

Two years later, he took over from Cliff Richard in the musical Time in London's West End. He also broke box-office records starring opposite his brother Shaun and Petula Clark in Blood Brothers in the US.

In 1996, David opened at the lavish MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in the spectacular stage show, EFX.

He's been in Vegas ever since and starred with Sheena Easton in the Rat Pack. It's said the pair fell out last year - and she abruptly left the show.

"We got along great... professionally," said David, diplomatically. "She's an extremely talented girl - but at times she was difficult. We didn't become close friends or anything."

Not surprisingly, for a performer who was idolised by millions of devoted female fans, he's had a rather tangled love life.

In the mid-Seventies, he married Rich Man Poor Man actress Kay Lenz. The marriage didn't work out and in 1984, he wed Meryl Tanz, but that relationship also ended on the rocks. The singer now lives in Las Vegas with his third wife, songwriter Sue Shifrin-Cassidy. They have a son Beau, 10. David also has a daughter Katie, now 14, from a previous relationship.

"I got it right third time around," admitted David. "It took me this long to work out what I really needed - acommitted loving relationship with a very special woman."

But will he ever be able to shake off his pin-up image? "I never tried to live up to the David Cassidy image... whatever that was," he said. "As a performer, I only ever tried to be the best I could - a positive role model to musicians and fans. That meant a lot to me."

On his latest album Then And Now, David has re-recorded some of his biggest hits - and added some brand new material.

He said: "It was an opportunity to give the fans who've supported me the chance to hear my music, past and present.

"When I did those songs first time around, I was a kid... I'm an adult now. My voice, my technique, my whole approach is very different. The new material on the album reflects who David Cassidy is today. The singer also revealed that he once passed up the chance to record a real pop classic.

"In 1973, I was offered Tie A Yellow Ribbon which was a No. 1 hit for Dawn. But when I heard the demo I thought it was one of those naff, lounge songs. It's not that it isn't a good piece of songwriting, it is. As soon as I heard it I thought, 'This could be a million seller.' But it was not for me. It was not the direction I wanted to go in. Good luck to Dawn, but I've never regretted it."

Who needs a yellow ribbon when you are a blue riband performer?

In the 70s, his was the face on the cover of every teen magazine.

David Cassidy is speechless. Having just told him a reader had entered a competition nearly 1,000 times to satisfy a dream to meet him, the 70s heartthrob struggles to take it in.

"I feel very humbled," he eventually says. "That is incredible."

He does sound truly astonished - which is surprising when you consider the huge fan base the former star of The Partridge Family has around the world.

He must surely have fans like this all over the globe. "I have people who come all the way out from Britain to Las Vegas to see me perform but I've never heard of anyone going to those lengths to meet me," he says.

"Fans never fail to surprise me."

Cassidy is talking from his offices in Las Vegas, a city where he is a regular performer.

It's the third time we have tried to conduct the interview, due to mix-ups, and he is very apologetic for ringing 20 minutes late.

"I'm a little over-run with work," he says. "I'm scrambling around trying to do everything at once.

"It's a holiday here today - Nevada Day - so my assistant has gone off somewhere.

"I must be mad! I'm working every day and every night. I'm just struggling a bit to keep up with things."

Cassidy is at Newcastle City Hall next Wednesday as part of his first British tour in 15 years.

He has just brought out an album, Then And Now, featuring past hits and new tracks.

"It just seemed the right time," he says. "I wanted to say a big thank you to my fans over the years, who have supported me all this time.

"The album is my life story, in many respects."

Cassidy is one of a handful of American performers who have not cancelled their tours in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

"I owe it to the fans to come over and perform," he says. "What happened was devastating, but I think people need a release from it all, too.

"Hopefully, I can help take their minds off all the troubles for two hours each night.

"Some people weren't too sure about me travelling, but the show must go on."

When ABC cast Cassidy as its juvenile star in The Partridge Family, it launched one of the most spectacular careers in the entertainment industry.

From television to recording and record-breaking concert tours, and from Broadway to Las Vegas production shows, Cassidy, now in his 50s, has established his place in showbusiness history.

Hailing from a family of actors, mother Evelyn Ward and father Jack Cassidy, his fate as a performer was sealed at a young age. It was to be sheer coincidence that he would star with stepmother Shirley Jones in The Partridge Family. By the end of 1970, the year the show premiered, Cassidy graced every teen magazine cover in the world, had number ones and award
nominations.

Over the next five years, his official fan club grew to become the largest in history, exceeding those of Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

He subsequently became the first personality to be merchandised globally; his likeness appeared on everything from posters to cereal boxes; his concerts sold out in the largest venues in the world which led him to be the world's highest paid performer at the age of 21.

To date, his records have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.

"Regrets?" he reflects. "I don't have any. There have been down times, as well as the highs, but they all make you what you are.

"There's no point in regrets. What's done is done; you should always look to the future."

* David Cassidy is at Newcastle City Hall next Wednesday. The show is sold out.

Nevada Opera Theatre presented a grand production Friday evening at Bellagio. The event honored Roger Peltyn, president of the Martin and Peltyn Inc. and Martin & Martin structural engineering firms.

Peltyn has been deeply involved with the arts in Nevada and has served as president of Nevada Arts Advocates since 1994. Peltyn and his wife, Sandy, have raised nearly $4 million for many of our community's nonprofit organizations.

"Opera Goes Broadway" was a stellar evening presented by its chairmen: Gov. Kenny and Dema Guinn, and Stephen and Chantal Cloobeck.

The cocktail hour showcased an outstanding silent auction beautifully assembled by Sandy Peltyn and Mary Ann Hantout. Bidding on the fabulous items were Lia and Joseph Roberts, Nancy and Jack Weinstein, Polly Weinstein, Angie Wallin, Janet and Andy Blumen, Eleanore and Ed Doumani, Maria and Joel Bergman, Drs. Parvin and Ted Jacobs, Dr. Joseph and Paula Quagliana, LuLu and Al Bubion, and Isabel Pfeifer.

