Original subtitles

It was lonely at the top.

It was very empty, and...

I lost my identity.

It was too much. I needed to find a reason

for myself to get up in the morning.

You know, I needed to find a reason...

to live.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

David Cassidy first captured America's hearts

playing the handsome lead singer of a fictional musical group

in the 1970s hit "The Partridge Family."

The success of the show propelled David

to pop-idol status almost overnight.

Nine songs performed on the show

landed in the hot 100 billboard charts,

and the single "I Think I Love You"

made it to Number 1.

It seemed like he had it all,

but David had secrets

even his closest friends didn't know about.

In the end, he was undone by his demons,

and when the curtain finally came down,

it closed on a pained man

destroyed by a lifetime of unhappiness.

Tonight, the complicated life

and mysterious death of David Cassidy

and how it really happened.

Camerota: Very sad news.

Actor and singer David Cassidy has died at the age of 67.

The 1970s teen heartthrob rose to fame

as the star of "The Partridge Family."

You get the news and you think, "Oh, my good friend,

my TV brother is dead.

This is terrible."

I was just blown away when I heard the news.

It was like, "Wait a second."

The name just looms so large in our culture.

If you were a kid back in the '70s,

you can't not know who he was.

We were shocked 'cause it came so suddenly.

Everyone thought, "This is terrible.

What's happened to him?"

I don't know that David Cassidy saw his end coming.

I don't think he saw this coming at all.

♪♪

[ Crowd screaming ]

Carnes: I don't know how many people know

how giant his success really was.

[ Screaming continues ]

Parsons: "The Partridge Family" was a hit TV show in the 1970s,

and it catapulted David Cassidy into superstardom

as the lead singer, Keith Partridge.

♪ I think I love you ♪

♪ Isn't that what life is made of? ♪

♪ Though it worries me to say ♪

♪ I never felt this way ♪

He would get out there and really become that guy,

singing those songs.

Gosh, he was a heck of an entertainer.

♪ I remember April ♪

♪ When the sun was in the sky ♪

Halperin: There was nobody bigger than David Cassidy,

even his concerts.

Moses: He's the biggest, he's selling the most records,

he's filling the biggest stadiums.

He sold out places like Wembley Stadium...

David!

Halperin: ...Madison Square Garden.

It was crazy. It was just a sea of people

over the horizon, screaming for David and crying.

Carnes: If you weren't there to witness it,

if you weren't right there,

I don't think you can know the impact David really had.

Thank you.

[ Audience screaming ]

Cut it right here, huh? [ Laughs ]

He had a really cute, beautiful face.

He had a great smile. He had a great voice.

Somebody that a little girl could dream about.

Girl: David!

Moret: The girls fell in love with him instantly.

Oh, God, he's beautiful!

Oh, my God, David!

I will always remember David Cassidy

as the biggest star in the world.

[ Crowd screaming ]

David Cassidy's parents, Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward,

were both actors, Broadway actors.

Moret: His dad was a Tony award-winning stage actor.

He and his wife traveled.

They were on the road most months of the year.

So he grew up lonely.

Moret: David Cassidy was raised by his maternal grandparents

and didn't even know his parents were divorced for two years.

They hid that from him.

He found that out when he was 6 years old.

Halperin: He felt abandoned,

and that's why he didn't trust people his whole life.

My father left

and pretty much abandoned my mom and I,

and my difficulty with my father

was not really any different

from many people who come from broken homes

and who suffer that sense of rejection.

Moret: David Cassidy was a child of the '60s,

and he was not that wholesome character.

Halperin: He was always in trouble.

He was expelled twice for drugs

and once for bad behavior.

He dabbled in pot and hash,

but David's drug of preference

was THC and psychedelic drugs.

He was just your basic teen trying to find himself

and hoping that maybe he'd follow the path of his parents

into a show business career.

Camerota: After high school, David left California

and he moved to New York City,

and that's where he took acting classes.

I'd followed in my father and my mother's footsteps.

I wanted to be in the theater.

I got an agent, got some headshots,

and I went on 200 auditions and got a no.

And finally got a featured role in a Broadway show.

Parsons: While he was in New York doing this role,

someone from CBS spotted him.

It was sort of his discovery moment.

And he got small parts on various TV shows.

He was on "Adam-12"...

I went to a party after school.

I dropped some pills -- Red Devils.

Guy said I probably wouldn't even feel them.

