When someone who is or was a celebrity has or had bipolar disorder I take a special interest in their life-narrative. Having had to deal with this mental health issue for seven decades now, I find the many manifestations of it in people’s lives make a heuristic comparison and contrast with my own experience. Johnny O’Keefe: The Wild One was televised on ABC1 & I took note. You went to the USA in October ‘59 the same month and year I became a Baha’i. I knew nothing of you back then, nor very little even after your 24 hits and all your work leading to the establishment of the Australian recording industry. All those nervous breakdowns as they called your BPD1 episodes awakened my interest. You were in a psych-ward in August 1962 in Sydney as I started pioneering for the Canadian Baha’i community. What a long story, Johnny: thank God I found lithium and did not get into drugs & OH or I might have also had an early demise.
