Read Could It Be Forever? My Story Online
Authors: David Cassidy
I was glad that I was in a position – sort of – where I could do somebody else some good. Danny had been arrested
while working for a radio station called The Eagle in Philadelphia. He had gone to Florida on a weekend when, ironically, they were doing remote broadcasts for the anti-drug organisation DARE. In the course of the weekend, he was arrested for buying crack on a street corner at two in the morning. He was on parole after that, so I had to call his parole officer to get permission for him to come along with me, since we would be crossing state lines for the tour.
Danny got into trouble again in 1991 for beating and robbing a transvestite prostitute in Phoenix, Arizona, which really messed up the career he was trying to make for himself as a disc jockey. I’ve tried to stand by him. I believed in him, as a person and as a talent.
I’m still like Danny’s big brother. I’ve tried to help him to get his life together; he’d been almost out of control at the time of the arrests. His self-esteem was very low. He has been very self-destructive. I really do like him and feel for him. I think he’s a good person underneath all that. He deserves forgiveness and support.
I think he sees me as something of a pain, this voice of reason, you know. When I call him, he probably thinks,
Oh no, here comes the medicine again.
But I’m one of the only people who gives a damn and will say anything to him about it. When he got arrested for the drug deal and he was in jail, I was the only person who called and asked, ‘What can I do to help? If you need something, I just want you to know I’m here.’
He was blown away. He never felt worthy enough for anybody to care. I think he’s still amazed that I take the
time to call him. I call him every few months, just to find out how he’s doing. He’s worth saving. He’s got a lot to give. I think he’s genuinely gifted and very funny.
I really don’t mean to be patting myself on the back here. Whatever I’ve done for Danny, I’ve done for myself too. I simply like talking with him. He’s about the only one left who I can really reminisce with about the old days. Danny and I are friends, peers. I’ve taken him out on the road a few times. He’s a terrific opening act for me. He’s hysterical.
I don’t remember many details from the ‘credibility tour’ except how incredibly uncomfortable it was, how humbling. I think at the end of the three months, I netted around $800, maybe even less. No lie. It was less than $1,000, I know that. But at least everybody got paid. Except me. I don’t regret doing it.
There were moments that I will never forget, particularly at The Bottom Line, the New York club, when I invited Tony Romeo and Wes Farrell, both of whom I hadn’t seen in many years. I dedicated some of the material I hadn’t sung in so many years to them. All in all, it was good for me because I got back up and stood on my own two feet and started playing again. At least some of my fans had been able to see me again and I got to share some of my memories with them. Something I wouldn’t do for another ten years.
W
hat I have been able to do from 1987 until now – I’m talking about rebuilding my life, from the bottom up – I could not have done without Sue, the woman I stood up the Queen of England for back in 1973. Little did I dream when I first met her that 13 years later, after we’d both had unsuccessful marriages, we’d end up together and ultimately get married and have a family.
Getting married? I don’t think either one of us ever had any plans to do that. But Sue came into my office one day, shortly after my tour, and said, ‘I’m pregnant.’
I stared at her for a moment and said, ‘No, you’re not. You’re kidding.’
‘I’m not kidding. I know I’ve always been told that I can’t get pregnant, but guess what? I am.’
Me? A parent? Oh, Lord.
Sue and I got married shortly before Beau was born. We wanted to do things in the right order. I have to say, five o’clock in the morning, on the eighth of February 1991, watching the birth of my son, was arguably the most joyous moment of my life. I remember seeing him screaming and taking his first breath. Cutting the umbilical cord. Crying with joy, thinking this is what my life is all about now. Thank you, God. Thank you.
So I skip ahead to changing diapers, thousands of them, mind you, over the first nine months to a year. Living my life every day with my wife and my newborn son. Experiencing something that I never thought I would. Bringing another life into this world. Protecting him. Loving him. Caring for him. And, oh yes, being financially responsible for my family. Now there’s a concept.