What's he talking about?

...and "Marcus Welby, M.D."

There's nothing you wanted?

No, unh-unh.

I have everything.

Even diabetes.

I was trying to make a living,

I was trying to pay the rent,

and I was a young actor who had started on Broadway

and was on my way to being --

I'd consider it a credible, working, respected young actor.

I did one job that might never had seen the light of day,

which was the pilot for "The Partridge Family."

♪ Hello, world, here's a song that we're singing ♪

♪ Come on, get happy ♪

"The Partridge Family" centered around a widow

who was left with her children.

They became a band called The Partridge Family.

[ Guitar riff ] Quiet!

Mom, I wish you wouldn't stuff your ears every time we play.

It's very discouraging.

Can I help it if I'm a music lover?

Parsons: David Cassidy played Keith Partridge, the lead singer

of The Partridge Family band in the show.

His mother in the show was played by Shirley Jones,

his real-life stepmother.

The producer came to me one day and he said,

"Shirley, we have a wonderful young man

that we're really interested in to play Keith Partridge,

but," he said, "we want to know how you feel about it."

I said, "Who is it?"

He said, "It's David Cassidy, your stepson."

I said, "No kidding! That's great!"

I came walking on the set, and David looked at me

and he said, "What are you doing here?"

He said, "What are you doing here?"

And I said, "I'm your mommy on this show."

[ Laughs ]

He said, "What?!"

They hadn't told him.

"The Partridge Family" debuted in September of 1970.

Somebody's out to drive me crazy.

[ Exhales sharply ] It all started when I lost my pickle.

[ Audience laughs ]

Maybe we should call the Bureau of Missing Vegetables.

The producers fell in love with David.

He was what they were looking for.

He had the looks,

he had the voice,

and he certainly had the charisma and charm.

You could tell there's something different about this guy,

and it's gonna be, "Hang onto this

'cause it's gonna be amazing."

It's the kind of thing that really tapped into

the American sense of family values.

It was good, clean fun.

Parsons: The Partridge Family, they sold real albums.

They had best-selling songs.

"I Think I love you" was their first big hit.

♪ I think I love you ♪

♪ I think I love you ♪

There was no social media.

There was no Internet.

There were three networks,

and everyone was watching one of those three networks.

He became a bubblegum pop star overnight.

David was a heartthrob.

David was every little girl's dream.

But nobody knew what life was like for David Cassidy

when he went home at night

and turned the lights off.

Cassidy: The reason that it was troubling for me

was that people perceived me as something that I wasn't,

and I was unable to speak with this voice.

Moses: I was the Editor of "Tiger Beat" magazine.

My focus was always our biggest star,

and we knew that David was going to be it.

And basically, we did whatever it took

to turn out that massive product.

And that is photo sessions and doing interviews

because that meant that there was gonna be coverage

from front to back.

Cassidy: The reason that it was troubling for me

was that people perceived me as something that I wasn't,

and I was unable to speak with this voice.

They saw the actor play the part every week

on this television show,

they bought magazines and material

that had my picture of me smiling and all that,

and I was on the back of cereal boxes.

Moret: His career was such where you'd think

he'd be making millions of dollars instantly.

He wasn't. I think David Cassidy's contract

was about $600 a week,

and then on weekends -- Friday, Saturday, and Sunday --

he would do concerts.

Two concerts Friday, two Saturday, two Sunday.

A grueling, grueling schedule.

They worked that kid to death.

In every city we went to, first of all, we'd land

and it would be a mad dash through the airport

because, you know, just girls chasing him.

I mean running, running full tilt,

you know, to get to the car and get out of there.

But then we'd get to the hotel,

he was a prisoner in his hotel suite

because down below were crowds of little girls.

He could not leave the hotel all day long.

Moret: If you think about David Cassidy's life

at the peak of his success,

it's not surprising that he would turn to alcohol or drugs

because he was alone.

He was completely alone.

He was famous yet isolated.

He was successful, but he couldn't enjoy the success.

Most people had no idea about David's demons.

Cassidy: When I was drinking, I just became lonely.

I would go and buy a bottle of booze and come back

and go upstairs in my room, close the door,

and stay there and drink alone.

That's a sad, dark place to be.

Halperin: He really wanted to be like a Mick Jagger or a Bob Dylan,

somebody more profound.

He was really wrestling with what he was doing.