Dining room doors opened to an exquisite setting of formally set tables covered in blue and gold brocade with 4-foot-tall crystal vases holding fresh floral arrangements.

Broadway dancers graced the dance floor as the orchestra played a medley of show tunes. The Nellis Air Force Base honor guard presented the colors and soprano Demetra George sang the national anthem with assistance from the Sign Design kids.

Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan spoke about Roger Peltyn's contribution to the arts. Peltyn was asked to come to the stage to accept the Arts Medal of Honor Award and many accolades. A video featuring the honoree was shown with remarks made by Larry Ruvo, Wolfgang Puck, Ted Jacobs, John Robinson, Bobby Baldwin, Don Snyder, Sheldon Adelson, David Cassidy and Peltyn's son, Michael.

The entertainment continued with George, Roger Blais and the Nevada Opera Chorus offering selections from "West Side Story."

Guests Claudine Williams, Kitty Rodman, Esther Quisenberry, Jeanne and Dr. Monte Greenawalt, David Griego, Sondra Lynch, Arlene and Hans Doweiller, Sharon and Mike Nolan, Betty Redmon, Maria and Ted Quirk, Elisa del Prado, Hunter Borges, Roya and Moe Momeni, Olga Scheel, Ann Mueller and Sandra Dinsmore indulged in the warm apple tart dessert.

The entertainment continued with the Peltyns' son, R.J., introducing his mom, Sandy Peltyn, who sang Broadway favorites in tribute to her husband. Concluding the dinner entertainment was music from "A Chorus Line" and the Nevada Opera Theatre Dancers performing a rousing cancan by choreographer Papote Varet with music director Pierre Jovan.

Guests then were invited to an adjoining room for the After Glow Reception where Eileen Hayes, opera director; Dania Petrillo; Patty Morrow; and Harold and Dr. ZiZi Zorn were greeted by multicolored balloons, international coffees and assorted desserts. Beverly and Mike Mykisen, Dr. Leo and Sandy Spaccavento, Juanita and David Wasserman, Melinda and Tom Cook, Carolie and Edward Swindle, Dr. Morton and Nicole Hyson, Isabel Colon and Richard Houtakker, and Zarina and Carlos Collado were seen dancing the night away to the Latin beat of Timbao.

The Stirling Club É Europe's fountain of youth will soon be making its United States debut in Las Vegas exclusively at The Stirling Club at Turnberry Place. On Oct. 29, The Stirling Club hosted a dinner at the Four Seasons in honor of the founders and creators of the famed European beauty spa, Caudalie. (The Stirling Club is set to open in December.)

Guests such as Phyllis McGuire, Sue Sullivan, Jewel Brooks, Mike Gilbert, Lou Emmert, Jeanne Hood, Sheila Beaton, Sig Rogich, Mariam Afshai and J. Brad Millsap sipped champagne while socializing at the reception.

Doors to the dining room opened to reveal formally set tables for a superb dinner prepared by the visiting chefs from The Stirling Club. Joy Bell, Sally Fiori, Rebecca Fountain, JoAnn Strum and others were able to taste the culinary feast.

Chocolate swans with deluxe chocolates concluded dinner for M.J. Harvey, Judy Robinson, Peggy Polvino-Brown, Marie Claire and Rino Armeni.

Sharon Bader, director of marketing and special events for The Stirling Club, introduced the club's general manager, Asaad Farag. He in turn introduced the dinner's honored guest, Mathilde Cathiard-Thomas from Paris and Bordeaux, France.

Cathiard-Thomas talked about her family's spa and winery on the prestigious vineyards of Ch‰teau Smith Haut Lafitte near Bordeaux. They have a four-star luxury hotel; two restaurants; and two exceptional bars dedicated to the finest wines, cigars, cognacs and vintage ports as part of their innovative Les Sources de Caudalie complex. The Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa was voted best spa in the world by the London Financial Times and one of the top 36 places in the world to visit by Condé Nast Traveler.

Cathiard-Thomas introduced us to the excellent red and white wines we enjoyed with dinner from her family's winery. Then, she presented slides of the spa and countryside with its bubbling 500-meter-deep natural mineral spring. (Column: On the Scene: Dorothy Huffey)

DAVID Cassidy seems to enjoy a close relationship with his fanatically loyal fans, taking time out to talk to them at every opportunity.

His roller coaster ride to fame started in the seventies when he joined the hit show, The Partridge Family. His records immediately struck gold and thrust him into international stardom. By the age of 21, heartthrob David was the world’s highest paid performer — and possibly the most lusted-after male with his poster on the wall of every pubescent girl in the country.

Now, after a decade of rave reviews on Broadway and on the casino circuit, he’s launching a whirlwind tour that will take him across the US and around the world through 2002.

‘‘I love doing it more now than I ever did,’’ David says, ‘‘because it’s so rare that you have the opportunity to, after 30 years, go out and play for people who know it and love it and want to see it.

‘‘I’m having the time of my life. I’m always an optimist. I mean, you have to be with my career,’’ he adds laughing. ‘‘I’ve never gone out and changed my style to suit my times. It’s important to reveal your own fragility, faults and mistakes. That honesty is naturally compelling and, in general, it’s what people want to see.

‘‘Without that, all the flash in the show is merely empty effects. Bringing that human element to my work is the most important thing I can do as an entertainer.’’

Butch Cassidy

David Cassidy set hearts aflutter as the wholesome Keith Partridge. Now back in the charts, he reminisces with Caroline Sullivan on a surprisingly sordid time.

