Andrew O’Keefe once said that his role model was his father, a prominent and respected figure in the legal world who served as a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
But it is the example set by his rock and roll star uncle that the disgraced former television star has most emulated.
Johnny O’Keefe, known by his nickname “The Wild One” while his lawyer brother was nicknamed “The Gentle One”, was a pioneering figure in the Australian music industry, recording nearly 30 top 40 hits between the late 1950s and early 1970s.
He also carved out a successful career as a television presenter, hosting Six O’Clock Rock on Saturday nights, which later became the eponymous Johnny O’Keefe Show on Channel Seven.
However, amidst all the success and recognition, he suffered terribly from drug and alcohol addiction, eventually dying of an overdose in 1978, aged 43.
It’s a depressing story that becomes even more striking when you consider Andrew O’Keefe’s own sad decline and very public battle with drug addiction.
Last week, the 52-year-old former Deal or No Deal host had three court appearances as he battles a series of complicated domestic violence and drug charges.
Happier times: Andrew O’Keefe smiling alongside David Koch at the 2005 Logies
O’Keefe once said his role model was his father, a towering and respected figure in the legal world who served as a judge on the Supreme Court of New South Wales. But it is the example set by his rock and roll star uncle that the disgraced former television star has most emulated.
“It’s a complicated mess, Your Honor,” O’Keefe told a magistrate on Wednesday.
Outside court, he showed his old charm, joking with reporters and insisting he was on his way back up.
But less than two hours after Wednesday’s hearing, he was arrested for allegedly violating a protective order and brought back before a magistrate.
It was a sad, familiar scene that he had unwittingly predicted when he joked on the courthouse steps earlier in the week that he “couldn’t get away from that place.”
Here, Daily Mail Australia charts O’Keefe’s sad spiral from nationally recognised TV presenter to tragic courtroom figure – and the alarming parallels with his uncle Johnny.
Following in his uncle’s footsteps
Andrew’s father, Barry O’Keefe, was a titanic figure in the legal world and at one point served as Commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales.
O’Keefe initially followed his father into the legal field, beginning his career as an intellectual property lawyer at Allens Arthur Robinson.
He and his wife Eleanor had just bought a house and had the first of their three children when he decided to make the leap into television, a decision his risk-averse father described at the time as “very precarious.”
Johnny O’Keefe (pictured above), known by his nickname “the Wild One” while his lawyer brother Barry O’Keefe (below) was nicknamed “the Gentle One”, was a pioneering figure in the Australian music industry, recording almost 30 top 40 hits between the late 1950s and early 1970s.
But it paid off when, in 2003, he rose to national fame as the host of Deal or No Deal.
His quick wit and clever charm captivated viewers and he soon became a household name when he landed the role of co-presenter of Weekend Sunrise alongside Monique Wright in 2005.
But, like his uncle, he was famous for his tendency to party.
This was made clear in 2008 when The Sunday Telegraph published footage of O’Keefe falling into a ditch with a mystery blonde woman outside a Melbourne nightclub.
Channel Seven, which at the time was accustomed to protecting its star, reportedly paid a bouncer $25,000 to try to suppress the story before it leaked.
The network later issued a statement insisting that O’Keefe was a “family man” and had “never intended to deliberately offend anyone.”
O’Keefe himself promised it would not happen again.
In 2018, Kochie questioned O’keefe about his “demons.”
“What happened was very unedifying and deeply shameful, and I am not at all proud of it,” he told the Herald Sun at the time.
When he returned to Weekend Sunrise, he even made a joke about the incident.
“I got everything I wanted for Christmas: a gift certificate to a rehab center in Miami,” she told viewers.
O’Keefe has been in and out of rehab at least ten times in the years since.
His first brush with the law came during a family vacation in Cuba in 2015, when he was involved in a car accident with a “government minister and his lackeys.”
“It meant that no matter how much I argued, it was all our fault,” he recalled of the episode, which led to him spending 14 hours in a Cuban jail cell.
His uncle Johnny was also involved in a car accident, but his had much more serious consequences.
In the early morning hours of June 27, 1960, “JOK,” as he was also known, a gang member, and his wife crashed into the back of a gravel truck, leaving all three seriously injured.
O’Keefe lost four teeth and suffered fractures to his head and face in the collision.
It has been suggested that he suffered an undiagnosed brain trauma that exacerbated his descent into addiction and contributed to his multiple crises.
The pressures of her career eventually led to the collapse of her first marriage in 1966.
His nephew, Andrew, would go through his own bitter split from his wife Eleanor in 2017, before finally divorcing in 2019.
At the time he told friends that he was being “punished by his wife” who allegedly did not allow him to see his children.
In 2022, The Australian reported that she had had no contact with her children for two years, which she described as one of the great sadnesses of her life.
Addressing his ‘demons’
O’Keefe appeared on the Sunrise sofa in October 2019 after taking an eight-week leave from hosting The Chase to attend a mental health clinic.
He had given an interview to the Herald Sun a couple of weeks earlier, where he spoke candidly for the first time about his separation from his wife Eleanor and his spiral into addiction.
Andrew O’Keefe appeared upbeat as he left court on Tuesday, even joking to reporters that he “can’t stay away from the place.”
But the troubled former TV star cut a sorry figure later that afternoon (pictured)
O’Keefe was reportedly in Sunrise to promote a national ‘JOK’ tribute tour, titled Andrew O’Keefe Shouts Johnny O’Keefe, and hailed his uncle as “an absolute icon.”
“This is the guy who really single-handedly invented rock and roll in Australia,” O’Keefe gushed to Sunrise hosts David “Kochie” Koch and Samantha Armytage.
But the parallels between uncle and nephew were painfully obvious to all who watched.
“I‘They used to call Uncle John the wild one and Dad the gentle one,’ O’Keefe laughed.
‘Dad was constantly in court defending his Uncle John for one thing or another, a traffic violation, a possession offense.’
Armytage interrupted his excited broadcast to ask who he most resembled.
“I think I’m a beautiful synthesis of both,” O’Keefe replied in a joking, mannered voice.
Kochie then took the opportunity to give the interview a more serious tone.
“We’ve been worried about you for the last year or two,” Kochie said.
‘You recently did an interview about how you dealt with your own demons.’
O’Keefe talked about how his uncle had “a lot of his own demons,” which added a poignant touch to the show.
“He had several breakdowns, he had electroshock therapy, he was put on all these medications to deal with the stress, the anxiety and the pressure to be himself,” O’Keefe revealed.
‘I’m starting to understand it a little bit more. We all have a moment in our lives when we wonder what it’s all about, who we really are, whether what we’ve done for the last 45 years means anything.
Last week, Channel Nine released disturbing footage of O’Keefe shouting at police officers after being arrested for a “violent and degrading” assault in September 2021 (pictured)
“I think when I separated from my wife Eleanor, that was my moment. And what I always believed most was in the power of love and in uniting with someone to create something special, and when I lost that, I thought everything was meaningless.”
She added: ‘In life, we have several choices on how to deal with things, and some people find a way to overcome their pain or turn to alcohol, drugs or food.
“And I feel very fortunate that in this country we have these institutions and the experience to be able to deal with these things and move forward.”
His frankness was brave and disarming.
But his seat across the couch was no doubt a painful reminder of how low he’d fallen since his days regularly filling in for Kochie during his 12-year run with the Weeknd Sunrise.
He didn’t know it then, but he still had a lot more to fall.