Moret: You feel like you're a prisoner of a role

and a prisoner in a role

that you just don't identify with.

It's got to be tragic.

So, after the TV show,

after the concerts, he had nowhere to go.

He had nowhere to unwind.

He had no one to share this with,

and he would retreat into drugs or a bottle.

Camerota: In the early 1970s,

David Cassidy is one of the world's biggest stars,

but he's conflicted.

He wants fans to see

that he's more than just Keith Partridge,

and he wants to be taken seriously as a musician,

and he's also looking for acceptance from his father.

Mintz: I only met Jack Cassidy once or twice.

He looked like an 8x10 glossy,

and he had very high expectations of his young son.

His father would cut him down

because of his own ego.

He would really say cruel things to him.

It was, "Oh, well, you're just a teenybopper star."

He said, "Son, why don't you come -- we'll go to Broadway

and do somereal and somereal

Well, it sounds like an invitation

until you dig, and it's just mean.

David told me bluntly,

"My father could not accept the success I had so quickly."

Moses: His father was very narcissistic.

He was so jealous of David.

David Cassidy loved his father.

He always wanted his father's approval.

And he never got that.

Halperin: Anybody who knew David would say the result

of all his depression, drugs, alcohol

was because he never felt properly loved,

appreciated by his father, Jack Cassidy.

It haunted him forever.

It looked like a scene from Vietnam or something.

All these girls either unconscious

or lying there crying.

He viewed himself as being partially responsible

for her death.

It's a heavy burden to have on your shoulders, isn't it?

I think I got pigeonholed into being considered something of,

I don't know, pretty face, no talent, or whatever it is --

the syndrome of carrying that Albatross

of an idol around with me --

that I became too famous to be cast

as a legitimate, serious actor, which I was.

Moret: David Cassidy was offered a cover of the "Rolling Stone."

Being on the cover of "Rolling Stone"

was the Holy Grail for any rock star,

and this is during "The Partridge Family."

He saw this as a way to break free.

He wanted to leave the Keith Partridge image

and become this rock 'n' roll singer,

who he really was inside.

David was photographed by Annie Leibovitz,

black and white,

and you can tell that he was naked.

He was shirtless and very provocative.

The article was even more so.

I was asked to write the article on David Cassidy

and follow him on his tour.

It was five days.

They gave me complete access.

We went out at night and we hung out,

you know, in his hotel room and smoked dope,

and he picked up a girl there.

So he allowed me, like, way too much access.

Moret: The producers of the show didn't know about it.

The management team didn't know about it.

Nobody knew about it.

Green: He portrayed himself tragically as pained.

He didn't want to do "The Partridge Family" anymore.

He didn't want to be a manufactured teen idol.

He wanted to be, I guess, a star but arock

This was a shock-and-awe move by David Cassidy

to say, "This is me. Take it or leave it.

I'm breaking free."

Green: He thought that he could

manipulate his image in the press

because the press had made him in the first place.

Other rock stars appeared naked on the cover of "Rolling Stone,"

so in and of itself,

it wasn't a terrible thing to do.

The upshot of it was his fans were outraged.

He turned off people who loved him,

and he turned off the people who didn't love him to begin with.

That cover haunted him the rest of his life.

Green: I stand behind the article.

I think it's a very honest portrayal of his situation,

but I never thought about the damage it might do.

Moses: He just retreated inside himself and hid out,

and you can't have a teen idol if there's no access.

He disappeared from the pages

because there was nothing left to write about.

I had heard that the reason we were canceled

is David didn't want to do it anymore.

Turns out not to be the case.

Cassidy: It was a good experience while it lasted,

but it was very confining for me and very --

I felt very stifled.

I don't think anyone wants to do anything

that really isn't exciting

and they can't grow in, and I couldn't grow.

David was happy to put Keith Partridge behind him.

He was happy when "The Partridge Family" ended,

and he embarked on this world tour,

but then in England,

there was tragedy at one of his concerts.

[ Audience shouting ]

Myskow: I arrived. It was a lovely sunny day.

Crowds and crowds of people.

Lots of very excited young girls.

And the show started, and as he came out,

everybody just kind of rushed forward --

these teenage girls desperate, hormonal, whatever --

to get to him. And then as he sang,

they were pushing, pushing, and pushing.

And, of course, the ones at the front,

who thought they were lucky to be at the front, were not lucky

to be in front 'cause they were the ones who were being...

squashed.

