Ed Begley Jr.

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes)" – Episode Featuring Ed Begley Jr.

Introduction: Reconnecting with a Storied Friend

In the March 19, 2025 release of Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes), hosts Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sit down with longtime friend and esteemed actor Ed Begley Jr. This episode delves deep into Ed's multifaceted life, exploring his illustrious acting career, unwavering environmental activism, personal struggles, and enduring friendships.

Ed Begley Jr.: A Life of Acting and Advocacy

Ted introduces Ed as an actor whose career has spanned over seven decades, highlighting his memorable roles in classics like This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, and beloved TV series such as Arrested Development and Better Call Saul. However, Ted emphasizes that Ed's true distinction lies in his commitment to practicing his beliefs, particularly in environmentalism.

"Ed is an incredible advocate behind the scenes as well. He's one of the smartest people we know, like a 'A Beautiful Mind' type of smart." — Ted Danson [02:09]

Ed discusses his passion for sustainability, sharing anecdotes like riding the subway to the Oscars and living in a solar-powered home. His dedication extends beyond personal practices to active involvement in environmental causes, demonstrating a lifetime commitment long before it became mainstream.

Personal Stories: From Friendship with Legends to Life-Altering Events

The conversation takes a nostalgic turn as Ed reminisces about his early acting days, including his first film Going South alongside Woody Harrelson and Jack Nicholson. He shares fond memories of working with renowned cinematographer Nestor Almendros, whose expertise left a lasting impression.

"He was such a lovely man." — Ed Begley Jr. [03:17]

Ed also opens up about pivotal moments that shaped his life. He recounts a harrowing story from 1972 when he was violently attacked, resulting in a collapsed lung. This incident, among others, underscores the resilience he's developed over the years.

"It was just the way it was." — Ed Begley Jr. [07:30]

Struggles and Triumphs: Sobriety and Personal Growth

A significant portion of the discussion centers on Ed's battle with alcoholism and his journey toward sobriety. He candidly narrates his descent into substance abuse, culminating in a critical hospital visit in 1979 after consuming a dangerous mix of alcohol and drugs.

"I do. I have to. It's, you know, you've got to give it away to keep it." — Ed Begley Jr. [21:58]

Ed emphasizes the importance of support systems, mentioning how friends like John Belushi played a crucial role in his recovery. He reflects on the profound impact of his sobriety, describing it as a spiritual awakening that transformed his approach to life.

"It's a gift to be in that kind of state of mind." — Ed Begley Jr. [23:46]

Environmentalism: A Lifelong Commitment

Ed delves into the origins of his environmental activism, tracing it back to his childhood in smog-ridden Los Angeles and inspired by his father’s practical conservation efforts during the Great Depression. His early adoption of eco-friendly practices, such as owning one of the first electric cars in 1970, showcases his pioneering spirit in sustainability.

"I bought my first electric car in 1970... it was a Tailor Dunn, like a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn." — Ed Begley Jr. [35:04]

Ed discusses his efforts to combat pollution and protect natural resources, highlighting his involvement with Earth Day initiatives and addressing environmental crises like the Santa Barbara oil spill.

Friendships and Influential Relationships

Throughout the episode, Ed shares heartfelt stories about his friendships with iconic figures. From building lasting bonds with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson to his close relationship with labor leader Cesar Chavez, Ed illustrates how these connections have enriched his life and activism.

"When I met him, I waited till he came into the restaurant... I got to be friends with him and friends with the family." — Ed Begley Jr. [74:53]

He also pays tribute to late friends like Bruno Kirby, whose loyalty and support during Ed's darkest times exemplify the profound impact of genuine friendship.

"Bruno was fiercely loyal... I learned about friendship and loyalty from Bruno." — Ed Begley Jr. [68:46]

Facing Health Challenges: Parkinson’s Diagnosis

Ed bravely discusses his diagnosis with Parkinson's disease in 2016, detailing how the condition has affected his daily life and career. He shares insights into managing the disease through lifestyle changes, diet, and treatments like medication and hyperbaric therapy.

"So I kept doing it and... here I am still working so much." — Ed Begley Jr. [48:51]

Ed’s openness about his health struggles serves as inspiration, showcasing his determination to continue his activism and acting despite the challenges posed by Parkinson’s.

Reflecting on Life and Legacy

As the conversation winds down, Ed reflects on his life's journey, emphasizing forgiveness and resilience. He shares a poignant lesson inspired by Nelson Mandela's approach to hate and emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment.

"That's the secret to that sort of thing, I think." — Ed Begley Jr. [73:45]

Conclusion: Celebrating a Remarkable Journey

The episode concludes with heartfelt expressions of admiration and gratitude from Ted and Woody, celebrating Ed Begley Jr.’s enduring legacy as both an actor and an environmentalist. Ted praises Ed’s humility and the authentic voice in his memoir, while Woody acknowledges the inspiration drawn from Ed's unwavering dedication and friendship.

"You are one of my heroes and you're well adored in our family. And the book everybody is so... it's so worth it." — Ted Danson [78:17]

Ed reciprocates the warmth, affirming the deep bonds of friendship that have sustained him through decades of personal and professional triumphs and tribulations.

