Actor Michael O'Keefe talks 'Caddyshack,' more serious work ahead of Steel City Con

During his days as a rising star in the 1970s and ‘80s, Michael O’Keefe was the kind of performer younger actors could look up to.

O’Keefe could do it all, including a guest shot in 1974 at age 19 – playing a paralyzed soldier on “M*A*S*H,” arguably the best show on television at the time. It was a tear-jerker.

Later in the ‘70s, there was a supporting role opposite Robert Duvall in “The Great Santini” that brought more tears, as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

And the kid could do comedy as well, starring in the very funny 1980 movie “Caddyshack,” in which he plays a down-on-his-luck caddy named Danny Noonan.

O’Keefe, now 66, is currently appearing as the overbearing pro sports team owner Jack Kent Cooke in the critically acclaimed HBO series “Winning Time: The Rise and Fall of the Lakers Dynasty.”

In between, he’s had roles in movies like “Michael Clayton” and TV series such as “The Blacklist” and “City on a Hill.”

But it’s “Caddyshack,” with a cast that included Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield, that in some ways has overshadowed much of what O’Keefe has accomplished.

O’Keefe is scheduled to appear this weekend at Steel City Con at the Monroeville Convention Center and he’s already anticipating that most of the fans who approach him will want to talk about “Caddyshack.”

And he’s OK with that.

“ ‘Caddyshack’ is a huge thing in the culture,” said O’Keefe in an interview with the Tribune-Review. “Actors are always trying to un-pigeonhole themselves from a role and do things that distinguish their work, like having people remember your work in the 21^st century and not just the 20^th century.”

But the Noonan character and the movie have always been important to people, O’Keefe said.

“In about 2007, I did a pilot and I went to the wardrobe fitting and the wardrobe designer almost immediately, after saying hello, started talking about ‘Caddyshack.’ And I had that former sense about how I held my internal Danny Noonan experience.

“And she read me very clearly and said, ‘Do you mind if I tell you why I’m such a big fan of “Caddyshack?” ’ And I said ‘fine.’ ”

She explained to O’Keefe that her father had just died of leukemia and for the last six weeks of his life, her family would sit with him in the hospital — and the only thing that relieved the tension was watching “Caddyshack.”

“When she said that to me, everything (negative) that I felt about having been in that movie, everything I felt about wanting to be distinguished as an actor and any of that self-aggrandizing stuff that actors are into, all just disappeared,” said O’Keefe. “I realized that the film holds a kind of special place in the American culture. So, I’m all in on being Danny Noonan.”

O’Keefe’s “Caddyshack” co-star, Chevy Chase, who played Danny’s mentor Ty Webb, is also coming to Steel City Con and O’Keefe is looking forward to seeing him.

“Immediately you pick back up where you left off, which means of course that Chevy is insulting and rude and I essentially become his lapdog, which is very much the way it was on the set,” said O’Keefe, half-joking.

Before he made “Caddyshack” and grew his hair long, O’Keefe played Ben Meechum, high school senior and oldest son of Marine Corps pilot and overbearing father Bull Meechum, played by Robert Duvall, in “The Great Santini.” The character of Ben is working as hard at learning to love his father as he is in trying to earn his approval.

The movie is filled with intense confrontations between the two – with Duvall at the top of his game as one of the premier actors of his generation, and O’Keefe, in his first big movie role, more than holding his own.

“(Duvall) has an animalistic charisma that is boundless. And at the time he was at the height of his powers,” said O’Keefe. “He was ready to rumble and he does not pull his punches and I do not mean that metaphorically. Whenever we had fight scenes, whenever we had things going on, it was for real.

“There was a kind of verisimilitude and infectious nature of his character that really brought us along,”

Not only was O’Keefe nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but Duvall was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

But O’Keefe has never been one to rest on his laurels. He is currently channeling his well-honed intensity and comedic timing into his characterization of Jack Kent Cooke, the man who sold the Los Angeles Lakers to businessman Jerry Buss (played by John C. Reilly) in the hit series “Winning Time.”

“It’s very clear from the way (Cooke) is written, and this is how I derived all of my preparation for the role, that he had this level of presumptuous entitlement and was written as this kind of contrast to the friendly and open way that Dr. Buss is being portrayed by John C. Reilly,” said O’Keefe.

“Then it was just a question of having fun and trying to do my best every time,” he said. “I had a blast. You could improv and roll with it. It was great.”

Yet another case of O’Keefe having a blast so the audience can too.