They were just pulling up, over the stage,

these little girls.

Bodies coming up.

Diltz: It looked like a scene from Vietnam or something.

All these stretchers laid out and these girls

either unconscious or lying there crying.

It was horrible.

And then sadly, one of the little girls,

Bernadette Whelan, died.

I mean, that was just... awful.

Cassidy: She wasn't in the front.

She was on the sides,

and I think just from the excitement of it all,

so I've been told,

she just had, I think, a heart attack.

He immediately contacted the family.

He expressed his condolences.

He viewed himself as being partially responsible

for her death.

That's a heavy burden to have on your shoulders.

Parsons: Then, in 1974, "People" ran a cover story with David Cassidy.

The big news was this huge teen idol,

heartthrob, massive, iconic character,

was taking a step away from the spotlight.

It was taking a toll on him and he decided

it was time to take a step back.

David wants to get out of the limelight completely,

so he moves to Hawaii,

and he decides that he wants to work on a book

that he describes as edgy

and completely raw.

Mintz: We go to Hawaii.

We take long walks along a beach.

I'd carry that little Sony tape recorder,

and David talked to me for 17 or 18 hours on tape.

I felt more like a therapist than a journalist

or an interviewer.

And at night, we would drink,

and it was at that time that I really began to see

the extraordinary anguish and isolation

that he was going through.

It was clear to me that David had a dependency problem

on drugs and alcohol.

I turned to drugs and alcohol

in the darkest period of my life

after I'd retired from "The Partridge Family."

By that time, David Cassidy

was estranged from his father, Jack Cassidy.

Parsons: Jack Cassidy had his own challenges.

He battled bipolar disorder.

He was also an alcoholic.

Myskow: When I interviewed David for my BBC Radio 2 documentary,

I knew that he'd had problems with his father,

that his father resented his success and was jealous.

Cassidy: I finally said to him, "Jack, you're really not handling this,"

and it was the night up at my managers'

that he had a couple drinks

and he started breaking furniture

and screaming at me, and I just walked out.

It was the last time we actually spent any time together.

It was really sad.

Myskow: And then nine months later,

his father died tragically.

Moret: Jack Cassidy was alone in an apartment.

He was drunk,

and he had lit a cigarette and fell asleep,

and he died in a horrible fire.

I was with David when the news came in,

and he was very, very distraught.

Moret: David said in an interview later,

"I never got to tell my father how much I loved him."

That relationship with him was never, ever resolved,

and it was never healed, for me or for him.

Everything around David was so sad.

I kept observing this increased sense of loneliness and despair.

Shortly after my dad died, my manager died.

I went through two very unsuccessful

and very unhappy marriages.

Diltz: My wife and I introduced him to Kay Lenz.

Now, that was his first wife.

Kay Lenz was a very accomplished actress at the time.

Diltz: They got married and had a good time for a while,

but they both had their careers,

and I think that's a little, show biz,

when you both have a career.

I was into a very serious self-destruct mode.

Myskow: The first two marriages were not right.

His problem -- well, what he told me, and I believe him --

came from the relationship with his father --

the very bad relationship --

and that he was always searching for approval,

but I don't think he could ever be content.

I was quite surprised to find out that David Cassidy

had some sort of secret life.

How'd he keep this all secret?

Welcome back.

Devastated by the death of his father

and a young fan at one of his concerts,

David Cassidy retires from show business

and disappears from the public eye.

But in the late 1980s, he makes a comeback.

David releases new albums

and in 1991, embarks on a concert tour,

reuniting with his former TV brother,

Danny Bonaduce.

The moment you've been waiting for.

David Cassidy!

[ Cheering ]

We love the comeback, right?

Moses: His life got so much better

and all kinds of good things happened.

The '90s -- I say this all the time --

has been a far more fruitful, successful, enjoyable,

happy decade for me than the '70s were.

Camerota: David reconnected with an old flame named Sue Shifrin,

and they fell in love and they had a son named Beau,

and they marry in 1991.

Moses: And the way he and Sue got together, it seemed,

"Oh, boy, this is all just fitting into place."

She married, in many ways, a broken man but she loved him.

Moses: He says in his autobiography,

"Everything changed the day Beau was born."

Myskow: He seemed to adore Beau.

On the surface of it,

that structure of him and Sue and Beau,

that gave him that sense of completeness.