"I've loved you for many, many years and that love continues for both of you." — Ed Begley Jr. [79:02]

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "It is a miracle that you're sitting here." — Woody Harrelson [00:32]
• "You're on the A list." — Ed Begley Jr. [08:20]
• "I will give you the formula 2551." — Ed Begley Jr. [17:22]
• "It's a game called Trivial Pursuit years ago." — Ed Begley Jr. [40:34]
• "It is the way to free everyone, including yourself." — Ed Begley Jr. [73:45]

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a profound exploration of Ed Begley Jr.'s life, intertwining his cinematic achievements with his relentless pursuit of environmental justice and personal redemption. Listeners are treated to an intimate portrayal of a man who has navigated fame, adversity, and transformation with grace and determination. Ed's stories not only entertain but also inspire, making this episode a must-listen for fans and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Ted Danson]

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[Woody Harrelson]

It is a miracle that you're sitting here.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It is a miracle. How did I live through that?

[Woody Harrelson]

Somebody was looking out for you, man.

[Ted Danson]

Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. Today I'm joined once again by my wife, Mary Steenburgen. She's with me because we're talking to a close friend of both of ours, one of the most unique people we know, Ed Begley Jr. As an actor, Ed is in rare company. He's been steadily working since the 1960s in both TV and film, delighting us in movies like this is Spinal Tap and Best in show and as well as shows like Arrested Development and Better Call Saul. But if you ask me, what truly makes Ed special is that he practices what he believes. Ed was an outspoken environmentalist long before it was cool. You might have heard that he rides the subway to the Oscars because he believes in public transportation or that he lives in a solar powered home and has a bicycle that he rides to toast his bread. All of it true. And he's an incredible advocate behind the scenes as well. Ed is also one of the smartest people we know, like A Beautiful Mind type of smart. He's authored several books, the latest of which is a memoir. It's called to the Temple of Tranquility and step on it. Here's our friend, Ed Bakley Jr.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Ed Yakety Schmackety, yakety schmackety. I'll be talking about like that and I will eat the mic, as they say.

[Ted Danson]

Tell me again about this yakety schmackety. What is this?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I'm not sure. It's just what I say when they say, can we have a. Can you count to five? I never want to do that. I go, yakety schmackety, yakety schmackety. Ed Begley. It all started for me at a little theater in North Hollywood. Pure Gynt was a play. I just keep talking till they slap me.

[Ted Danson]

And we're off and running with Ed Begley.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Thank you so much. Thanks for remembering.

[Ted Danson]

As you can see, podcast listeners can't, but Mary Steenburgen is sitting next to me.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You're one Lucky man. Do you know that?

[Ted Danson]

I do know that. I do know that.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You've married above your station.

[Ted Danson]

So far above.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

But so have I.

[Ted Danson]

Yes. Yes.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Twice. I did it twice.

[Ted Danson]

Rochelle is an astounding.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

She's pretty great. Don't tell her that.

[Ted Danson]

We're going to get to her. Not to worry. But I just felt so perfect that you and Mary. Well, it was Mary's first film, and you were in it. Going south.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Going south.

[Woody Harrelson]

He was in the first scene of my first film, Going south.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Remember Nestor, too? The wonderful cameraman, Nestor Alandros.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yes.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

He was so great there, looking at his sunglasses to see where the clouds were and the sun in and out of the clouds. And he'd look at the reflection in sunglasses. Okay, you roll now. Roll now, please. Roll now, please. Go ahead. And then it'd be lighter. Whatever he wanted behind the clouds, I think, is what he wanted. Right.

[Ted Danson]

Instead of looking directly at the sun.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Instead of looking at the sun, as I would. Oh, yeah, it's coming. This cloud's gonna move in a second. Let me just stare some more at the sun until we get it. And I wonder why I have glaucoma and everything else.

[Woody Harrelson]

But he. I remember Jack Nicholson telling me how lucky I was that I was gonna be shot by the great Nestor Almendras in my first film. Of course, I had no clue about anything because it was my first film. And I. They put me up at the Chateau Marmont, you know, that was my first home in la. And I'm leaving one day, and at the desk I hear this man saying, I'm checking in. I'm Nestrelmendros. And I introduced myself to him. And he had the thickest pair of glasses I've ever seen that he could barely. It looked like he could barely see through. And yet somehow he was the world's most astounding, you know, bender of light to knowing exactly what to do with light. And he was such a lovely man.

[Ted Danson]

And we're talking. What date? When was this?

[Woody Harrelson]

77 and going south.

[Ted Danson]

And you guys were in Durango. Durango, shooting this movie?

[Woody Harrelson]

We did. We shot it in Durango. Durango, yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

And the first day of the first scene was you and me and the other ex Moon gang and Jack. And was Tracy Walter in that scene, too?

[Woody Harrelson]

I think so. I know Chris Lloyd was. I think he was the first person that ever actually spoke to me on film. He said it was something like, I.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Try to get you to date me, you won't give me the flap of your umbrella. Something like that. How do I remember that? That's kind of terrifying because you have scary brain.

[Woody Harrelson]

We're gonna talk about your brain.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, you have scary brain.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah. And, yeah, that was an amazing time.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It was sure great for me.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

I think I met you first in some environmental. Save some bay, probably heal the bay or something along.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That's what it was. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. But then we've been able to work together several times.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Several times, yeah. For you, it's many. For me, it's. I want more. It's like, I gotta work with this turkey again. Thank you for the job. And, Mr. Mayor, you get to deduct me on your income tax.

