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The lowbrow, low-budget films of the late 1970s and early 1980s often boasted huge amounts of substance use, and one star of 1980’s Caddyshack says producers even rolled it into a line item on the budget.
Michael O’Keefe, who played teen caddy Danny Noonan in Caddyshack, said cocaine was plentiful on the set, and that producers even rolled it into a line item on the budget.
‘People Were Treating It Like It Was Toothpaste’
“There was some miscellaneous item,” said O’Keefe in a recent interview.
Alongside Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield, the 71-year-old actor played teen caddy Danny Noonan in the movie, which was filmed in late 1979. “It was the 70s. That’s what was happening back then. People were just treating it like it was toothpaste, and you had to do it twice a day to stay healthy.”
O’Keefe was coming off an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in The Great Santini when he filmed Caddyshackand said he himself took cocaine while shooting.
“It was not my favorite memory because in retrospect I can see those moments on camera and I’m not too happy about them,” he said. “But I can report to you that right after that movie, during that movie, was the last time I ever did anything like cocaine. I realized that it was a terrible thing to get involved [with], and like so many things in the drug world, it looked like fun, but in reality, it wasn’t.”
Cocaine Claimed Stars Such as John Belushi
That same era of comedies proved to be anney died in 1980 at age 33 after walking off a cliff during a struggle with substance abuse. And in 1982, John Belushi, who starred inAnimal House(also written by Kenney and Caddyshack co-writer Harold Ramis), died due to a drug overdose
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‘That Was a Huge Wake-up Call’
O’Keefe called Kenney’s death “a huge wake-up call.
He added, “[Kenney was] one of the most affable, intelligent, funny people in the world… Was strung out on cocaine, got depressed, and committed suicide. It was truly a result of drug addiction, and that was a huge wake-up call.”
O’Keefe Stays Busy With ‘Your Friends & Neighbors’
In the years since, O’Keefe has kept up a regular acting schedule, with leading roles in films such asSplit Image and The Slugger’s Wife. He also stayed busy on Broadway and with regular TV appearances. He was best known for playing Fred on Roseanne from 1993 to 1995, and currently recurs on Your Friends & Neighborson Apple TV as Ron Cooper. He also starred in the independent film A Break in the Rain.
