Actor Ed Begley Jr. may be familiar to younger audiences from his work on "Young Sheldon" and "Arrested Development," but his career has spanned more than four decades. From his breakout role on "St. Elsewhere" to films like "This is Spinal Tap," and his environmental activism. Begley has written it all down in his new book, "To the Temple of Tranquility... And Step on It." He joined Lisa McRee on LA Times Today.
While Begley was unable to speak about film and television projects under the terms of the SAG-AFTRA strike, he reflected on his early career and the many different paths he could have taken before joining "St. Elsewhere" in 1982.
"I'd been in the business for a decade and a half. I thought, if you can't make any headway after 15 years, you've got to try something else... I wanted to stay in show business, maybe try to get a job as a local weatherman in Atlanta and then go on and have a talk show there. That was my idea," he recalled.
Begley's environmental activism has been well documented in his HGTV series "Living with Ed." He traced his passion for environmentalism back to his upbringing in Southern California.
One story Begley shares in his memoir is how he found out that the woman who raised him was not his biological mother. His father had had two children with another woman and brought the kids home to his wife, Amanda Begley, who raised them until her death.
"At 15 and a half [years old] I went with my dad to his business manager's office. He went inside and came back out with something that I needed to get my driver's license. My birth certificate. There's no mother's name on it. My dad said, 'Well, Amanda wasn't your mother.' That's kind of a shocker to hear that at age early 16," Begley recalled.
In the late 1970s, actor and comedian John Belushi helped Begley fight his alcohol addiction. Begley credits Belushi as his "savior" during production on their 1978 film "Goin' South."
Begley also shared a story about Marlon Brando and one of his more eccentric ideas.
"[Brando] said we're going to power every home in America with electric eels. I said, you're not going to power a hobbyist light bulb with electric eels. How are you going to harness the power? By putting wires on them? They'd get all tangled. I don't know what you're talking about," Begley shared. "We had this wonderful kind of contrary relationship for some time. He hated sycophants. So if I just said what a wonderful idea, I would have been out."
In addition to acting and activism, Begley also has a brand of environmentally friendly cleaning products, called Begley’s.
“To the Temple of Tranquility… And Step On it” will be in bookstores on Oct. 3. It is available for pre-order now.
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