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Authors: David Cassidy
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She really cared about me, my dad, and my stepmom. She was an extremely loyal person. If my dad wanted her to look after me, she would, even though there wasn’t any guarantee there’d be much in it for her. She helped me find a good agent to send me out to audition for appropriate parts. Then it was Ruth’s job to help me decide the right career moves.
For those who imagine that show business is all fun and parties and everyone is guaranteed to make a huge fortune immediately, you should consider this: if you hadn’t seen me in any of the three performances of
The Fig Leaves Are Falling
before its untimely close on Broadway, you would have had no other chance to see me perform professionally in1969 until the year was almost over. I didn’t get the film role I screen-tested for, nor did I get a number of other parts I auditioned for. In the final two months of the year, I was seen on episodes of two television series,
The Survivors
on ABC and
Ironside
on NBC (my first major role on television). And that was it for the year.
My total earnings for 1968 were well below the poverty level. And they weren’t much better for 1969. Even so, Ruth mirrored my great hopes for the future.
I was back living with my mom in Los Angeles and feeling a little too old for that. She covered most of my costs while I saved money, but she made it clear, however, that I’d have to become self-sufficient as soon as possible, because she had decided she wanted to move back to West Orange. She had never really bought into the Hollywood lifestyle. And now, after two painful divorces, she wanted to return to her roots. She felt that spending more time with my grandfather, who was 81 and in declining health, would be good for both him and her.
I caught up with some of my old friends, like Kevin Hunter, who wasn’t having any luck at all finding acting work, and Sam Hyman, who had found steady, if far from high-paying, employment as an apprentice film editor. I wasn’t sure how serious Kevin was about making it as an actor. I thought that creatively he would have been better suited to being a writer.
One night Kevin and I got on his lightweight, girls’ model Honda 50 motorcycle and drove up to the Los Angeles V.A. hospital. We scaled an 11-foot fence and stole a big metaltank of nitrous oxide – laughing gas. We rode back to his place with me carrying the tank. We got high on that for a week, then one night we went back to the hospital, returned the empty tank from the room we’d taken it from and liberated another tank for us to party with. Had we been caught, I later learned, we could have been sent to a federal penitentiary. But we never thought about the consequences of our actions. We didn’t actually steal them. We just borrowed them for a week. We did return them, albeit empty.
I started seeing Don Johnson again from time to time once I was back in Los Angeles (Sal Mineo was in London for a spell, directing a play). Don and I would often wind up seeking the same parts. Sometimes we’d both get shot down. But a couple of times, it came down to a choice between Don and me, and I was chosen. He was always really nice to me about it, but I have to believe he must have resented me at least a little. I certainly would have felt that way, but he was always decent about it. Don and I saw each other for the next few years around Hollywood; he was having a hard time getting work back then.
I saw Elliot Mintz a little, too. For a while we even wound up living right across the street from each other in Laurel Canyon. He was more interested in the struggle for political change than I was. I’d sort of become disillusioned with politics when Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. I couldn’t believe people couldn’t see through Nixon’s act. (I felt the same way when Reagan was elected in 1981.) I was more concerned with building a career and a life for myself.
When things start to happen in television, they can happen very
For those who imagine that show business is all fun and parties and everyone is guaranteed to make a huge fortune immediately, you should consider this: if you hadn’t seen me in any of the three performances of
The Fig Leaves Are Falling
before its untimely close on Broadway, you would have had no other chance to see me perform professionally in1969 until the year was almost over. I didn’t get the film role I screen-tested for, nor did I get a number of other parts I auditioned for. In the final two months of the year, I was seen on episodes of two television series,
The Survivors
on ABC and
Ironside
on NBC (my first major role on television). And that was it for the year.
My total earnings for 1968 were well below the poverty level. And they weren’t much better for 1969. Even so, Ruth mirrored my great hopes for the future.
I was back living with my mom in Los Angeles and feeling a little too old for that. She covered most of my costs while I saved money, but she made it clear, however, that I’d have to become self-sufficient as soon as possible, because she had decided she wanted to move back to West Orange. She had never really bought into the Hollywood lifestyle. And now, after two painful divorces, she wanted to return to her roots. She felt that spending more time with my grandfather, who was 81 and in declining health, would be good for both him and her.
I caught up with some of my old friends, like Kevin Hunter, who wasn’t having any luck at all finding acting work, and Sam Hyman, who had found steady, if far from high-paying, employment as an apprentice film editor. I wasn’t sure how serious Kevin was about making it as an actor. I thought that creatively he would have been better suited to being a writer.
One night Kevin and I got on his lightweight, girls’ model Honda 50 motorcycle and drove up to the Los Angeles V.A. hospital. We scaled an 11-foot fence and stole a big metaltank of nitrous oxide – laughing gas. We rode back to his place with me carrying the tank. We got high on that for a week, then one night we went back to the hospital, returned the empty tank from the room we’d taken it from and liberated another tank for us to party with. Had we been caught, I later learned, we could have been sent to a federal penitentiary. But we never thought about the consequences of our actions. We didn’t actually steal them. We just borrowed them for a week. We did return them, albeit empty.
I started seeing Don Johnson again from time to time once I was back in Los Angeles (Sal Mineo was in London for a spell, directing a play). Don and I would often wind up seeking the same parts. Sometimes we’d both get shot down. But a couple of times, it came down to a choice between Don and me, and I was chosen. He was always really nice to me about it, but I have to believe he must have resented me at least a little. I certainly would have felt that way, but he was always decent about it. Don and I saw each other for the next few years around Hollywood; he was having a hard time getting work back then.
I saw Elliot Mintz a little, too. For a while we even wound up living right across the street from each other in Laurel Canyon. He was more interested in the struggle for political change than I was. I’d sort of become disillusioned with politics when Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968. I couldn’t believe people couldn’t see through Nixon’s act. (I felt the same way when Reagan was elected in 1981.) I was more concerned with building a career and a life for myself.
When things start to happen in television, they can happen very
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