I had bailed myself out of $800,000 worth of debt. I no longer had banks calling me. No lawyers harassing me. I got a call from Hal Prince about the possibility of appearing in
The Phantom of the Opera
. I told him that, as much as I appreciated his interest in me, I had just had a child, a baby boy named Beau, and at this time I wanted to spend every day with him, at least for the first six months of his life. Sue and I had been hunkering down together in a home we bought. Playing house was fun.
Sue Shifrin Cassidy:
I had been told I could never have kids. When we were living in London, I was in the kitchen, washing dishes, and David said to me, ‘I have the weirdest feeling that I’m looking at the mother of my children.’ And I said to him, ‘I can’t have children.’ I mean, what do you say when a man says that to you? It was like, wow.
About four years later, the doctor confirmed that I could not have children, that I couldn’t hold a fertilised egg, I was allergic to sperm, I was too old, you name it.
In 1990, David and I went to Russia and performed. I had been there before, on the first Songwriters Summit, with superstar songwriters including Cyndi Lauper, Michael Bolton, Brenda Russell and Diane Warren. I was invited back to perform and I took David with me. We sang
Lyin’ to Myself
and a song that I wrote with Jon Lind,
All Because of You
. We came back in May and in June my mother had a devastating stroke. I was 40 or 41 years old. My mother was lying there paralysed, and I thought I was having a nervous breakdown.
David said to me, ‘You need to call the doctor.’ I was a wreck; I just didn’t feel right. I went and saw my gynaecologist and he said, ‘We should just do a pregnancy test. Even though it’s impossible for you to carry a child, you could have an ectopic pregnancy.’
So they did a blood test and I got a call saying, ‘You’re positive.’
And I said, ‘Oh, I’m positively sick. There’s something wrong with me.’
‘No, you’re positive.’
And I said, ‘What do you mean I’m positive? Positive what?’
They said, ‘You’re pregnant. Your test was positive.’
I said, ‘That’s impossible. I can’t be.’
And they said, ‘Those are the results. We have them right here.’
I ran downstairs and David saw the look on my face and said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘David, they’re on the phone, they told me that I’m positive.’
He said, ‘What do you mean positive?’
I said, ‘I’m pregnant.’
He said, ‘That’s impossible. You can’t be. Let me talk to them.’
And he told them, ‘My girlfriend can’t be pregnant.’
They said, ‘We’ve never made a mistake.’
We both started to shake and we drove to the doctor. George Weinberger, my gynaecologist, gave me an ultrasound. David, who’d seen so many ultrasounds of his horses, knew exactly what he was looking at when the blip, blip, blip was there, right where it was supposed to be. And we burst into tears.
I had never even wanted children. I had never held a baby. And it was at a time in my life when it was least likely I would get pregnant, after a stressful thing like my mother having a devastating stroke.
I had an uncomplicated pregnancy and David was right there, even though he had to travel through most of it. He was on tour with the Beach Boys then. That was very hard, but he was there for the birth. He cut the umbilical cord. He changed the first diaper. He gave him his bath. That was the highlight of our lives and that was the turning point, I think, in David’s life. More than being with me, more than anything, being a parent changed him.
He became really committed. His attitude became,
Now I really have to get my act together
, because he hadn’t worked in a long time. He’d done the tour with the Beach Boys, but he really wasn’t serious then. And he was dabbling in horses, but he was kind of lost. It all changed when we became a family.
Like Sue, I had never had a desire to have a child, I had never imagined that happening. So it was such a shock to both of us. But it has added such an incredible dimension to our lives. If you’ve never had a child, you can’t ever imagine what it’s like until it happens. And when it does happen, you can never be the same again.
Sue Shifrin Cassidy:
David has a great sense of humour and we laugh a lot together. We’re very much alike; we’re both Aries. We’re both very opinionated, very controlling and very high-strung. So we have some dynamics that have not been easy. But, in general, we’re just supposed to be together. We’re still standing after 20 years and I can’t believe it. It’s gone so fast. I just love his spirit. I love the fact that he’s a survivor. I love the fact that no matter how hard he gets kicked, he gets up. And he’s been kicked really hard. I’ve been around it and I’ve seen it and my heart has bled for him. But he always manages to get back up. I tell him all the time, ‘You remind me of the Terminator. You’re like the steel skeleton.’ He has miraculously survived a life that has been a huge rollercoaster.
