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The infamous photo of teen idol David
Cassidy by Annie Liebowitz on the cover of the May 11, 1972 issue of
Rolling Stone was an attempt by David to change his teenybopper
image on the hit TV show The
Partridge Family. In his Rolling Stone interview,
David tried to paint himself as a Keith Richards wannabe rather than
the squeaky clean Keith Partridge. To prove the point, he allowed
the inside Rolling Stone pix to show his pubic hair with the
headline "Naked Lunchbox."
David claimed he hated the Partridge Family scripts and music, and
unlike his Keith Partridge character, Cassidy had actually been
raised in the 1960s, had been to Haight-Ashbury, and had smoked
marijuana, and done mescaline, speed, LSD, and heroin. David was
also upset that he received none of the lucrative cash flow
generated by Partridge Family lunch pails and other merchandise. "I
sold a half billion dollars in licensed merchandise in the '70s
that's probably worth $10 billion now", Cassidy said in 2004. "I got
$5,000 from that because production companies and studios owned my
likeness."
He soon began touring solo,
performing Partridge songs and other pop music before huge crowds of
screaming teens, earning more from touring than from the TV show. By
the time he was 21, he was the music world's highest-paid solo
performer. By the time he was 24, The Partridge Family
was over. After it's demise, David starred on Broadway in
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Blood
Brothers alongside his half-brother, Shaun Cassidy. |