I don't listen to the news or read newspapers. I don't know what's going on in this world, or why I should vote for George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I don't have enough time.
When you cut your life into a film - 90-some minutes of film - you end up taking snapshots and vignettes of the highlights of it - marriage, divorce, death, success, fame, loss. The up and the down and the up again.
When you have had the kind of fame I had, I was always hounded by the media and I lived a very isolated life. Now it's even more difficult. The world has changed dramatically.
I played in garage bands and rock and roll bands when I was in junior high and high school and saw some of the great talents of all time in the local area where I lived.
Doing musicals and theatrical productions, I never did any of my hits.
My mother gave up a good part of her career to look after me.
Learning how to be a good parent was easy in the end because I'd basically had the What Not To Do manual.
I nearly died twice after I replaced Michael Crawford in 'EFX.'
I'm not saying that I won't tour again, but the chances are slim because my priorities are different now.
I think of my career as something apart from myself.
For me to go back and to play for audiences some of whom have been following me for thirty years and some who have found me in the last five or six years, that's really an interesting thing. I have an audience that goes from kids to seventy year olds.
Once they began doing 'Celebrity Apprentice,' apparently the audience wasn't that keen on the ordinary apprentice. That is probably the best indictment with our fascination with celebrity in our culture, which drives me crazy.
Having all that - the fame and adulation and women and all that stuff they talk about - doesn't make you happy. You have to make yourself happy.
Going through 'The Partridge Family,' I looked up to people like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and all those guys. But as an actor playing a part, I had to sing what was right for the character and the show.
Everything in my life was about performance when I was doing 'The Partridge Family.'
It is difficult to be famous and that successful where you can't even walk down the street without people chasing you, and having people build monuments to you and worshiping you - all that stuff - but I never took that to a place where I believed it. I saw it as being temporary and a phase.
In a very short period of time, actors can become kind of relevant and hot.
When you go through hell, your own personal hell, and you have lost - loss of fame, loss of money, loss of career, loss of family, loss of love, loss of your own identity that I experienced in my own life - and you've been able to face the demons that have haunted you... I appreciate everything that I have.
I just want to continue to produce good work. I don't want to do junk.
The difference now is that the paparazzi get paid fortunes. That's what motivates people; it's about the money, sadly, at anyone's expense.
All I had done for five years was work 18 hours a day all over the world. I needed to step back and distance myself from it.
I didn't end up some sad, tragic guy singing in a lounge somewhere. I never went out and took big money for nostalgia and became like an oldies act.
What I want is credibility I got as a songwriter and actor and doing 'Blood Brothers' on Broadway with my brother Shaun.
I've always had a love for horses since I was really young. When I was 5 years old, the only thing that made me happy was when they'd take me out and give me pony rides.
I had people sleeping in front of my home. I couldn't go anywhere. It confronted me from the moment I woke up. There would be 100 people at the lot where we shot 'The Partridge Family.'
As a father, I do everything my dad didn't do. My son Beau's birth changed my life.
It's not that my father didn't love me, it's just that he wasn't capable of consistently being there. His mood swings were gigantic.
All that stuff - 'teen idol' - that wasn't me.
Just getting your name in the papers and having people talk about you is not always a good thing.
If you put the talent of all my brothers together, they wouldn't add up to the talent that was in my father.
Contrary to public opinion and the image people have of me, I grew up in a very lower-middle-class, blue-collar environment 40 minutes outside of New York until I was 11.
You cannot make a teenage idol.
It's been the work that has carried me and I never wanted to rest on my laurels or go back and do what I done before.
I have an audience that goes from kids to seventy year olds.
I was silver-white by the time I was 35, but having grey hair makes me look washed out. My wife and son have both said that grey hair doesn't suit me because I have a boyish face.
I saw Jimi Hendrix - it must have been four times. And he was incomparable, and his legend lives on.
Just do me a favor. Don't call me 'former teen heartthrob,' okay? It's as if they were constantly discussing your second year of college. I'm not back there anymore. I'm living in the present.
There were times when I was a joke, but talent survives.
I'm never going to retire and say, 'This is it. This is my last show.' I will not go on tour - I promised my wife and son no more than two weeks on the road.
What happened to me during the last couple of years of 'The Partridge Family' was I became so famous and so isolated and so unhappy that I had to do anything I could to end it.
In the '80s, it was difficult and frustrating to appear in the theater and TV again, even though I had some successful shows and hit records. Now, I have to say, the '90s are the best decade of my life. I've done the best work and, in a funny way, I'm enjoying the most success... more than in the '70s.
I don't need to remind myself of the trophies. I know what I accomplished.
It was amazing for me growing up in the musical decade of the '60s. I saw The Beatles on television and went out and bought an electric guitar.
Thoroughbred racing is really my true passion. I'm living my dream.
I've had an awful lot of good fortune.
You can't be 24 again; you can't be new when you're 40 years old.
My first five albums were triple-platinum, and I played a lot of concerts.
I've had a great metamorphosis in my life. I struggled for a number of years because I was identified with that image of the Seventies.
I turned up to all my son's performances and baseball games because my father never did that for me.