The way that Sue and I evaluate someone is,
Would you climb a mountain with them? And, if you were slipping, would
they reach down and say, Come on, I got you?
The more willing you are to care for your family and make sacrifices for the people you love, the better you become as a human being. You become a more well-rounded person and look at life from different perspectives. I had gotten myself out of debt. I had rebuilt my soul and spirit and physical and mental health. I started on a journey as a parent that’s been an unexpected gift and joy and I now find that my family is the most important element in my life. And that includes my brothers, my nephews, my nieces, my sister-in-laws, my cousins and my mother.
My mother, sadly, is now suffering from a horrible disease that none of us is immune to – dementia. I support her, take care of her, see her as often as possible. I know how important she has been in my life. My heart breaks daily for her and for others who have endured this painful disease.
My cousin Charlie, who’s my dear friend, helped me along the road to becoming financially solvent, protected and free of the pain and the choking fear. Things that are monetary are not the most valuable things in my life. The most important thing is intangible – love.
I’ve been able to heal a lot of my wounds through becoming a parent. My father was a role model for me, both positively and negatively. Everything he never gave to me, I give to my son. Everything he didn’t do for me that I wanted and needed, I do for my son.
Shaun Cassidy:
Becoming a father has made David a much better person. You can’t be completely self-involved when you
have children. David has been a terrific father to Beau and takes great pride in Beau’s accomplishments. He doesn’t seem to have any of the issues that our father had with him. He wants Beau to succeed and to do whatever he wants to do. He’s very helpful and supportive.
Recently, David sang the National Anthem at a Chicago Cubs game and he brought Beau with him to sing. For Beau I know that was like the Triple Crown. He’s a huge baseball fan and he got to be in the middle of Wrigley Field. So that was a dream come true. He loves to sing, and is terrific at it, and has eyes for being a performer. The icing on the cake was that he got to do it with his dad, whom he reveres. That’s a moment that I’m sure David would have loved to have shared with our father and couldn’t. He spoke to me about it with such pride, that he was able to do this with Beau and how proud he was of Beau and how beautifully he sang.
Sue Shifrin Cassidy:
I’ve said to Beau, ‘I really apologise to you for your parents.’ We’re basically great parents, great people. We love him unconditionally, but we have certain expectations. I said, ‘The thing is you have parents who had parents who were very hard on them.’ My dad, no matter how well I did something, would find one little thing to fault.
What’s really wonderful for Beau is that he’s got the best of both of us. When David wakes up in the morning, no matter what’s happened to him, he’s a very happy person. He’s got a smile on his face, he’s loving and he’s sweet. He’s, you know, smiling Sam, that’s what they called him when he was a little
boy. Beau got that. David wants very much to protect Beau and he can’t.
I’m not the sunnier disposition of the two of us. David is basically a very positive person. The events in his life have scarred him. David has a tendency to feel very put upon and because of his fragile and sensitive nature, he gets easily overwhelmed. He can’t just have simplicity, and he wants peace.
I
n 1993, some time around June or July, I got a call from a very successful producer in the United Kingdom, Bill Kenwright. He told me he had a show on Broadway called
Blood Brothers
and asked me if I would fly to New York to see it. He told me he was interested in me for the role of the narrator. To go back to where I had been born and raised, to be back on Broadway in the theatre, seemed like the perfect next step.
In New York, I met with the general manager, Stuart Thompson. I saw the show and was amazed. I thought it was such a powerful, magnificent piece of work. I went back to my hotel room, called Bill Kenwright and told him that I couldn’t possibly play the narrator. If he wanted me
to do the show, the only role that I would be willing to play, that I was right for, that I knew I could win with, was the role of Mickey Johnston. He argued with me for an hour. I argued back. I told him to sleep on it and call me in the morning. He called me the next day and said, ‘OK. You got it.’ OK, Broadway. Third time around, here I come.