David Cassidy has a joke that would have shocked the millions of girls who fell in love with his girlish features and fashion-statement white jumpsuit back in the early 1970s. It's too tasteless to repeat - suffice to say the punchline goes "Hey, I'm only fucking with you. She's dead!" - but the odd thing is that, as he tells it, he still sounds exactly like Keith Partridge, the cuddly character from the prototypical teen sitcom The Partridge Family that made him a household name.

Though three decades separate him from the Keith years, when he was so popular he received 25,000 fan letters a week (most of which - don't read this, diehard fans - he never saw because the teen mags burned them after recording the sender's addresses for their mailing lists), his speaking voice is still that of the 16-year-old brother in the shiny-toothed singing family. Pretty remarkable for a man of 51. (Yep, Keith Partridge is 51, something that once seemed sheer impossibility.)

Cassidy was actually 20 when he began playing Keith in 1970, but looked young enough, with his soft face and authentic zits, to pass for a teenager. "I was older than people thought I was, I was 21 playing 16, 22 playing 16... when I got to 24 I was playing 17, which I had to beg the producers for," he says, his unnervingly young, California-boy voice almost swallowed up by the vastness of his London hotel suite.

But while he may sound 21, he definately doesn't look it. He's a good deal handsomer than most men his age, with an abundance of glossy hair and a shapely figure, but he doesn't look younger, any more than Cliff Richard looks a day under 60. He shares Richard's fine-boned quality, which photographs youthfully but ages early. But for someone who's success owed so much to his looks, perhaps Cassidy's pleased that his face is no longer his USP.

After his stint as an idol ended in the mid-70s with a total of 21 hit records (12 with The Partridge Family), he made an anomalous return to the Top 10 in the 80s, then reinvented himself as an actor of some repute. He starred, to acclaim, in West End productions of Blood Brothers and Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and wrote a stage show, The Rat Pack Is Back, which is still running in his adopted home of Las Vegas.

Yet he's not above playing on his status as a time traveller from the endlessly revived 70s. Recently, Cassidy discerned a need and rerecorded 23 of his 70s songs on CD under the title Then And Now. To his own surprise, it reached number five in the British chart last month. No doubt he'll be singing them all on his first UK tour in 15 years, which kicks off this week.

An appealingly wry type, he appreciates that this latest revival is predicted on nostalgia. As the baby boomers' top pop puppy, his candy-coated hits still rouse a frisson of school-disco pleasure in anyone old enough to remember the immortal Puppy Song.

"You don't go into a project thinking 'This will really be unsuccessful', but to say I was pleasantly surprised is correct," he says, wandering to the mini-bar for more mineral water. Now teetotal he used to enjoy a drink back in the Keith days, when his daily grind consisted of filming in the daytime, recording all night and catching four hours' sleep before having to be on set again at dawn. Something not generally known, though - until he revealed all in an unusually candid 1994 autobiography, C'mon Get Happy... Fear And Loathing On The Partridge Family Bus - was his fondness for drugs. He tried everything from heroin to Quaaludes, a pretty good tally even by early 70s standards, but nowadays refuses to discuss it.

"I don't take drugs, I don't advocate drugs and I was never a drug addict or alcoholic," he emphasises, bonhomie temporarily gone. "I grew up in the 60s, in a world we can't relate to anymore, and I've lost three or four close friends to drugs. So I really don't want to talk about it."

He's more forthcoming on the subject of the women who have passed through his life. Happily married to Sue Shifrin, a songwriter, since 1990 (they have a son, Beau), he also had brief marriages to Kay Lenz and Meryl Tanz. Before he metthe first Mrs Cassidy (Lenz), though, he found out that being Keith Partridge meant an abundance of sexual attention from girls. He wasn't above exploiting it. He writes in C'Mon Get Happy, "I could tell them to get down on their knees and bark like a dog or act like a choo-choo train, and they'd do it gladly." Apparently, those who did were rewarded. In a 1972 Rolling Stone cover story that because the magazine's best-selling issue until John Lennon died, Cassidy's then-girlfriend pronounced our deceptively innocent-looking hero "a really good fuck".

Well, he'd had enough practice. The book tells of encounters with "three sexually incredible Dutch stewardesses", a Dallas groupie called the Butter Queen, various actresses and - surely not - Susan Dey, who played his sister Laurie Partridge. Fortunately for those who can't get their heads around the idea of Laurie and Keith doing the nasty, the liaison ended almost as soon asit began. The reason, it seemed, was that Dey "lacked the slutty aspect I always found so attractive". He tries to elaborate. "I was attracted to naughtier women, and Susan had such a sweetness and innocence that I couldn't have those feelings about her."

But how could you fancy the person who played your sister?

He grins reminiscently. "You only spend 1% of your time on set, actually working. The other 99% you're just hanging out and being yourself. Susan and I tried to move on from our working relationship and have a personal relationship, but I couldn't see her as anything but her brother."

Even now, with all that safely behind him, Cassidy's former way with the ladies is still envied by male friends. "Yeah, but it was all appearances," he maintains. "They didn't have to live the other 23 hours where I'd be wrapped up in blankets and thrown in (car) trunks. I talked to John Lennon about what the Beatles went through. He said the reason they stopped touring wasbecause they couldn't handle it anymore. We talked a lot about demystification and how all we wanted was to be able to just walk down the street."

Does he ever get together with contemporaries like Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson to chew the fat about those blanket-wrapped days?

"I never see Donny or Michael. Much as you might perceive us as being in the same world (he's slightly miffed here), Michael was at least a decade younger than me, and the Osmonds were the living embodiment of the Partridge Family. I think Donny was really a true innocent."

Tell us a joke, Dave. He thinks for a second, then comes up with the one mentioned in the first paragraph. Then he blushes and apologises, "That's really sick, isn't it?" Fiftyone and he blushes. Sweet.

A LIFELONG David Cassidy fan has finally told him: "I Think I Love You" - 27 years late.

