David Cassidy on the Web
David Cassidy plays a TV character modelled after his bisexual dad
July 20, 2009
By Mike Szymanski
www.examiner.com
David Cassidy is playing a gregarious, overbearing and kind of bisexual character-much like he says his father was-in the new ABC Family Channel show "Ruby & the Rockits."
Ironically, David's daughter Katie will be playing one of the few bi characters on TV in the upcoming season of "Melrose Place."
"The Partridge Family" heartthrob is playing the character in the show that his brother, Shaun Cassidy, created. This musical comedy is appropriately about two middle-aged brothers who were former pop stars who reunite when a long-lost daughter comes back into their lives.
Although it's fiction, there are a few parallels to their own lives that will be obvious in the 10-episode run.
David is Shaun's half brother, and they both were pop stars with major hits. Younger brother Patrick Cassidy is also in the cast. Ruby, who is the long-lost daughter and the title character, is played by Alexa Vega, who was in the "Spy Kids" movies.
All three of the Cassidy brothers were sons of actor and comedian Jack Cassidy who died in a fire in 1976. (Shirley Jones, by the way, was not David's mother as she was in "The Partridge Family," but she is the mother of Shaun and Patrick.)
Shaun says the self-indulgent extreme character of David Gallagher, played by David Cassidy, is inspired by their father.
In his book, "Could it Be Forever? My Story," David Cassidy describes his father as "a vain philanderer, an alcoholic -- and a bisexual." In a March 2007 interview, David confirmed that his father's bisexuality was something they discovered only after his death. He was also aware of his dad's talent, saying, "If you put the talent of all my brothers together, they wouldn't add up to the talent that was in my father."
Now, David is 59, and Shaun is 50, and they're still handsome and compelling.
