S David Cassidy - The Last Session

The original ‘Biography’ documentary special “David Cassidy: The Last Session,” intertwines an intimate biography of the late David Cassidy as told through his own words in never-before-heard audio tapes from 1976 with a raw and poignantly filmed final recording session. Grappling with the onset of dementia and headed into the studio to record a tribute to his father, Jack Cassidy, David invited a documentary film crew to chronicle the journey. During production David fell gravely and unexpectedly ill and it was during this time, he revealed to producers that his struggle with alcoholism had continued up through the recording session, and that his doctors had concluded that alcohol poisoning had likely been the chief cause of his tragic health decline, including his dementia. He would tragically pass away a few weeks later.

For the first half of the 1970’s David was one of the world’s biggest rock stars, breaking venue attendance records internationally and reaching a level of fame that rivaled that of the The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley himself. This profoundly revealing documentary explores that level of celebrity from the inside as few films have ever done. Interview participants include rocker and lifelong friend Alice Cooper; journalist and publicist Elliot Mintz; “The Partridge Family” stars Danny Bonaduce and Brian Forster; David’s cousin Charles Douglas; Grammy Award-winning musician Kim Carnes; songwriter and musician Dave Ellingson; rock photographer Henry Diltz; Grammy Award-winning drummer Hal Blaine; “The Partridge Family” producer Mel Swope; former Tiger Beat magazine editor Ann Moses; former Rolling Stone writer Robin Green; David’s childhood friend Sam Hyman; composer, producer and keyboardist Craig J. Snider; guitarist Dave Robicheau; drummer Teri Cote; bass player Frank Fabio and David’s neuropsychologist Dr. Barbara Peavey.

BetaSeries' opinion

Secrets d'histoire Season 20 Finale: Stéphane Bern's Messalina Episode Ends a Season About Reputations on Trial

Twenty seasons in, "Secrets d'histoire" can still surprise its audience. The Season 20 finale aired on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at 9:10 p.m. on France 3, and Stéphane Bern closed the season with one of the most notorious women of antiquity: Messalina, the third wife of Emperor Claudius. If you watched it, you already know it was more than a parade of Roman scandal. It was a careful re-examination of a woman whose name has been shorthand for depravity for almost two thousand years. If you haven't caught up yet, this debrief shows why the episode, and the whole season, deserves a place in your watchlist.

A finale that puts history's verdict on trial

The question at the centre of the finale was simple: does Messalina deserve the brutal nickname history gave her? Roman writers handed down a woman driven by insatiable desire and a hunger for power. Bern's team took that portrait apart piece by piece. They asked who wrote the story, why they wrote it, and what they gained from it. This is the series at its best. It doesn't simply retell a legend. It looks into how the legend was made. Messalina's world gave the episode plenty of drama: Caligula, Nero, Agrippina and the freedman Narcissus all appear, each with their own agenda in the deadly politics of the Julio-Claudian court. Without spoiling anything for latecomers, the finale's real emotional pull comes from the gap between the caricature and the young woman caught up in a machine much bigger than she was.

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