I received a number of messages asking me why I hadn't done an obit/remembrance/anything here on the passing of David Cassidy, who died the other day at the age of 67. "Surely, your paths must have crossed at some time since you got into show business," one wrote. No, they didn't. They crossed briefly around 1967 when we were both attending University High School in West Los Angeles. Apparently, we also co-existed at Emerson Junior High School before that but I only found that out years later when I got curious as to why my yearbooks sold for such high prices.
The one time we spoke: There was a talent show at Uni Hi and I was involved in producing it. David, who was a year or so ahead of me, asked to be a late entrant into the program but at that point, the rundown was already locked and it was too long so I told him no.
There. That's my David Cassidy anecdote. Not really worth the trip, was it?
Later, someone told me who his parents were and I would have liked to talk to him a little about them but we never spoke again. He was acting a bit at the time but this was a few years before The Partridge Family and his stardom. I do not recall having any particular feeling for or against that series or his records or anything else he did.
Around 1971, he was on the cover of every single "fan" magazine oriented towards teen-age girls and a few of them were published by a company that occasionally employed me to write this and that. One day, I casually mentioned to an editor there that I'd attended the same high school as Mr. Cassidy and instantly — don't ask me to explain why — I was offered the job of ghost-writing a column they ran called something like "David Cassidy Gives Advice." Teen-age girls were invited to write in and ask David for help with life and relationships and love and such, and he would tell them what to do.
Keep in mind that I've never been a teen-age girl. If I were one in 1971 and I had a problem in my life, I don't think I would have asked the guy starring on The Partridge Family for any wise, sage solutions. I'm just saying.
Then again, if I'd been the guy starring on The Partridge Family, I don't think I'd have given a teen magazine permission to run such a column, have some stranger write my replies and sign my name to them. But as it was explained to me, Mr. Cassidy had done exactly that. He didn't want to read the letters that came in, consult with the person answering them or apparently even read the column he allegedly authored.
In those days, I'd write anything for money. Those days should not be confused with these days when I'll write almost anything for money. I said, "Okay. Let me have the mail and I'll take a whack at it." The editor replied, "Oh, just write whatever you want" — meaning "Make up phony letters." She said the real mail they received for the column would be of no use to me.
I asked if I could see it if only to get some sense of what kind of advice the advice-seekers were seeking. She said, "I'll give it to you if you insist but they all ask the same question and it's a question you can't answer in the column." I was handed a sack of about 40 letters — that week's arrivals — and I went off into a corner to read.
About 25 of the letters did not ask "David" for any advice about relationships. They asked if they could meet him, if they could get an autographed photo, if he liked girls with bangs, if he was going to be in their city, etc. About 15 did ask questions about love and relationships but as the editor had warned me, they were all the same question about the same love and the same relationship. They all said, approximately…
I'm 15 years old and I'm really, really fond of this boy at school named Todd. We've gone out a few times and now he is telling me that he loves me but that I need to prove my love for him in a physical way…
They were all pretty much that letter and in more than a few, the name of the boy demanding sex was Todd. Either that given name makes guys especially horny or one kid named Todd was really getting around. I do not recall any letters about anyone in Alabama named Roy.
And of course, it was a letter I could not answer. The magazine could not condone underage females giving in to Todd-like demands, even if that's perhaps what David would have recommended. Meanwhile, a response extolling the wisdom of saving one's self for marriage would have sounded phony and parents would have complained if the magazine even addressed the matter.
So instead, I made up letters from "Jan" who wanted to know if she should wear her glasses to the high school dance even though they made her look less attractive, and from "Lisa" who wanted to know what do do about her boy friend's terrible table manners that caused food to fly in all directions. I — or rather, David — told Jan that she'd look darned unattractive stumbling and bumping into people, and he told Lisa to wear a plastic poncho to dinner one night and maybe he'd get the message.
I wrote two or three of these columns before I secured more interesting and better-paying work but it was an interesting experience…and an educational one. I've never for a second been interested in having children and I'm not sure I can explain why. But if I ever did and it was a girl, I at least knew how to be a responsible father: Never let your daughter go out with a guy named Todd. Any guy named Todd.