[Ted Danson]

This humble pie will not work with us that day. We show up at his birthday party, I don't know, two, three years ago, and I thought, oh, this will be sweet. We'll go see our friend Ed. And all of Hollywood was there in that room celebrating me to get to.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You is what was happening. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

See, here we go. Okay. Hey, just to set people up, because your latest creation is a book that you've written called. What is it called?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

To the Temple of Tranquility and Step on it.

[Ted Danson]

Step on it. And you'll tell us about that title. But before, just to get people a sense of who you are, there's this wonderful opening sequence in the first chapter where you play this game of. I'm going to tell you people, the readers. Can you read it from there?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Give it a try. In this font size. I usually blow it up, but I can probably do it. I'm going to list a bunch of true facts that I could have never imagined in 1965, but I swear to you on my Life, they are 100%, verifiably true. Okay, One of them is a lie. See if you can spot it. I would have a career that would span seven decades and include hundreds of movies and TV shows. I would discover that my brother, Tom Begley was my cousin, not my brother. I would get to meet all four Beatles and even get to be friends with some of them. I would smoke a joint with Charles Manson at the Spahn Ranch in Chatsworth. I would be stabbed, beaten and hospitalized waiting for a bus in Los Angeles. I would buy my first electric car in 1970. Would have a much improved electric car in 1993. One I sometimes charged at O.J. simpson's house. I would carry my dear friend Cesar Chavez through the streets of Delano. I would serve several terms as governor in California for a total of 15 years. I would regularly spend time with Groucho Marx in his home and occasionally enjoy a sleepover. I would play Trivial Pursuit with the Clintons and show them their first electric car. I'd also get to know and work with Kirk Douglas, Meryl Streep, Peter Falk, Alan Arkin, Michael Caine, Billy Wilder, Richard Pryor, Dave Mamet, Jeff Goldblum, Eric Idle, Denzel Washington, Buck Henry, Don Henley, Jane Fonda, Gina Davis, Daphne Coleman, Lily Tomlin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vince Gilligan, John Cleese, Danny Glover, Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Larry Kazan, Larry David, Angelica Houston, Pam Greer, Penny Marshall, Alfre Woodard, Taylor Swift, Jeff Bridges, Yaphet Kota, Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest, and Of course, Malcolm McDowell. I'm sorry, Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson.

[Ted Danson]

Hey, you son of a bitch. You added that for this reading. That's not in the book. You left our names out.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Because I write about you so extensively through the rest of the book. This is the B list. You're on the A list. Yeah. No.

[Ted Danson]

Boy. My God.

[Woody Harrelson]

Go on, you fragile egos. Go on. Is that the end of the list?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

For now, Until I get to your chapter, which is a big part of the book. No.

[Ted Danson]

What about the delivering now?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Oh, the rest. Okay, okay. I'll read right to the very end. Thank you. I always want to read more. And most incredibly, at the very moment, the very second that my dad told me the shocking news about my mother, who was not my mother, we passed a driveway that led to two separate houses in the vicinity of Coldwater in Mulholland. A driveway that over for 40 years was shared by Marlon Brando and that Roger Corman star in the Motorcycle, Jack Nicholson. There would be many trips up and down that driveway over the years. You see, I worked at Arts Deli on Ventura Boulevard. And I would deliver sandwiches to those talented gentlemen. And let me tell you, they were big tippers.

[Ted Danson]

Okay. All right, thanks. That's the end of the list. You guys can play. Can you guess? Sorry, everyone. Who else is in the room here? Anybody have any idea which. Which one is the lie? Yeah, come on, come on.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Say the. The early electric car. That is unbelievable. To Drive One in 1970 is kind of odd and weird, and most people don't believe that, but it's true. It's. It was called a Taylor Dunn electric car. They still make electric cars to this day, but I should say electric carts with a T to this day. Like a golf cart with a windshield wiping horn. Okay, yeah, that's what I had. 1970.

[Ted Danson]

See, I would have picked Governor the obvious. You know, you were not Governor of California.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

But I was governor in California, is what I actually said. Not of California, you'll soon learn. Governor of what? In a later chapter.

[Ted Danson]

Nice.

[Woody Harrelson]

But do you want to tell us now?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yes. It was the last one about Arch Deli. That was total bullshit. I never brought Marlon or Jack sandwiches or. I probably should have. That's the kind of thing you do for your friends.

[Ted Danson]

It's really beautifully written, and it made me, like, flashback to the 60s and the 70s. You really captured that feeling. Yeah. I'm surprised, though, that you can remember the 70s at all at Begley.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That's why there was the urgency to write it down and get it down with Hayden helping me with her little recorder and me writing it, you know, on my turning to my computer. And that's when the keyboard became like a Ouija board, all this stuff. A Ouija board that actually works, you know. And I started to recall these things just by touching the keyboard. I went. You know, I just started writing about, like, my friend James Jeremias. We studied cinematography at Valley College, and pretty soon I. But wait a minute. We went up into the seamy hills. We went to visit his friend who lived in a treehouse near a saloon. And then we get into the story. We get into, which is kind of shocking.

[Woody Harrelson]

Is that the one where we smoke.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

A joint with Charles Manson?

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah, tell that.

