In the latter half of the seventies, there were a number of teenage heart-throbs: Leif Garret, Travolta, Shaun Cassidy, Donny Osmond, etc. But in the early seventies, there was no question who reigned supreme for pre-teen girls - it was David Cassidy.
If you look at how extensively this guy was marketed, it is shocking. I would argue he was marketed more than Star Wars! George Lucas had nothing on the David Cassidy money machine.
There were the obvious products: the posters, the signed photographs, the albums, the patches, the lunch boxes, the buttons, the television show, the dolls, and the many, many magazines that featured the omnipresent Partridge. Indeed, Cassidy's face looked a lot like money.
From 1970 - 1972, it seemed David Cassidy's fame knew no limits. He played to two sellout crowds of at the Houston Astrodome over one weekend in 1972. He sold out Madison Square Garden in one day, and there were riots afterward. In London, 650 were injured, and one girl killed when mass hysteria swept the crowd and fans mobbed the stage. Everyone wanted a piece of David Cassidy.
.It wasn't long before things began to unravel. All this adulation started to go to his head. He was no longer satisfied with Tiger Beat. He wanted his name on the cover of Rolling Stone! In 1972, he achieved that distinction, but it came at a price. In the article, Cassidy seemed to have completely forgotten where all the money was coming from - throngs of rabid tweens - and talked openly about his sex life, posed semi nude, and discussed his drug usage. Ummm.... what do you think the reaction was from his fan base?
David Cassidy groupies from an episode of The Partridge Family
Not surprisingly, the article was not well received. The wheels were starting to come off the Cassidy gravy train.
I don't blame him. When you're a Tiger Beat star, you may be well paid, but you're not taken seriously. This same desire to be "critically accepted" led to the break up of The Monkees a few years prior. But it's a hard road to break free from the teeny bopper typecast. The Beatles were able to break free, but they are the exception, not the rule.
Well, it wasn't long lived, but it was an amazing taste of fame that only a handful of people on earth can claim to have experienced. Think about how people that were really popular in high school often let it go their heads. Now imagine being the most popular guy in every school, in every city, in every state, in the entire country for two straight years - holy shit, that must've been something else!