The Record made Margaret Pearson's dreams come true when her twin, Carol, told how she lost out on meeting him at the age of 15.

She had won the dream date after raising £300 for Save The Children.

But Margaret, of Carluke, Lanarkshire, was heartbroken when the Partridge Family star cancelled his UK tours after a young fan died.

Now 42 and wheelchair-bound with MS, Margaret was overcome when the singer, 51, picked her out of 3500 fans to give her a huge hug at his Glasgow gig on Sunday.

Last night, she said: "I can't thank the Record enough. It was the best day of my life."

To tell the truth, I’d like to build the world a home, and furnish it with love. Failing that, I would go back to the dawn of the 1970s, scoop up all the male pop pin-ups of the time, bring them back to the present in a big bag marked “bedroom wallpaper” and dump them in front of my 13-year-old daughter. Because she and her generation don’t know what they are missing. It cannot be a coincidence that she has not one single teen-pop icon on her wall, unless you count Babe the Pig. Look at what she has to choose from: she says she likes Papa Roach, but you would not want them leering down at you in the middle of the night. Same goes for Slipknot and Eminem. No, it is as plain as Marilyn Manson that where today’s pop-loving pubescents are missing out on is in the top pop totty department, something about which the early 1970s knew a good deal.

From Marc Bolan up to, and never forgetting, the Bay City Rollers, taking in Donny Osmond, David Essex and the original Michael Jackson, teenage walls never had it so good. And the toppermost of the poppermost was David Cassidy.

Now 51, and busy staging a slightly shaky comeback (five of his UK dates including Wembley Arena were cancelled), Cassidy the man will always be remembered as Cassidy the boy.

During one of those I love . . . television programmes — it was probably 1972 but it could have been any time up to 1975 — Katie Puckrick, a woman whose opinion can be trusted on a variety of non-life threatening issues, waxed long and lyrical.

Just as fans once had to choose between the Beatles and the Stones in the eternal battle of which was best, so girls had to swear eternal allegiance to dazzling David or Donny Osmond. Puckrick was a Cassidy woman. Of course she was. Only a fool would have opted for the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth. In an age of licensed androgyny, he was the most girly looking man you could see. All of us men in our late teens and early twenties had soft, feathery hair tumbling to our shoulders. But on him it looked good.

Let’s face it, no matter how soft and delicate we looked, compared with Cassidy we looked like members of the Sweet. You see, while we were happy with just trying to look like girls, he took it further. He looked like a pretty girl.

And there was more. He got off with real girls. Lots of them. What an achievement — a girl’s boy and a man’s man all in one. Total respect. At the height of his fame, beautiful women were throwing themselves at Cassidy on a rota basis, and he was catching them. While soppy Donny was knocking on doors and asking strangers whether they had found God, David Cassidy was knocking everything he could get hold of, and that was everything.

In time, Cassidy tried to let it be known that he may have looked like an angel but he was the devil in disguise. He did this by giving an interview to Rolling Stone, illustrated with a picture of himself in the altogether.

This was intended to make it clear to all that Cassidy was no simpering virgin. What it did, however, was make people who had never seen a picture of him remark that she was very pretty, but very flat-chested. Cassidy went on to spend so much of the later 1970s trying to convince everyone he was just a regular American red-blooded Joe who liked rock and gurls that people
eventually believed him and stopped buying his records.

This was something of a shame because, while his output may have been slight, it was put together well, rather like the man himself.

As can be heard on Then and Now, his new greatest hits compilation, he or his advisors had a good ear for a keen pop ballad, most notably Cherish (unfortunately and bizarrely saddled with a sub Every Breath You Take backing track in its 2001 incarnation). But when he decided to rock, as in Rock Me, strong men cringed.

The final good thing about Cassidy is that he grew old, just like the rest of us.

True, he still looks better than us, but there is a forced tightness to his skin, and his hair no longer flops to his shoulders like the wings of a dove. Happily, he is just a good looking man in his early fifties, not a constant reminder to sensitive young men of their own physical inadequacies.

David Cassidy plays Newcastle City Hall tomorrow and Hammersmith Apollo (0870-400 0870) on Friday and Saturday. Then and Now is released by UMTV.

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Rocker and former soap star Rick Springfield agreed Tuesday to extend his starring role in the "EFX Alive" show at the MGM Grand hotel-casino for one more year.

"I'm very proud of the show and what we've down with it so far and I look forward to going further," Springfield told The Associated Press. "I signed for another year, but eventually I want to get back on the road."

Springfield said staying in Las Vegas also gives him time to write his next album, which he hopes to finish and release early next year.

"That's originally what I took the show for," he said. "But I had to focus on the show pretty intensely for the first six months. While I'm always working on it, I now feel it has its own life."

The Grammy and American Music Award-winning headliner debuted in the $75 million production show on Jan. 30 and was originally contracted for one year with the MGM Grand.

Springfield's role was created to showcase his 30-year music career.

"Audiences from around the world have responded to Rick's energetic personality and stage presence," said Richard Sturm, president of entertainment and sports for MGM Mirage Inc., owner of the MGM Grand.

"We are delighted that he is staying with the show."

In August, Springfield was sidelined about two weeks after he broke his arm when he fell while performing a stunt during the show.

"There are certain elements you have to accept in a physical show like this," he said. "I don't blame the hotel. I've fallen off live stages and hurt myself."

In "EFX Alive," Springfield leads the audience on a journey exploring the worlds of the wizard Merlin, the showman P.T. Barnum, illusionist Harry Houdini and science-fiction author H.G. Wells.

Springfield said that "EFX Alive" allows him to mix his love of theater and music.

The entertainer, whose best-known song is "Jessie's Girl," captivated soap-opera fans in the 1980s with his portrayal of Dr. Noah Drake on television's "General Hospital."