[Ted Danson]

All right. Give that. Please give that story. Flesh that out a little bit.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

My friend James is still my dear friend to this day. I. He was there that night at the. At the Live LA talks, a dear friend of mine. We have lunch about once a week and we studied cinematography together. We both went on to good careers in show business. He became a local 80 grip for a while, and then he wrote a movie called Lost Boys, if you remember that movie with Kiefer Sutherland and others. He wrote that. And so we took this class for like $12 a semester or something and both got jobs. But one day he said, I want to go meet my friend Dave Curlin. You want to come with me? So we went over to Dave Curlin's house, who lived in a treehouse near a saloon, and we smoked a joint. But that's all we had. We all wanted more because it was the 60s, 68 to be precise. Said, my friends up the hill have some dope. We went up and smoked dope with these people, very nondescript group of people we never met before and probably would never meet again. One of them had some songs he wanted some help with, but I Didn't really know a lot of musicians or songwriters at that time. So we left after a little while and exchanged pleasantries, went back to the tree house next to the saloon. I should probably. Should have mentioned that Saloon was not a real saloon. It was part of a movie set at the Spahn Ranch.

[Ted Danson]

Right.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

So now you know who the people were. The musician that wanted some help was Charles Manson. And we smoked a joint with them and all the other people we saw in the newspaper, James and I, a year later, after the horrible murders they committed and Charles Manson instructed them to do, we saw them in the LA Times, went, wait a minute. Those are the people we smoked a joint with. They're all killers waiting to. To kill.

[Woody Harrelson]

That must have been harrowing.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It was quite eerie. It was so many times in my life, and that was the first one that really hit me. I felt like. Not that this movie had come out yet, but like the character Zelig, if you remember that movie, Zelig.

[Woody Harrelson]

I think of you as Zelig, by the way.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I am Zelig, I'm afraid, you know, nobody knows how I got there in these historical situations. Least of all me. Or more like Forrest Gump. You know, I think I'm more like Forrest Gump or maybe Chauncey Gardner. I think maybe a little bit more of that. But I get to be in these crazy situations, you know, with O.J. simpson and Robert Blake and, you know, gods and monsters, some wonderful people. The Beatles and Monty Python and, you know, Eric Idle and John Cleese and Graham Chapman. I knew them all very well, and how lucky am I?

[Ted Danson]

All right, let's back up. Do you want to talk about the monsters or the. Or should we just leave them?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Anything you want to talk about, I want to talk about.

[Ted Danson]

All right, can I just. Can we jump around? You mentioned a date just a minute ago, and it feels like you pulled that out of your head in this moment.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You're nice to say head, by the way.

[Ted Danson]

Thank you. Your mind. But Mary reminded us earlier today that you have this uncanny knack. You describe it, Mary, It's.

[Woody Harrelson]

Well, first of all, I think in many ways, you. You are the person I know with the most extraordinary brain because. And. And one of the things that's so rare about you is that you are, you know, truly brilliant, but you're also deeply lovable. And that's not always true. Sometimes people are one or the other. But you're. You are this person that not one person I've ever known can say a bad word about. And there's so much respect for you and for your acting. But I love your beautiful, weird brain and the fact that. And I'll go ahead and just say my age by saying this. For example, if I say to you I was born February 8, 1953, can you tell me what day of the week I was born?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I think I can. I have to just do a little bit of math because I used to be very quick with it.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Okay. And I think it's a Sunday, but I'm not sure that's correct. Sorry. I used to do it real quick.

[Woody Harrelson]

March 4, 2023. 2023, 2022.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Rather, March 4, 1/2 Friday. Is that correct?

[Woody Harrelson]

That's correct.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

What happened March 4?

[Woody Harrelson]

Our granddaughter turned nine.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

How wonderful is that? I got a couple of grandkids. I got three grandkids. How many you got?

[Woody Harrelson]

Me, too. We have three little girls.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That's a nice number.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Okay, so this is not magic. Don't explain it, because it'll go over my head. But there is like a formula, right?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Harry Nolson taught me this formula. We were drunk at a bar in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, and he said, oh, I want to show you a fun trick. Pick a date on the calendar. There's a calendar right there in the wall, he said, of the Japanese restaurant. And I rattled off a few dates. He could do them all pretty quickly. So I thought it was somehow me looking at the calendar and when I would look at it, or. How is he doing that? And he told me very quickly that it was 255-136-14-0250. That's the trick right there. 25, 51, 36, 14, 0250. That's all you got to remember to do this year, which is a four. Now, the. It's a system of seven because it's seven days in a week, right? Every four years is a leap year. Seven times four is 28. So it repeats every 28 years within the 28 years. Repeats seven, seven. No, sorry. 11, 11, 6. 11, 11, 6, 11, 11, 6. So you have to do some math to get the year. Harry Nilsson could only do that year or maybe the year before the year that followed. But I learned to do lots of years like 1953, I could do. I just gotta. I used to be fairly quick with it, but now I. I can do it. I just gotta stumble for a while.

[Woody Harrelson]

I rest my case. Unusual brain.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I'm a little on the spectrum. We didn't know that word back when I was young. But I think I Might be considered.

[Ted Danson]

You're smack dab in the middle of the spectrum. You're not, you know, tiptoeing around it. I just imagine people listening to this podcast and rewinding it and rewinding it and rewinding until they master it.

