David James Elliott; Celebrity Profile

David James Elliott Celebrity Profile

E!: David James Elliott entered the world as David Smith. The beautiful blue-eyed boy was born on September 21, 1960, in Toronto, Canada. David's father, Arnold, was a heating and plumbing contractor. Mother - Patricia - took care of the children.

Pat Farrow: David was a very good baby, I must say. I have three sons and David was the one that I didn't have to carry around all the time. I could lay him down and he didn't scream, that sort of thing. He was a good baby.
DJE: I was the good one, the easy child in my family. The other two were a bit of a nightmare as children. I was pretty subdued.
E!: Shy but creative, David was a dreamer.
DJE: I liked spending time alone. I kinda lived in my head. My imagination was running wild. I rarely paid attention in school. I always imagined myself becoming a great writer.
E!: David's family settled in the small town of Milton, just outside Toronto. Although of Scottish descent, David's father was born in the Bahamas. David grew up influenced by strong opinions and a good dose of calypso music.
DJE: We really grew up with a heavy Bahamian influence. My father played guitar and they used to have parties, and he was always entertaining.
E!: The three boys shared a deep bond with each other, and with an unruly mutt.
Pat: We had this dog, Barney. This dog just loved David. And Barney would get loose, and we couldn't get him to come back. And the only way that I could get Barney was - I would pretend that I was beating David. I'd say to David, "Get down!", and David would lay on the ground and I'd pretend I was hitting him and David would start crying and Barney would be up the street and he'd stop, and he'd come right back to David's rescue and then David would roll over and grab him and take him in the house and the dog fell for it every time.
E!: In the fall of 1974, 14-year-old David Smith entered Milton High School.
Frank Lippai (best friend): In high school, David was a little shy ... gangly youth... tall, didn't really fit in, in a lot of ways.
E!: Frank and David shared a love of rock 'n roll music and a distaste for academics. School was definitely not a priority, according to teacher Brenda Kearney.
Brenda Kearney: His marks would not have set the world on fire, and I'm not sure that he had a focus or a purpose at that point.
DJE: They were worried. They thought, "This kid is going nowhere, fast!".
E!: Disinterested in school, bored with life in rural Milton, David took up the guitar. The once-quiet kid fronted a series of rock bands and became a stereotypical troubled teenager of the '70s.
DJE: Go out and have a couple of cocktails on a weekend. And you might get in a few scraps.
Brenda Kearney: And they partied because there wasn't anything else to do. It was hanging out at somebody's house, listening to music, fooling around, that kind of thing. Yes, you'd say he partied hearty.
E!: During their junior year at Milton, David and Frank started a grungy punk band.
Frank: At that time, disco was the thing, but we formed this band called The Assassinators, with a couple of other friends, and I think it was to get girlfriends, really.
DJE: We played the Horseshoe [Tavern], which was in Toronto, which was one of the punk bars. I remember we played at the local hotel and I took my shirt off in the middle of one of the songs and he cut the power and said, "Put your shirt back on."
Pat: It was a noisy band. Very, with the amplifiers and you know. But that's from a mother's point of view, right? It didn't sound like music to me.
E!: David's hard-working father wasn't happy with his rebel son's lifestyle.
Pat: He didn't like long hair, I'll tell you that right now. He did not like the boy's long hair. It was a bone of contention in the house.
Frank: I think David's father had other ideas as to what he thought David should do with his life. I remember once he had a fight with his Dad and he came out to the car and just tore the rear view mirror off and started punching the wheel.
E!: David felt increasingly alienated at home and at school. By the winter of 1977, 17-year-old David couldn't take it anymore.
Frank: I remember the day one of the teachers said, "I'm going to take you down to the office." And Dave said, "No, I'm just gonna quit." And he walked out to the smokers' hall, where you could smoke at our high school and just threw his books up in the air. It was great! Sheets of paper just fluttering down and David walking off, you know. That's it for high school.
DJE: I decided that I wanted to make a go of music. And I just ... I felt this high school thing ... was going nowhere. [laughs]
E!: David timidly announced an ambitious new plan to his family.
DJE: Well, my father was getting ready to go to work and I got up, and I said, "I quit school." Really. Yeah, he was kinda tired. I think it was like ... 6:30 in the morning. I said, "Yeah, I'm gonna make a go of the band. I'm moving to Toronto." "All right. I gotta go to work now." And he left. You could tell that he was just like, ... I think he'd gone, "Whatever!"

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