He replaced Broadway star Tommy Tune in the production that has also featured David Cassidy and Michael Crawford since it opened in March 1995.

Former teen idol David Cassidy will take the stage again at the Rio, Nov. 22-24 in the Samba Theater at 8 nightly. He'll perform in front of a talented group of musicians, sending 40 somethingers down memory lane with his famed "I Woke Up In LoveThis Morning", "Cherish" and "I Think I Love You."

Cassidy, who's most known for his role in the Seventies TV show, "The Partridge Family," has been putting down Vegas roots in the past few years. He starred in his own show, "David Cassidy At the Copa," with Eighties singer SheenaEaston at the Rio, which closed early this year. He also partnered with writer/producer Don Reo to create the popular "Rat Pack is Back," which plays at the Sahara Hotel & Casino. And before this he starred in MGM Grand's "EFX" production in 1996.

He has spent three decades reinventing himself in showbiz. After his phenomenal career as a TV personality and teen pop star, garnering a few Grammy nominations and having 18 of his recording hit gold or platinum status, at the age of 21 he walked away from it all. He left the Cassidy mania he'd sparked nationwide (he had one of the most popular fan clubs in history) to look at other creative options.

"When I returned to work, I specifically chose not to compete with my earlier fame," he said. "I always made sure that the work - not the potential money or fame- was the primary reason I would choose to get involved in a particular project. I really believe that if the work is good, then all kinds of success and othergood things will follow."

See the 2001 Cassidy model (still baby faced) at the Rio. Tickets cost $59 plus tax. Call 702-777-7776.

All the girls used to love David Cassidy. From the moment he first appeared as the juvenile star of The Partridge Family, a cheesy TV show first shown in 1970, he was marked out for adulation.

In the days when a TV programme could reach virtually everybody, you could be nowhere one day and everywhere the next. It happened to the kid with the wispy, shoulder-length hair.

By the end of 1970 he had a No.1 single in the States and his face had been on the cover of every teen magazine in the world. His fan club grew to become the largest in history, eclipsing those of Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

His image appeared on everything from posters to cereal packets. At 21 he became the world's highest paid performer.

In fairness to him, he didn't make his stash and sit back. Like a trouper he stuck with showbusiness, surviving the progress into middle age and the inevitable loss of that feathery, 70s hairstyle.

On-stage he is still big news. Off-stage he does a lot of charity work. And tonight (Wednesday) he will be in Newcastle, performing at the City Hall where, no doubt, lots of his old fans will be anxious to rekindle the flames of a teenage passion.

It's Halloween and the scariest thing around is David Cassidy's schedule. "We're getting on a red-eye tonight and going to play Atlantic City. Then we're heading out this weekend to Kansas City. Then we're in England for 10 days."

It has been a year since Cassidy closed "At the Copa," the musical he wrote, starred in and produced in his adopted home town of Las Vegas. But he hasn't been much of a homebody. For example, Cassidy is heading to the U.K. because a CD he released there has entered the top five and gone gold. In fact, his shows there are already sold out.

"It's album number 20," says a gleeful Cassidy, who performs at the Rio Nov. 22-24. "It feels amazing." Cassidy appreciates that because he's seen generations of performers come and go in show business. After all, even before he became the ubiquitous heartthrob of the early '70s, he had a window to the fickle world of celebrity as the son of the late actor Jack Cassidy. Maybe that's why he works so hard--touring, producing a show on the Strip, recording albums, television, movies and the odd commercial--even now when so many others are willing to get by on catering to just the nostalgia market. "I've had such a long and very diversified career, I feel very fortunate," he says.

Cassidy was just out of his teens in 1970 when the television show he stared in, "The Partridge Family," made him a superstar. By the end of the year, the show produced the radio hit "I Think I Love You" with Cassidy singing, and it paved the way for him to become a bigger recording star than his character, Keith Partridge. It was under his own name that Cassidy appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. "When you learn you have a bigger fan club than the Beatles and Elvis, you know that you arrived. I don't say that egotistically. It's just that I wasn't dumb, so I knew that there were a large number of people out there and I was having a significant impact on their lives." It was mostly an audience of young girls for whom David Cassidy was the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync all rolled into one.

It is an audience that still comes out to see him and he still manages to provoke a scream or two out of them. Of course, these days, thanks to syndication, David Cassidy fans come from many generations. "It's interesting because it's gone on and on and on. The next thing you know it has another life. I learned this a long time ago about nostalgia, movies, art and television shows: If it was any good in the first place, if it was quality in the first place, it will always come back. Things go away and become passé, but then they have another life."

After "The Partridge Family" left television, Cassidy had some lean years. "There were years when the phone didn't ring at all," he remembers. Cassidy, however, not only came back as an actor in films and television, he also established himself as a talent and draw in musical theater. In 1985, he had a hit in England with "The Last Kiss," which featured backing vocals from George Michael. Five years later, the single, "Lyin' to Myself," put him back on the U.S. charts. At a certain point, however, Cassidy got off the road and settled in Las Vegas, working in "EFX" at the MGM Grand before opening the Rio's "At the Copa."

But nature abhors a vacuum, and even as Cassidy was closing down "Copa," he was making plans for his latest tour that has kept him on the road for most of the last year. "Concerts are where it began for me. It has been amazing this past year." So, now back on the concert stage for the first time in a decade, David Cassidy finally is bringing it all back home.

"We're all based here in Las Vegas," he says. "We have five horns, three background singers and five of us in the rhythm section. It's a big show."
 

After more than 30 years of entertaining all over the world, David Cassidy has found a deeper respect for his profession.

Cassidy credits his epiphany to observations made during his current national tour, his first in 10 years, which stops in Las Vegas Thursday through Nov. 24 at the Rio's Samba Theater.

Ten months ago Cassidy's show at the Rio, "At the Copa," closed after a yearlong run. Of course, the former teen idol gained international fame in the 1970s sitcom "The Partridge Family."