And then he went to New York to do a Broadway show.

♪ Sunday afternoon ♪

"Blood brothers" is a famous Broadway play.

♪ Try to remember jokes I knew ♪

And the play had never sold out

until David Cassidy took the lead.

It's the finest role I've ever had

and probably the best piece of work I've ever done.

It gave me a whole, new life

in terms of my acting career.

In August of 1996,

the MGM Grand makes a deal with David

to become the lead in their EFX show,

and a month later, David and his wife and his son

have a new home --

Las Vegas, Nevada.

Boggs: How many people could go into something like EFX

in this giant theater at the MGM Grand

and fill that night after night after night?

He reinvented himself

in the public's eye.

He did very, very well,

but not enough to make him happy.

Sadly, I don't think.

Halperin: Vegas took its toll on David

and took its toll on his family life.

He did eight shows a week, and he said,

"That was grueling."

Halperin: He sort of became a modern-day Jack Cassidy --

not intentionally.

But he was never around because he was always working.

Sue doesn't like Vegas, and Beau doesn't like Vegas.

Halperin: And his family life deteriorated

and was in jeopardy.

Camerota: In his 2007 book,

David said that after 10 lucrative

but workaholic years on the strip,

he knew that he had to either leave Las Vegas

or lose his family.

Halperin: That's when he decided to move to Fort Lauderdale.

He really didn't want to be Jack Cassidy of his era.

He said, you know, "My father was never there for me,

and I will always be there for Beau."

Once David and his family are settled in Florida,

he starts touring again.

Because David Cassidy was a showman.

He loved being on stage.

My dear friend, Mr. Craig J. on keyboards and vocal.

He loved performing. He loved to get up on stage.

You better strap your seatbelts on.

It's gonna be some kind of ride.

We were a musical family 100%,

and there was just a great chemistry.

But we had some really,really beautiful moments on stage.

Moret: He was happiest on stage, but he had addictions,

and they got in the way of being happy as a person.

Carnes: It was so tragic,

The turn his life took is just horrible.

Yep, okay, you're being arrested for DUI, sir.

Former child TV star David Cassidy

is out on bond this noon

after being busted for DUI last night.

2010 was the first time

that the public became aware of his drinking problem.

Halperin: David was caught on the dashboard cam.

He was clearly inebriated.

You never listened to me. I was --

You're gonna take -- Listen to me!

I was quite surprised.

How did he keep this all a secret?

He was drunk, and he was over the limits,

and the test clearly showed that.

Alright, keep going. How far?

Till I tell you to stop. Oh, I'm sorry.

He seemed so tragically flawed.

People started asking a lot of questions

about his emotional states.

I'm not impaired, and if you think I am,

I'd like to prove it to you that I'm not.

You just did prove it to me.

He tried to misdirect by saying he only took Vicodin.

Moret: He lied. They found a half bottle of alcohol

in the car open.

Halperin: David was convicted of the DUI charge.

Mintz: The mug shot broke my heart.

Sometimes you look at the mug shot

and you really see a person's soul,

and I knew it was the beginning of the end.

Bilinski: We would be at dinner,

and sometimes he would leave the table

and then come back.

We always were wondering what that meant.

He hid it really well.

I had no idea. Just had no idea.

-Let's go, sir. -It's good.

Bonaduce: When he got the DUI I just said,

"How is this even happening?"

The guy I've never seen have a drink.

David was convicted of the DUI charge.

It was an extremely rough time for him,

and I think that further put him into a deeper depression.

I think he maybe thought

that he was going to conquer his demons,

but there was something inside him that wasn't right.

In 2013,

David was stopped again

for drunk driving.

Reporter: David Cassidy facing drunk-driving charges.

According to police, the 63-year-old was arrested

in upstate New York just after midnight.

He had flown in,

probably been having something to drink

on the airplane,

and when he got into his rental car,

the police stopped him.

He was given a breathalyzer.

He was way over the limit.

He did a plea deal

where he'd plead guilty and they'd give him

a lesser penalty.

He had no choice. -When he got he first DUI,

I just said, "I'm here for you. Don't worry about it."

When he got the second, I was mad.

Halperin: To everyone who knew David now,

they saw the writing on the wall.

They knew this guy was headed to

really dark, dark times,

and there was no stopping it.

Snider: He hid it really well.

I had no idea. Just had no idea.

In 2014, David again was stopped in Los Angeles.

