Could It Be Forever? My Story by David Cassidy

friendly towards me, although I sometimessensed a certain degree of competitiveness under that friendliness.
    I’m sure Don believed Sal could help his career. I felt pretty confident that Don was going to survive in Hollywood – which can be pretty rough, especially for a newcomer – no matter what it took. I’ve seen that a lot in Hollywood over the years. You’d be surprised at the lengths that people will go to to be successful in show business.
    Don was already a very talented actor when I first met him. Around 1969, I remember going to see him in Sal’s production of
Fortune
and Men’s Eyes,
and he was very good in it. I had every confidence he’d make it.
    As my mother and stepfather’s marriage finally ground to a halt, I aligned myself fervently with my mother. At one point in their break-up, I threatened to kill my stepfather if he hurt her. As I grew up, I could clearly see the pain my dad had caused my mom and I hated seeing her go through that again.
    My stepfather was respected in the industry. After he and my mom got divorced, he continued directing films, including
A Man Called Horse
,
a Richard Harris film and
The Car
, a popular film about an obsessed car that chases people
.
He eventually went on to spearhead the drive against colourising black-and-white movies. But by the time I was 18, he was essentially out of my life. He was gone. I actually felt relieved that there was no longer the tension between them in the house, but I missed him.
    I lived with my mom in my final year of high school. My mom wasn’t happy with the way her life had worked out. She had two failed marriages behind her. And she had given up a promising show-business career to give more attention to a son who appeared to be pretty much going nowhere.
    But I always knew I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to perform. I sang mostly theatre stuff as a young kid, music from some of my dad’s shows, like
Wish You Were Here
,
and I learned
The Music Man
when I was around seven. Years later I taught my own son
The Music Man
. Because I could sing, I was always singled out in chorus and music and glee club. I was a soloist in the choir.
    I started listening to the radio when I was nine or ten and I was a really quick student. It was easy. I could pick out harmony parts. I loved to sing all the background parts. When I was 17, I joined the Los Angeles Theater Company (LATC). I was the only non-professional that they allowed in and I worked in two productions during my senior year. I also wrote a play and directed it. It was pretty avant garde, an unstructured piece that didn’t have a title. It was part improv, and it was politically driven in a humorous way. Myself, Kevin Hunter and an actress performed it in the closing ceremony of the theatre company’s season.
    During my last year of school, my mom did some plays with the same company. I auditioned for and got a couple of parts in the production myself. It gave me a chance to work, for the first time, with some professional actors, including my mom. I liked the experience.
    My grades weren’t quite good enough for me to graduate with my high-school class in June of 1968. So I went to one last session of summer school to get the credits I needed. It was important to me to get a diploma. I didn’t want my mom to feel she’d raised a failure. Two weeks later, I moved back to New York with my dad and Shirley to become . . . an actor!

4 Time for a Haircut
    M y father was back in my life. Once he accepted the fact that I was determined to follow in his footsteps and make acting my profession, he tried to help me as best he knew how. He paid for my first professional photographs. He got me connected with agents who could help find me parts to audition for. And – most significantly over the long haul – he asked his manager, Ruth Aarons, who knew as much about the business as anyone, to give me whatever help she could.
    Initially, Ruth advised me more as a friend than a manager;