Cassidy, who starred in MGM Grand's "EFX" from 1996-98, still lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Sue Shifrin-Cassidy, and their 10-year-old son, Beau.

The singer/actor also is a producer of "The Rat Pack is Back" at the Sahara. And his recording career is also heating up. Earlier this year his latest CD, "David Cassidy: Then and Now," was released in the United Kingdom. According to Billboard magazine, the album is No. 5 on the British charts.

Cassidy reflected on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the mood of the nation following those events during a telephone interview from Kansas City, a stop on his national tour, before returning to the United Kingdom for a 10-day tour -- his first there in 15 years:

Las Vegas Sun: The events of Sept. 11 affected entertainers in many different ways. How did they affect you?

David Cassidy: I used to view what I do as just a guy who goes out there and sings and brings some light to people's lives, a high-energy performer who makes people laugh. I think I've kind of made light of what people in my profession do -- (seeing it as) a diversion in lives. But now, I think it's an important diversion. I think that it serves much more of a purpose in terms of our overall spirit and sense of purpose in going on, in persevering and healing together and celebrating the life that we have. I feel much more of a purpose in doing what I do.

Sun: So, you have new purpose in life?

DC: In a way. It's like, damn the torpedoes. Damn the terrorists. I'm not somebody who has an opportunity to fight back in any other way but to try and lift people's spirits, to try and bring a sense of healing and a sense of togetherness and a sense of celebration about the life we have.

I encourage and applaud people's courage for going on and being out there and living their lives to the fullest, going to sporting events, going to theatrical events, going out in public.

I think I have much more of a purpose. I'm really proud of what I can do, in my own small way, every night I go out there to try and take people out of their pain -- or their suffering or their fear and all of that -- and bring them into my world. That's why I love playing live. As much as I've enjoyed working in film and on television, when you play live in theater or concerts, that instantaneous kind of connection you have with the audience is not something you can possibly experience (on film or tape).

Sun: Are people really afraid?

DC: There's a tremendous sense of fear in America, more than I have ever known before -- and I know that probably much more so than I would have had I only been playing in Las Vegas. But I've been throughout the United States.

Particularly there is a real deep wound and sadness around New York, which is where I was born. I was raised both in Manhattan and right outside of it, and I have spent so much time there. Even though I reside in Las Vegas, a lot of my emotional growth and development, the things I recall that were so important to me growing up, are closely intertwined with New York.

The spirit of the people there is a great inspiration for all of us throughout the world. What they have been through, we can't possibly know.

Sun: You are about to tour England for the first time in 15 years. Is the success of your CD over there surprising to you?

DC: Anytime you go into any kind of creative endeavor it's always good to maintain a positive attitude. You never want to say, "Why shucks, I'm surprised it's successful." Obviously, you go into it with the best intentions to make the best possible piece of work you can create. You hope for the best, always. But it is quite exceptional -- very few people continue to make records 30 years after they began their career, let alone have one that is a success. A very small number are fortunate enough, as I am, to have that.

Sun: What have you been doing since "At the Copa" closed?

DC: I closed it at the end of January with the intention of touring. At that point I had about 40 dates booked, but I will end up with about 50, what with the extra dates in the United Kingdom and a few extra dates in the United States.

Sun: Isn't touring a grind?

DC: I think I'm having more fun doing this now than I ever had. For the past decade I've been working on Broadway, working in the theater, working at "EFX" for 2 1/2 years then doing "At the Copa" for a year. And producing the "Rat Pack is Back" I worked as a producer on two shows simultaneously and was also performing in one ("At the Copa") six nights a week.

(At one point) I had 77 employees. I worked all day in the office, holding meetings and everything else, handling individual problems that would come up daily, trying to stay on top of all of it, and then going to work at night. I was pushing everything off to my one off day. It's just too much. I missed so much.

When it started to become a problem was when I started missing my son's baseball games. I promised myself I would find a way to fix it. This has been a great solution for me.

Sun: How is "The Rat Pack is Back" doing?

DC: It continues to be very successful. I'm very proud of it. Hopefully, it will run forever. It pays homage to what has been lost in Las Vegas and pays homage to some great entertainers that have had such an impact on Las Vegas.

And it celebrates an era in our culture that I think is in some ways forgotten, particularly in Las Vegas, where corporations come in and blow (a) property up and there is no sense of history.

In a way it has its own niche. It doesn't compete with the fabulous productions of "O" or "Mystere" or the scale of that. It is what it is -- a play with music that brings you into a world of 1961, when the world was freer and not as complicated, and the music is great.

Modesty and continuing good looks are two crutches that maintain David Cassidy's place in the nation's collective heart, along with fond memories of his first appearances as the heartthrob of The Partridge Family TV series.

While former teen rival Donny Osmond politely avoids his Puppy Love period, Cassidy has no qualms about embracing the nostalgia boom, despite having forged a successful career in other fields. He shook off his Peter Pan image to return to acting in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and scripted a successful Las Vegas show based on the lives of the Rat Pack.

Last month, though, his latest album, Then and Now, reached number five in the charts on the back of reworkings of old hits such as How Can I be Sure and Daydreamer. Such an exercise usually involves ill-conceived dance remixes to make the music palatable to a younger audience. To his credit, Cassidy eschews that approach, instead letting his still-charming voice do the work.

Apart, that is, from a regrettable collaboration with Hear'Say on Could It Be Forever. Nevertheless, with his gleaming smile still intact, tickets for his weekend shows are selling fast.

Over at the Shepherds Bush Empire, there is a more heartfelt vibe. Deacon Blue are back, belting out those middle-of-theroad anthems Destiny and Fergus Sings the Blues. Nostalgia, it's just the ticket.

