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‘The Partridge Family’: David Cassidy Explained Why He Had ‘No Regrets’ for Pushing for Merchandise Payout

David Cassidy was one of the biggest stars of The Partridge Family during its early 1970s run. And it was hard to go anywhere without seeing his face in those days.

Producers made sure to slap the heart throb’s mug onto, well, mugs, lunch boxes, books, pillowcases, trading cards and so, so much more. Looking at it all you’d suspect he was a multimillionaire with little worries when the show ended in 1974. But that wasn’t the case. According to a recent interview, Cassidy saw almost none of that money back then.

“They made $500 million,” Cassidy told Yahoo! Life. “… I got $15,000.”

When Cassidy realized this, he sued and demanded his fair share of the royalties made from his face. And some of music’s biggest names have him to thank for taking a stand, he said.

“I busted through the gate, and the rest of them just stormed through. But I was the first person to renegotiate and get a piece of the show, the first person to get anything from these people. It’s little in comparison to today, but it was a lot then, and you have to put things in their proper perspective. I would have $80 million instead of $8 million now. But that’s fine. It’s great. I did it when I did it, and I have no regrets about doing it. I got to do something that three or four, maybe 10 people in the history of the world — let’s see, the Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Valentino got to do. Maybe nine or 10 people in the history of the planet.

David Cassidy’s Real Career Began After Show

David Cassidy said he had considering leaving The Partridge Family for some time. He was the breakout star and has filling arenas for the show’s music tours. But it wasn’t what he wanted to do, ultimately, he told Yahoo.

He walked away and retired for three years, he said. He wanted to find more about what he wanted from the business. Or, if he wanted to return at all. He did but with mixed success at first. There were legal battles, producers tried to typecast him, and he struggled to make ends meet. But he kept producing new music. And it found a new audience more than a decade since his last hit.

His music career took off again in the 1980s. By the 1990s, he was happily married, raising his two children, and starring in the then-biggest show in Vegas, Yahoo said. He even had his own record label.

David Cassidy died in 2017, but by all accounts, he was a happy man. And didn’t need to be told to “C’mon, get happy.” He was already there.