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THE FAMILY: Phil Keoghan, second from left, with siblings Andrew and Ruth, and parents John and Beth, at their home in Antigua in 1981.
The Amazing Pace The Press Last updated 12:38 07/08/2010
Phil Keoghan strolls through the studio holding a crayfish. There he is holding a ski-board. Now a fishing rod. He wears a bathrobe, a bush shirt. Now a quick change and he's in a tuxedo.
The 43-year-old host of reality television show The Amazing Race is the chosen poster boy for a Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism ad campaign aimed at the Australian market. On today's agenda is nailing 26 photographs, hence the edible crustacean prop.
He jumped off the plane from Los Angeles at 8.20am and went straight to the photo shoot. Four hours in, and he is talking about going for a bike ride when they wrap. But rain steers him towards a gym workout instead.
To keep fresh for the camera, Keoghan says he has a trick up his sleeve. American celebrities swear by a cream called Preparation H. The intended target is not the eyes (it's a haemorrhoid cream) but celebrities like Jennifer Anniston swear it reduces puffiness.
It's hard to imagine a harder- working TV host than Keoghan. A 13-episode season of The Amazing Race is shot over 25 days. Filming might start at dawn and last all day until contestants and crew are on a plane to the next destination. They catch as much aerial sleep as they can, only to begin again at touchdown.
"This last season [his 17th], we did six days in a row and never even saw a hotel."
Keoghan is on a filming break from Race, but his life still reads like a killer production schedule.
"I think if anyone was going to use a word to describe me, they would say I was determined," he says during a lunch break. "I was very lucky. I learnt about the principles of hard work from my parents and my grandparents. It was that whole thing about being a New Zealander and fixing anything with a No 8 wire."
Ironically, the young Keoghan knew little about what it was to be a New Zealander. Philip John Keoghan (pronounced like "bogan") was born in Lincoln, outside Christchurch, in 1967. At age three, he and his family moved to Canada and by age seven, work took them to the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Parents John and Beth say it was a carefree existence for the youngsters, but at the age of 13 Phil was sent to St Andrew's College boarding school in Christchurch.
"To learn how to be a New Zealander," John says. "He came back here as a pale-faced West Indian."
John and Beth are at their Rolleston B&B. It is a scene of good, honest Kiwi domesticity. Beth is making scones and John has come in from the garden.
At 43, Keoghan is the eldest sibling. He was followed 15 months later by sister Ruth, and 13 years after that, Andrew arrived.
Only one of their children is a seven-time Emmy award winner, but Beth and John are equally as proud of their other son and daughter. Andrew is a musician, and they play his CD as I leave the house.
They say life in Antigua shaped their children. "We had no TV. Our house accumulated an incredible cross-section of children coming for piano lessons with Beth," John says. "Rastafarians, children of politicians, poor families, ex-pats. Phil mingled, with wonderful acceptance of every conceivable background.
Ad Feedback "He is determined and focused and he has his mother's ability to just do things, even if the going's tough."
Young Keoghan spent his spare time careering around with the island kids, but he would always make it home for music lessons.
Beth says: "That's just his discipline. He sets goals and gets places by sheer hard work. We've always said to him, 'keep your feet on the ground'."
And he has, they say.
Keoghan's first appearance on New Zealand screens came at age 19 with children's show Spot On. But breaking into the American scene required innovation and resilience.
In Antigua, he would trundle around the island on the flat deck of a ute. Village kids would yell out, "honky man, honky man".
John says his young son would reply in Antiguan dialect, which sounds something like, "Hush yer mout, man".
Accent assimilation appears to have always been a Keoghan skill.
He made the career move to America in 1992 with his wife of 16 years, Louise. His first attempt at a job was an audition for a soap opera - a love scene in a bay window - but he didn't get the part. Flat Kiwi vowels were a turn-off for producers. "I ran into that a lot," Keoghan says. "If people had even heard of New Zealand at all, they would think it was Tasmania. The New Zealand accent just didn't work for me."