He was two times over the legal limit,

and once again, David Cassidy's in trouble with the law.

He pled no contest.

I mean, what can he do?

He's already been convicted two prior occasions.

There's a sadness in the very fact

that he went so far out of control

on his own, you know.

It may have been partially genetic.

There was a history of alcohol in David's family.

His father, Jack, was a big alcoholic.

Alcohol took over his life.

We would be at dinner,

and sometimes he would leave the table

and then come back.

I think he was more of a closet drinker,

where he would drink when he's by himself.

Halperin: David Cassidy's life after the third incident in Los Angeles

was just going from dark to very dark.

She had had enough.

She didn't think it was a good environment for her

or her son, and that was it.

The marriage ended.

Bilinski: Sue was a loving wife.

Sue was trying to help him.

It was difficult for David to operate in the marriage

because he had his demons.

The only true thing I think that ever happened in his life

was the marriage to Sue and his son,

and he lost it.

Oh, there's no question. At some point,

David Cassidy became an addict.

David Cassidy had three DUI arrests in five years.

He was truly, deeply struggling with alcoholism.

Cassidy: I have been in rehab,

with the exception of about 10 days,

over the last -- over three months now,

and I'm gonna stay as long as it takes,

knowing I was not making any headway

and was getting worse in terms of my relationship with my wife.

We spent 26 years together

and have a magnificent son,

and it kind of all turned into hell.

Why?

I had DUIs.

I got -- I was --

I have a problem with alcohol.

Finally an acknowledgment. "I have a problem."

His family believed that he was making progress,

that he was on the wagon, that he was in a good place

in terms of keeping his alcoholism under control.

If I take another drink,

I'm going to die.

He slurred his words, sounded and appeared as if he was drunk.

Knowing and...

Maybe itwas

After, I was like, "Oh, my God."

Woman: Oh, my God, David!

Morgan: David Cassidy knows what it's like to be a heartthrob,

adored by teenage girls everywhere

and also what it's like to see your mug shot

plastered all over the news and to go to rehab.

When David Cassidy spoke with Piers Morgan,

he was very honest -- shockingly honest --

about the dire situation he was in.

If I take another drink,

I'm going to die --

physically, mentally, emotionally,

spiritually, I'm dead.

Moret: Very rarely do you see an interview like that,

where there's stream of consciousness

and the person is talking to the interviewer

as if nobody else is listening, and we're all listening.

Do you now accept that you're an alcoholic?

Have you come to terms with that?

Is that how you see yourself?

Yes, I am most definitely an alcoholic.

I'm as flawed as any alcoholic

or drug addict or any addict.

Up until a little over two months ago,

I had been lying to myself,

and, consequently, lying to everyone about my disease.

You feel like you got a chance to try and --

I not only have a chance. I am there.

You know, no one can believe me, no one --

and I don't expect them to.

Hello, Los Angeles.

How are you, baby?

Halperin: In Agoura, California, in 2017,

it was probably one of the worst visions or scenes

anybody could imagine for a pop legend on stage.

It's so meaningful to me. [ Interference squeaks ]

I don't know what I did, but, um...

While on stage, he was forgetting the lyrics

to some of these songs that he had been singing for decades.

♪ Girl I ever had ♪

[ Inaudible ] ♪ Na, na-na-na, na-na-na ♪

He slurred his words.

It sounded and appeared as if he was drunk.

We learned from recording and knowing and...

singing.

And then, at one point,

he literally falls off the stage,

and that was captured on TMZ.

I didn't even know that he had fallen off the stage,

and I didn't even see it happen

until someone played it for me after.

I was like, "Oh, my God."

Everyone thought he's fallen off the wagon again.

Parsons: It was all on video. It made a lot of headlines.

It seemed that this was an alcohol-related issue.

Then, shortly after that incident at the concert,

David Cassidy came to "People" magazine

to reveal he had been diagnosed with early stage dementia.

He blamed the gaffes on stage -- forgetting the lyrics,

falling -- he blamed it on that diagnosis.

Moret: David Cassidy said this ran in his family,

but with the help of his family and his fans,

he would get through it,

and he really appreciated people's support,

but he didn't want them to think that he was drunk.

He was saying, "It's the dementia.

I'm forgetting some of the words, and no big deal."

And he even went on "Dr. Phil."

What was the first symptom that you noticed?