[Woody Harrelson]

I'm sure there are people out there that picked it right up.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Email me edited dot com. I'll give you the formula 2551.

[Woody Harrelson]

What is amazing about that is you learned that while you were drunk. And speaking of that time, I mean, you've been sober since 1979. 79 this time. And. But you sure weren't sober when I met you. You guys.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Woody Harrelson]

Oh, my God. We were shooting in Durango, Mexico, and we were all staying at the El Presidente Hotel. And he was the. You know, you were an absolute hilarious darling drunk. But it wasn't.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I was a fixture in the bar.

[Woody Harrelson]

You were a fixture in the bar. And I was on my first movie. I'd never been in a movie on a movie set in my life. I'd studied acting, you know, for years with Sandy Meisner and done comedy improv, but I was in way over my head being the leading lady opposite Nicholson.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You were sensational in that movie.

[Woody Harrelson]

Well, thank you. But I was terrified. And so you guys would try to include me, you know, in that bar at night. And I just couldn't hang out with you because all I could think of is I have to go stare at my lines. I just have to. I can't do this. So I moved out of El Presidente and into a tiny house. But you were so bad that who came to your. Who actually tried to pull you out.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

The sobering influence in my life was John Belushi. I was so bad that John. And John is a great comedian. I want to remember him for that, for that and nothing more.

[Woody Harrelson]

Darling man.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

There are other things that people know about him, and I don't want to dwell on that, but he was a great comedian, a great friend, and all I'll say is he saved me.

[Ted Danson]

Judy, right?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Judy Belushi.

[Woody Harrelson]

Belushi.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Got a lovely picture. I took a self portrait and portrait of all of us sitting there in Durango, Mexico, that I took of all of us. Judy, John and Hal Triselle, the gaffer, if you remember. Hal Triselle. Lovely man. We were all out for the day when it was the day that John dragged me out of the President Day conversation pit bar. The look on her face. Could she leave early in the morning? I had all these off days, which is a nightmare for alcoholic actor, you know, on location. So she'd leave it, you know, six or seven in the morning, and she'd come back at seven or eight at night. And I'd still be in the same position with Shorty George Smith, Jack's kind of father figure, you know, guy this. And he was a sweet man, a very dear man, married to Lorraine, you know, Jack's aunt. And so it was just. Yeah, it was just crazy, crazy times. I lived through it somehow.

[Ted Danson]

Let's jump ahead to the date that you said you became sober. Was. Why was that? Why were you in a hospital? Was this as a result of you being attacked? I can't remember.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

No, this is where I attacked myself. And I wound up at Cedar Sinai with an IV in my arm because I'd taken so many pills. Not as a suicide attempt. I just kept taking them one at a time to get the DTS to go away. I'd had the DTS again after not six months to get to the DTS of alcohol and drugs, not three months. Finally was down to two weeks from, honey, I'm going to try to have a little wine with dinner is all. And then two weeks later, I'd have the DTS and a quart of vodka and a gram of coke and pills.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

So I did so much of that. Ingrid was slapping me around. Not for the usual reasons I deserve, but she was slapping around to wake me up. Because I was like. She said, your color's bad, your breathing's bad, you gotta wake up, gotta move around. She's trying to carry me around the room. Cindy Williams lived down the street. Called up Cindy. Cindy came over and carried me out to her car. They got me to Cedars, and I got to Cedars Sinai, and they gave me epicac and pumped my stomach. Gave me an IV of something and another IV or something in a nasal cannula. Excuse me. And I made it. I lived. Yeah, I drank after that. That night at Cedars were not the end. That was 78, 79. I drank again for three days because I once again decided to have a little wine with dinner. And I got sick as a dog without. Didn't take two weeks. It was one, you know, like two and a half glasses of wine. And I was like, I'm sick already. What's the somebody? I literally thought someone poisoned the wine. I was looking for the. In the cork to see if there's like a mark where hypodermic needle had been inserted to inject to kill me. Or somebody wanted me Dead, I thought, you know, and I. It was just the wine. I was allergic to wine. I couldn't drink it anymore.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

And I almost.

[Ted Danson]

Back to the hospital or.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

No, no, I just went right back to a meeting that was 79. That was the last drink.

[Ted Danson]

And do you still go to meetings?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I do. I have to. It's, you know, you got to give it away to keep it.

[Ted Danson]

What a blessing in a way.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

What a blessing. What a gift.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

To figure it out. That early 30 being early, you know, I mean, some people in their 60s, 70s are still trying to make it work. I've friends that are going through that. That's really hard. But to get it by 29 is when I really almost died at Cedars and got got with it. But, you know, I tried it again for three days and it didn't work that evening even. It didn't need weeks to percolate that evening. I. So I switched to beer and went, okay, I'll try just some beers. I'm allergic to tannins. I thought that's what happened. I drank some beers and I was sick as a dog again. I just can't have any amount. It's like battery acid.

[Ted Danson]

Do you feel like that was kind of an awakening spiritually for you? Your sobriety did 100%.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yeah, it was. Because there's another alcoholic. I believe he's an alcoholic. He's long gone, but a very bright man called Alan Watts. Alan Watts liked his gargle like I did. He drank a good amount of liquor. It'd be as easy to spot him as a pub, as an ashram, you know, he liked to drink, but he was a very enlightened guy. He wrote a book called this Is it, which is the chapter. The second title of the second chapter of my book, this Is It. Because as you guys, I've seen you in your lives do so many things. You know that this is it, this moment right now that we have together.