PLAYING AT
London Apollo Hammersmith
Nov 16-17, 8pm, £15-£35

When David Cassidy appears on stage in the Rio's Samba Theatre Nov. 22 through 24, don't expect to see a Partridge in, or out of, a pear tree.

Cassidy has been a man on the move, both personally and professionally, since his days on ABC-TV's "The Partridge Family" in the '70s. Now, he marks his first concert tour in 10 years -  and he's singing his own tune.

"Although I was phenomenally successful during 'The Partridge Family' days, it also became a hurdle for me to overcome because people thought I was the character I was playing and that the music that was created for it was mine," Cassidy says. "We made some great music, but it didn't necessarily reflect my taste. So, as opposed to what people expected me to do, it really  became about my own passion about work. I didn't want to go back and do the things I did before. Though my fans have always been incredibly loyal, I wanted to prove to myself and to the industry that I could do different kinds of work. I wanted to get the opportunity to create as a writer, a producer and a songwriter and show that I could do different types of material and never be a nostalgia act."

Cassidy's latest CD, a compilation of new songs he has written, songs he has covered and some of his own hits redone, went to No. 5 on the British charts three weeks after its October release, and has just been certified gold. Cassidy expects the CD, on Universal Records U.K., to be released in the United States in the spring. In the meantime, he will play U.S. dates through mid-December, then head to Europe and Australia early next year.

"I'm signed with a British record company, but on a worldwide basis," Cassidy says. "There are very few artists who are into album No. 20 and are 31 years into their recording career. This is a very rare opportunity for someone like me who has been recording as long as I have and in my demographic. It's simple economics, really, and other artists, like Tina Turner, have gone this route. By releasing this CD in Europe first, the company can see if the product and the artist are going to click with the market; it's easier to break things up over there into different territories to test it."

"Then and Now" was recorded in the studio with all the musicians together at one time as opposed to laying different tracks. There are songs on "Then and Now" that the singer has always wanted to record, such as Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" and Johnny Ray's mega-hit, "Cry." Among the tunes he wrote is a song Cassidy composed with his wife, songwriter Sue Shifrin, called "Lyin' To Myself."

When he decided to do this tour, he logged onto his web side and asked his fans for five songs they wanted to hear. Two of the most-requested songs - "No Bridge" (which got to No. 15 on the U.S. charts) and "Ricky's Tune" - were from his 1998 album, "Old Trick, New Dog."

Cassidy became one of the world's highest paid solo performers by 21. Then, at 24, Cassidy walked away from it all at the height of his fame, assuming that when he wanted to come back, he could.

But after the failure of a TV series he starred in, "Man Undercover," based on his Emmy-nominated TV performance in the film that marked his return to the public eye, "A Chance To Live," he found that the perception in Hollywood was through.

Making a decision to not compete with his former image, cassidy went back to his beginnings. He began taking acting and writing classes and found his passion returning.

Cassidy's life and career were portrayed in an NBC-TV movie, "The David Cassidy Story," which aired on Jan. 9, 2000.

"I've accomplished a lot in the last decade that I never could have done in the '70s, or the '80s, for that matter," Cassidy says. "I'm back making records, I've written and produced two live shows in Las Vegas with my partner, Don Reo ('The Rat Pack Is Back' has just been re-signed for another year at the Sahara), and I've also produced a movie and a TV series that I created. It's just the evolution, I think, of the opportunity and the passion I've had for the work. My life in the last decade has flourished in so many respects, both personally and professionally. In a way, I have no regrets about the past because it has taken all that to get me to where I am now."

Cassidy says that the days of the "The Partridge Family" feel almost surreal to him, although he also says that when he straps on his guitar, he feels 19 again. Making his home in Las Vegas, he says that he appreciates everything more today, including the time spent with his son, Beau, 10, and Sue. Even though his most recent stint was a long-running show at the Rio, "At the Copa," which Cassidy wrote and produced with Reo and co-starred in with Sheena Easton, he has actually found more balance to his life being on the road.

"Touring has its benefits," he says. "Instead of doing eight to 10 shows a week, I may normally do eight shows a month, which gives me a chance to be home, especially at night. I had a chance to be with my son this Halloween for the first time."

"I used to be accused of being a workaholic," Cassidy says. "I was like the starving guy who saw the buffet. That's what happened to me in 1990; I wanted to do it all, and I have."

David Cassidy was recently in Glasgow where he played a sold-out concert. While he was there he spoke to our reporter, Billy Sloan.

It feels wonderful to be back. It's so long since I've been here, and I have such great memories of being in Scotland, and the fact I've not being touring the world in so long is a very exciting thing, and it's a wonderful thing knowing there's such excitement at me coming back.

Your latest album is called "Then and Now", which is a combination of new songs, and new versions of your classic songs. What was it like going back into the studio to do these songs?

We went back and recorded a lot of the early things, in the same studio, with the same musicians, in the same room and in the order we'd done it 25 years before. The songs are great songs, and they hold up. I have more appreciation for them, which I think you do as you get older. I loved redressing them - they're jewels, but they're mine.

When you arrived in Scotland for your first gig, the date was May 24th 1974. You were literally smuggled into and out of Glasgow. What was it like to be the focus of such mass hysteria?

From the airport, all the way into the town, there was a road we drove, and on both sides of the road, almost all the way in there were people lined up, just to watch me drive by, and they were waving to me, and I'd never experienced anything like that. It felt like miles, and I thought it was incredible.

When you were trying to sing, what was it like, with all that screaming?

I loved it - it was the best bit. It was the other 23 hours in the day that were a drag.

The pressure of fame got just too much for you after a while, and after a show at Madison Square Garden, you thought enough was enough - so what happened?

Well, there were 21,000 fans there, and outside they were stopping traffic, and I ended up half an hour from there. I was in some dive of a motel somewhere in Queens and I was alone for hours. By the time they got back and got people out to get me back. And I thought the irony of it as so wrong....from being in that focal point from people screaming at you that they love you to being alone in a two bit motel in Queens. I thought this has to end at some point.