He was turned away several times, gaining only piecemeal work for the first couple of years.
Out but not down, a fellow antipodean took a punt and hired Keoghan as a roving field host for a Fox network breakfast show.
He visited a voice coach once, but found he could create an American accent without help. He learned to start "being American"- right from the pre- audition chit-chat through to the on-camera audition.
In 2000, he missed out on the job of hosting Survivor but six months later The Amazing Race gig came up.
"The American television landscape has changed. Even 10 years ago it was so different, but look at 2010 . . . We've got Simon Cowell with his English accent, Heidi Klum is German. There are a plethora of foreign accents."
Back at the photoshoot, Keoghan takes a good look at the design of the backpackthat is an accessory to his hiking look. Back in America, he has been asked to design a luggage range. He is also the face of NOW Energy (a high- protein bar he developed with CookieTime in Christchurch).
He is a storyteller, laughing and buoyant for the duration of the shoot, unashamedly pulling the occasional bizarre pose.
The advertising creative team seem pleased. They laugh when he calls a bag his "murse" (man purse) and positively giggle when he ribs the costume woman for informing him the leather toggle of his pedant had come to the fore.
"That's a line I never thought I'd hear. My toggle's showing!"
He takes the mickey out of his legs. "It's the Irish skin. Trust me, I've had to be painted a darker shade many times."
And still the poses continue, including a yoga move and an acceptable recreation of Grace Jones' Island Life album cover.
"Is anyone else getting this? Or am I showing my age?"
Out of the bathrobe and in civvies, his jeans are blue, the shirt is blue and so are his eyes.
He is thin but made from muscle, currently training for a 161-kilometre bike race through Leadville, Colorado. Last week he was at the Paramount studios in LA for the screening of his film, Phil's Ride Across America. Keoghan senior drove the support van and trailer across America, while his son rode the 5793-kilometre route on bicycle over 40 days, raising US$500,000 for multiple sclerosis research - a charity also supported by his wife, Louise.
The Keoghans live in Santa Monica, just down from Venice Beach. Their house (he calls it a "house", but says their Coromandel place is a "home") is a single-storey, three-bedroom residence. It is part of a complex, nothing ostentatious, he says.
"It's all about the location. But whoever told you the water in California was warm, was lying. It's cold. There's a reason Pamela Anderson looked so good in Baywatch. The temperature enhanced her breasts."
We discuss the merits of Crocs shoes. He is a supporter.
Post-shoot and gym workout, he is able to meet Louise and their 14-year-old daughter, Elle.
This tourism gig has seen him scheduled for a meet and greet with the All Blacks, who are in turn doing a meet and greet with Christchurch kids.
Elle, who has spent most of her life in LA, is a dyed-in-the-wool McCaw fan as much as any Cantabrian. She owns a custom- made black Adidas jacket emblazoned with the number "7" - just like McCaw.
Having a famous father feels normal for Elle. She is accustomed to the stares and says he is a patient father. "He never gets mad," she says. "If I do something wrong, he's like, 'I'm really disappointed in you'." We agree this is worse than a telling off.
Louise says her favourite All Black is: "What's his name - underpants - Dan Carter."
Louise says her husband's success is due to perserverance. "He just chips away, works constantly and never says no. That boy's got stamina like no-one I've ever met."
They own a production company together and she can often be seen cycling alongside her husband on his training rides.
At the All Blacks function, Louise is stopped by Christchurch TV presenter Jason Gunn, a former colleague of hers.
John Keoghan spots Gunn and yells to his son: "Hey, you're the same era. You've both got that 40-ish look about you."
"Aw, dad, did you have to say that with the media standing so close?" Keoghan laughs.
And then it's time to go home for a family night at his parents' B&B, because it's up early again for the next stop on his schedule.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/lifestyle/4001098/The-amazing-pace