[Woody Harrelson]

Right.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Is all there is. That moment with your grandkids later is that's that moment that you want to cherish and we remember the past and plan for the future, but you don't want to spend too much time there. You want to spend as much time as you can in this right now here with you.

[Woody Harrelson]

And it's a constant remembering of that, getting back to that.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

So you don't get. Yep.

[Woody Harrelson]

Well, I mean, I suppose there are monks and people who perhaps live more in that state than the rest of us, but it's a constant reminder to.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Me constantly and the gift from it is I haven't gotten upset in traffic in years and years because I'm in no hurry.

[Woody Harrelson]

Right?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It's one of the better, one of the best things about getting older too. I'm just never, ever in a hurry. It's a four way intersection. The guy even came a little after me. You go first. I don't need to be anywhere that quickly. I bring my crossword, I bring the jumble. I get there early and I sit and do it. I'm just never in any rush. And that's, that's a gift to be in that kind of state of mind. And it's Alan Watson, that book and everything that went with it, very enlightened man. This is it is a book I recommend to all your listeners.

[Ted Danson]

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[Woody Harrelson]

So tell this story about going to get the driver's license with your dad.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You know, I wasn't. It wasn't the first time I'd spent, you know, a waiting period in my dad's hot car. It was considered more of an impromptu spa day back then. Sit in this sweltering vehicle and 50 man, he was. He wasn't about to turn on the air conditioning. I suppose I should have been grateful for the energy savings, but I wasn't. And finally, here he came, document in hand, like a man exiting a building in flames. But it's the way he always walked. He walked with this incredible quick gait, like it was power walking or something. The way he walked to the mailbox, the way he walked to the podium to get his Academy Award. And he came in and handed me the document and started to drive back the valley. So I opened it up because I wanted to know, you know, what did a document like that look like? I had never seen my birth certificate. Was it written on. On parchment with a quill, given my age, you know, did it have a little baby footprint to keep me getting mixed up with somebody else at birth? But what I saw was so shocking, I. I just didn't know what to say. So I said to my dad, dad. Mm? Why is there no mother's name on my birth certificate? He didn't say a word. He just kept driving. Finally, after about 15 very long seconds, said, amanda wasn't your mother. Which was very, very shocking to hear because Amanda was definitely my mother. You know, she died when I was seven. I'd go to the grave and visit the grave site. It's the only mother I'd ever known. But this. When I said, who was my mother? And he said, sandy was your mother. And then another explosion went off in my cranium because this woman, Sandy, was greatly loved by my sister and I. We'd see her for Easter, get an Easter basket. We'd see her for Christmas sometimes on our birthday. And there's something about that Woman we were crazy about turned out that was my mom. And I don't know, I don't know how he thought I wasn't going to react when I saw it. Did he forget that her mother's. My mother's name wasn't on the birth certificate? It literally didn't occur to me something, maybe he thought that was the best way to do it when he was driving a car and I couldn't strangle him. I don't know. Wow.

[Ted Danson]

We should just. I don't know if we mentioned this, but your dad was a famous. A great actor. Great character actor.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Academy award winning, Tony award winning Sweet Bird of youth. Award winning best supporting actor for Sweet Bird of Youth. He was in 12 Angry Men. He's juror number 10 on stage with Paul Muni and Inherit the Wind. Great actor and a great father. He had a couple. We all have a few flaws and his was lying about certain things that should have been told.

[Ted Danson]

True story. Where did he meet your turns out real mother?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

He met her at NBC. He did a lot of radio then he later did TV at NBC, but he was a radio star that made it later on television and in theater. Ilya Kazan directed him in All My Sons but he met her at NBC where she was a page. And he had not one but two children with Sandy, though he was quite actively married to another woman. So kind of amazing the way he thought he and did get away with it.

[Woody Harrelson]

But how extraordinary that the woman you thought was your mother, Amanda, went along with raising two children that.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That are the product of his liaison.

[Woody Harrelson]

Right, right.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yeah. I don't know what the conversation was like. Amanda. Yes, Ed. I found a couple kids out in the alley. And the great thing I, the reason I picked them up, they look identical to me in the eyes and the nose kind of area. So that's our good fortune, huh? Change them and feed them, would you please? I gotta run.

[Ted Danson]

That's amazing.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I'd love to know. I hope there's a hereafter just for that one thing. So I got to know what exactly went down there.

[Ted Danson]

Just to complete that. You got to be with your real mother and spend time with her for years after that.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Exactly. I had a wonderful relationship with Sandy, with my mom. She died in 1998. She was quite a quirky person. She was hoarder. There's no other way to say it. She was a hoarder. When I say hoarder, I mean the real hoarder people you see on television and the films and magazines with magazines and newspapers. Up to the ceiling. And when I say up to the ceiling, I mean up to the ceiling.

[Ted Danson]

Wow. Did you ever ask her, or was it just kind of.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I asked her. I said, no, I'm going to take care of that. I just can't have these things. They talk to me, these things by the dumpster. So I bring them into my apartment because I'm going to fix them or give them to, you know, St. Vincent de Paul, but I just. I haven't gotten around to it yet. It was like everything. She had half the recycling, you know, circle done pretty well, but not the second half where it gets reused. She would gather lots of stuff, but it just stayed in the recycling center, which was her apartment, and never went full circle.

