It’d be interesting to find out if stepmom Shirley Jones and his half-bros were invited to be a part of this documentary. IMO Jack comes off looking like a total shit for his treatment of David (in much the same way that John Lennon abandoned Julian). Apparently never (or rarely) did David get to spend time with Shirley and the kids. David had to pointedly ask Jack if he divorced his mom. When David was a young working adult struggling in NYC and needed a coat, Jack grandly took him out, bought him an expensive winter coat THEN informed David he would have to pay Jack back !
Mabel Normand said of Sennett “I made a lot of money for that Irishman”. Same can be said about David for his “Partridge” period as a teen-idol. After the concerts his handlers would dump him off in some flea-trap hotel instead of arranging for him to stay in some decent hotel with security. Even the concert arrangements were cheap- in Australia the stage was shoddy, the security negligible and the crowds allowed to crush towards the stage, resulting in many injuries and one fatality.
If only there were at least one person during that time who had David’s interest at heart, he could’ve paced himself (TV, concerts etc.) and developed a plan to transition from teen-idol to the type of musician/actor he wanted to become.
When David spoke about stopping the concerts etc., his handlers persuaded Jack to give David the “fatherly” advice of keeping that grueling pace that made money for so many other people. In return the handlers allegedly gave Jack some dirt-bikes for his kids with Shirley.