How long was it before you were able to lead some sort of semblance of normal life again?

A few years. I can't remember but it was a while. When you've been in that position where you've had the world's attention and loved with every move that you make, it's difficult to re-enter cicvilisation and I became a recluse and a bit paranoid because people were coming at me from everywhere.

David Cassidy, 50, star of the hit 70s TV series The Partridge Family, has sold more than 25 million records. His new release Then and Now has shot into the album top ten. David lives with his wife Sue and his son Beau, 10, in Las Vegas.

I think I have forgotten to get old, I'm still performing, recording, travelling and enjoying all life has to offer yet I feel better than I did when I first led the pop star lifestyle at 17. That's because I've learned to look after myself. I haven't eaten meat in 30 years which has given me more energy, improved my digestion and generally benefited my health. My lifestyle is very healthy on many levels. I have been living in Las Vegas for a long time and have the luxury of a gorgeous home with acres of land. Having sunshine beaming down on you for so many days a year is great for your physiacal and physiological well being. I can go horse riding, walking and lead an outdoor life that is imperative if you want to stay healthy as you get older. It's so much harder to do that in a cold climate like the UK.

I have also been breading and racing horses for more than 25 years. I need that high intensity exercise to keep me feeling truly alive and fit. You have to live like a teenager to keep feeling like one. When I was first famous I thought I was going to live forever and could do anything. Now it seems strange. My friends are beginning to retire and some of them suffer from severe health problems. Its a scaey feeling. I suppose that in away I live in denial. I just can't see that happening to me and I do everything i can to avoid it.

I still feel so young. I've recently been to London to perform with Hear'say. Being on on stage with them was so rejuvenating. It was terrific not to feel like their Grandfather. I had more than enough energy to keep up with them. The one area of my health I do worry about and could really improve is the quality of my sleep. I am constantly juggling a hectic schedule and working so many hours I get really exhausted. I have always found it difficult to get to sleep, more so now than ever. It's been a bit of a battle for me but I really don't know any other way of life than to be constantly busy. Until February, I had worked in Las Vegas solidly for five years doing eight to ten shows a week 48 weeks a year. Not a lot of time to sleep. So I guess while I'm generally feeling great this is often tinged with a feeling of tiredness.

Overall I feel blessed to be so fit healthy and free from medical complaints at 50. While I have an excellent diet and an active vibrant lifestyle, there is no question that the true secret of my good health is a positive attitude and bright outlook on life. I live each day to the full and I love to perform and entertain people. When I strap on my guitar and play to people who sing, dance and love the music, I feel like I am halting the aging process. I feel uplifted. As long as I keep doing that, I feel my health will stay in great condition. I feel very blessed that I'm in the best shape I've ever been.

Although advertising agencies across the country have cut staffs and budgets in the wake of the industry's worst downturn in years, at least one Columbus agency is riding a new account that will bolster the firm's revenues.

A $25 million media campaign created largely by Ron Foth Advertising was launched last week by Mervyn's, a 264-store division of the Minneapolis-based department-store giant Target Corp.

The "magic-in-the-making'' campaign includes television, radio and print advertising. The TV spots feature cartoon character Frosty the Snowman and one-time pop-music heartthrob David Cassidy.

The new account is expected to make up for the agency's loss of retailer Saks as a client, said company founder Ron Foth Sr.

"Right now, we expect billings to be slightly ahead of last year,'' Foth said. "We haven't had to make any changes in personnel, so I guess this is a bit of good news amid the tough economics.''

Slowing business has forced many agencies across the country and in Columbus to lay off employees. Through October, the largest ad agencies had cut more than 18,000 jobs this year, and every week brings new layoffs.

Agencies that did work for companies in the high-tech and dot-com industries were hit hard initially, but others also have experienced a decline in business as the economy moved into a recession.

Investment firm UBS Warburg estimated total U.S. advertising spending will drop 5 percent in 2001.

Still, the start of the holiday-shopping season brings a surge of advertising and that helps agencies that work with retailers. In general, ad firms make most of their money from the creation of ads.

Although the overall cost of the Mervyn's holiday campaign is $25 million, most of that goes to pay for buying print and broadcast advertising. Foth would not say how much profit the account generated.

Mervyn's -- a middle-market department-store chain similar to Kohl's -- is not alone in its "magic'' theme. At Dillard's, it's "catch the magic.'' JCPenney uses "unwrap the magic.''

Magic "is a natural,'' said Greg Terk, a spokesman for Mervyn's in the Hayward, Calif., corporate office. "It's truly what you think about when you get in the holiday season.''

Mervyn's has had "great feedback on the David Cassidy ads in all of our 14 markets,'' Terk said. "We're extraordinarily pleased with the work.''

The campaign began with an animated TV spot that featured Frosty the Snowman and a cartoon version of the retailer's spokeswoman, Wendy Braun.

In the commercial, Braun sleds down a hill on Frosty's back to Mervyn's.

The 30-second spot starring Cassidy begins with Braun wrapping gifts at home when carolers arrive. She opens the door to see the pop icon, who offers a Las Vegas-style version of the Lovin' Spoonful's Do You Believe in Magic with showgirls dressed as pixies.

As he finishes, a star-struck Braun, who becomes part of the production number, smiles and says, "I think I love you,'' a reference to the 1971 Partridge Family song that made Cassidy a teen idol.

Created by the Ron Foth copywriter and art director Ron Foth Jr. and David Henthorne, the TV campaign also includes Spanish-language versions of the spots.

Foth estimated that the production costs for the TV commercials alone were "around $1 million.''

The print advertising began this week with the theme "My Snowman.'' The ads portray regional versions of snowmen, such as one made of sand on the West Coast.

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