[Ted Danson]

Wow, Ed, that's an amazing story. All right, let's jump around with those 10 facts. 1970s electric car. How did you get from just enjoying drinking and trying to get work as an actor to being so environmentally conscious that you would start only riding a bike and driving electric cars and literally becoming the most outstanding environmentalist with the least carbon footprint of anyone I've ever met?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That would be you, but thank you.

[Woody Harrelson]

No, that's not true. That is not true.

[Ted Danson]

We're. We're horrible.

[Woody Harrelson]

Well, we're not horrible, but we're. We're horrible compared to you.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You're very kind, but you do so many. What you guys accomplish is more than I could ever dream of with Oceano, which you guys have done, and so many other wonderful causes.

[Ted Danson]

Talk about that. We'll talk about that on your podcast. Talking about you. How did you get started?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Easy answer, really. I grew up 20 years in smoggy LA, and to run just from here down to Larmont, which for the listeners is what, 20 yards? You know, would. You'd be wheezing like this. I'm not asthmatic. Nor was I. Then you just. You couldn't catch your breath. It hurt that bad. Hundreds of days a year, like it.

[Ted Danson]

Was in the every. The news every night, 50, you know.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Parts per million or whatever of ozone. Just horrible.

[Ted Danson]

What would they call it? It was a something alert or it.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Was a smog alert. Yeah, they would have smog alerts. And you couldn't go to. Couldn't go to school certain days, like a snow day or what have you. It just really, really bad. So I asked the people who were organizing the Earth Day thing in LA down in Pershing Square. I said, well, what. What do you want to do besides celebrate Earth Day? I want to celebrate the Earth, too. But what about the other 364, he said, well, we're going to clean up the air in la. We're going to clean up the water. And I knew the water needed help too, because I'd seen the Santa Barbara oil spill, and that was horrible. And that air, just that every day it hurts your lungs. So I went, okay. And I thought, and then that's. The bad influence was a smog, but the good influence was every bit as powerful. And that was my dear dad. He was a son of Irish immigrants. He'd lived through the Great Depression. We saved string, we saved tinfoil. We turned off the lights, turned off the water. He wasn't really an environmentalist by name, but he was one by the way he acted. And most importantly, I would complain about the smog or some. Something else. I just complained about something, let's say in this case, the smog say, okay, Eddie, I know what you're against. You don't want smog. No one smog. What are you for? What are you doing to make a difference?

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

So I rode my bike even more. I took public transportation. And he died within a few days of the first earth day in 1970. He died just within a few days of it. So I did a lot of stuff to honor him as much as anything. And I even bought my first electric car in 1970, which.

[Ted Danson]

Which I got. Oh, it was more of a golf cart, you said.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yeah, it was like a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn. It was a Tailor Dunn. And they still make electric cars to this day.

[Ted Danson]

Street worthy. I mean, could you. No, no.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Oh, I think they do have, like, some companies, they have a line of Nev cars. Nev neighborhood electric vehicles that go. In this case, these cars go 35. Mine did not go 35. Mine went 20, maybe up a hill, 11 miles an hour, maybe.

[Ted Danson]

I've never heard that about your dad. And that makes sense that you did it because of what he said to you and how he raised you, but also in honor of him in that moment.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Great dad. Great man. Yeah, I miss him still. He was just wonderful.

[Ted Danson]

It must have been really emotional for you. I can see some of it right now. Writing that book, it was. And reliving all of these amazing people in your life.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

A great catharsis. It was really great. It was good for me. Every page. I loved every minute of it.

[Woody Harrelson]

That's so great. It was your daughter, Hayden that encouraged you to do it?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

She did. She encouraged me to do it. She got her camera, you know, her phone out, which Has a sound device, as we know, and kind of. Dad, tell me what it was like with you growing up, you know, before they had movable type and talkies. Please just tell me a little bit about it. So she primed the pump and started that part of it. And then she was, of course, busy as our young people get busy, and couldn't do it at the rate I wanted to, because all this other stuff was. She open the floodgates. So then I went, well, I'll take some notes for my computer. And I started typing, and the keyboard became like a Ouija board that actually worked. And I suddenly was coming up with all this stuff I hadn't thought of in forever. You know, I wanted to go down the basement with my writing, mentally, and it was taking me up to the attic for something I hadn't thought of in years, you know? And so pretty soon, I was getting down these stories that I had to call people to verify. I remember going to the Spawn ranch and smoking a joint with these people. Do you remember that, James? Absolutely. Do you remember who they were? I asked James. Yeah, it was a Manson gang. Okay. I just didn't want to lead the witness. Okay, thank you.

[Ted Danson]

That's amazing.

[Woody Harrelson]

And you talk about that driveway that you and your dad passed as you were in that. On that drive to get your driver's license, and you passed a certain driveway that you came to know very well and who. I went down that driveway too many times. Maybe the first. My first day in Los Angeles, I went down the driveway, and we took a wrong. The taxicab I was in took a wrong turn and went left instead of right. And I was met with, at that time, an armed guard and a dog. Big dog.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

The dogs remained. The armed guard did not. Okay, that was Marlon's house. It was right next door.