When friends of yours or family members

begin to say to you,

"Remember? I just told you this two days ago."

And there's no memory of it.

David Cassidy had watched his grandfather battle dementia.

He had also, in an even more personal way,

watched his mother, Evelyn, as he put it,

"disappear" into dementia.

It was something that he said he always sort of sensed.

There was a part of him that knew

that dementia was something he would battle.

He was getting huge acceptance and love,

all different kinds of love,

from his fans, from his close friends.

He wanted to maintain a brave face,

and he didn't want to have pity parties thrown at him.

We would talk about it, and I would say to him,

"You can dwell on it. It's not gonna change anything.

So, where do you want to go from here?"

And that's what I would ask him, and that's when we started

working on the "Songs My Father Taught Me,"

which he'd been talking about for a couple of years.

He's recording this album that has so much meaning to him.

Mintz: A homage to his father, where he sang the classics

the way Jack Cassidy would've approved.

Now, that tells you something.

The making of that album was memorialized

in this A&E documentary called "The Last Session."

This is the worst I've ever felt in 67 years.

I'm in agony.

Moret: The A&E documentary was very disturbing,

because when you'd see him talking,

you thought, "He's not talking like a 65-year-old man.

He sounds like a 97-year-old man."

Everything seemed tragically old and damaged.

Then the music and the documentary were abruptly halted

when David was suddenly hospitalized in Chicago.

In hindsight, you always go,

"God, how did I miss how sick he was?"

But, you know, there was so much going on

to try and pull this off,

and he was insistent that he wanted to record

and he wanted to do it.

Hello?

How are you? I'm so glad to hear your voice.

How are you?

And in that A&E documentary, there was a shocking revelation.

When David made the call to A&E, he basically came clean,

and he'd used dementia as an excuse.

Because he thought that would cover up

what was really going on.

Camerota: He was numbing his emotional pain with alcohol,

and he was dishonest with his family about his alcohol use.

It was alcohol that had done this to him.

[ Siren wailing ]

On November 15th, David's admitted to a Florida hospital.

He's in the hospital with organ failure.

And the doctors are not hopeful.

They don't think David's gonna pull out of this.

Just too much complications, and it doesn't look good.

David Cassidy has been hospitalized

in critical condition with organ failure.

His publicist says that he's surrounded

by family and friends.

He was in a medically induced coma.

He needed a transplant because alcohol had taken a toll

on his body.

Snider: I got a call from his son, Beau.

Beau called me and said, "No, he's really sick.

You should come." So I did.

And then he just took a nosedive.

With whatever strength he had in that final breath,

he said, "So much wasted time."

It's an object lesson for all of us.

And then, you know, we lost him.

He died during the creation of that album.

It was the last thing that David Cassidy did on Earth.

It was that delayed respect and showing of love for his dad.

It's almost Shakespearean.

We have some sad breaking news for you tonight --

the death of '70s teen idol David Cassidy.

The singer died today after he was hospitalized

last week in Florida.

I was in Rome, Italy, when I got the news.

Some stranger walks up to me and he goes,

"I'm terribly sorry about your loss."

And I said, "What are you talking about?"

He said, "David Cassidy just passed away."

He was just such a big star,

and they don't make stars like that anymore,

and I think they should.

Diltz: I can't really psychoanalyze David,

but I do know that his childhood years

somehow set him up for a life

that kind of was not satisfying to him in some way.

From a young age, he was scarred,

and those scars really never healed.

They would stay with him the rest of his life.

When I talk to friends and they ask me about David,

I just want them to know the wonderful person that we knew

and how much he wanted to make a difference with his music.

Good or bad, the world was a more interesting place

with David Cassidy, and, in my world,

more interesting is better.

I felt a terrific pressure trying to live up

to this reputation that David Cassidy,

who had millions of people that idolized him

and this hero worship was so great,

I couldn't sustain it any longer.

I couldn't live with feeling unworthy of it,

and I guess a sense that somehow or another,

I wasn't good enough. I wasn't enough.

David Cassidy made millions of people happy

with his music and performances.

But as it turns out,

the one person he couldn't make happy

was David Cassidy.

At the end of his life,

David was surrounded by friends and family.

Among them was a daughter that he had in 1986

from a brief relationship.

Her name was Katie.

They'd been estranged for many years.

He uttered his last words to all.

"So much wasted time."

Perhaps there's a lesson here for all of us.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.