[Woody Harrelson]

Right. It was Marlon Brando's house. And we quickly turned around and went the other way. And that was also a dog, a big, fuzzy dog. And Jack Nicholson greeting me to start to work on going south.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

What a memorable time that must have been for you.

[Woody Harrelson]

It was crazy.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It was for me, too.

[Woody Harrelson]

But I just remember. I remember you so well in those days, and I remember hearing that you had developed a relationship and a friendship with Marlon. What was that? It was that I would imagine he was interested in talking about everything except acting.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Right. It was Helena, really. That was the go between and that she said, marlon wants to talk to you.

[Ted Danson]

And who is she?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Helena Kaliniotes is a wonderful actress. She was in Five Easy Pieces. She's A woman with Tony Basil in the back. Yeah, she's about going bullshit. She's smoking and going bullshit to whatever. We're going to go up to Canada because it's cleaner up there, the environment isn't so bad. Five Easy Pieces or Passengers is a wonderful movie, and she was great in it, did many other wonderful films.

[Ted Danson]

How did she end up, though, being kind of Marlon's guardian or living on the same property?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

She was in the back house. She would. She lived back there for years. She would. She was a close friend of Jack's, one of his closest friends, and she, you know, would help. Help him do a lot of things, too. She was just great. A really good friend to Jack and he was a good friend to her, but she was also a good friend to Marlon, and Marlon was crazy about her, too. So I made her a table. She wanted this table made out of pine, so I made her a nice pine table and I. I brought it up there. And then Marlon heard about that, and so that was the. That gave me the bonafides to come up and hang with him, apparently. But I learned quickly that what he did not want to talk about, acting, writing, directing, you know, puppetry, claymation, trained seals, anything remotely to do with, you know, show business. But he did want to talk about solar panels and wind turbines and biodiesel and, you know, drywall and a, you know, copper pipe versus steel galvanized.

[Ted Danson]

And he. Did he know that about you or did he discover. In conversations he.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

He guessed from, he surmised that I had a certain level of knowledge about it, and he was correct. I could talk about that kind of stuff, tech talk stuff or construction stuff or solar and wind stuff all day. And he. He liked that.

[Woody Harrelson]

How do you. How do you get all this in your brain? Do you read. Do you actively read books on. On all this stuff still, or how. How do you put it in there?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It's so interesting. There was a game called Trivial Pursuit years ago. Do you remember the game?

[Woody Harrelson]

Yes, because you played it in my house.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Of course. I'm saying, do you remember the game? We played it with the Clintons. I'll get to that later, perhaps, but this is about the game in general. When the game came out, it came through Len Cario to Jeff Goldblum. He was on the Big Chill. And everybody on the Big Chill started playing it and brought it back to la, and I started playing it and loved it. And here's what happened. My whole young life, these nuns would tell me that I was an idiot because I was Always daydreaming, you know, And I would. Not paying attention ever. So I thought. I literally thought deep down, I really did thought I was a total idiot. And so then we start playing this game, and suddenly everybody wanted me on their team. Why? Because I could answer nearly every question why I thought I hadn't heard all that stuff, because I was definitely daydreaming. But I heard it anyway. You know, they'd say whatever the clue was. I go, I'm pretty sure that's the Boxer Rebellion. Okay, look. Yes, it is. You're correct. It's about. What's that? I think that's the Monroe Doctrine. Okay, he's right again. God damn it. What is that fourth planet from the sun? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just whatever it was. I could name the bigger moons of Jupiter, whatever the silly question was. And suddenly I was on everybody's team, and I went, maybe I'm not a moron. Literally. I was like 35 before I decided maybe I wasn't a complete moron.

[Woody Harrelson]

Wow.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It was a great gift, that game.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you were unbeatable at it. And I don't. I think even Bill Clinton couldn't beat you.

[Ted Danson]

Okay.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

They are very. Credit. They should have won. To. To be truth. To be truthful, that final question that we won the final pie for the final piece of the pie. I think their answer was a more correct one. But what was on the card was what I said, Pope Pius XII or whatever it was, you know, but they. They're so brilliant, those two. They knew for years. They go, bagley. Oh, Pope Pius xii. You still think that's the right answer? They would remember that. And more importantly, they'd remember that first electric car I showed them at Fran and Roger Diamond's house. That was their first modern electric car if they'd seen one before, you know, they didn't talk much about it, but we talked about every time I'd see them for decades. And Ed Begley's here, showed us our first electric car. They're always so sweet to me. Very, very nice people.

[Ted Danson]

Just briefly set that up. You and Trivia Pursuit and the Clintons and Mary.

[Woody Harrelson]

We were. I was. I don't know if you're aware that I was married before you. Oh, okay.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Malcolm Lovey. Ed Lovey. Are you cheating with a triple pursuit? I know you are, lovey. I know you're reading the cards. He had an accident in Los Angeles. And I know why he's reading the bloody cards. To memorize them. I'm telling you, the Truth, he says, oh, he learned stuff at school. He learned nothing. He used to watch.

[Ted Danson]

That was Malcolm McDowell.

[Woody Harrelson]

Still him. It's still how he sounds.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

He is so damn funny. He loved winding me up, too. It was a great compliment to be abused by him. And Dabney Coleman and Don Rickles. I have three people who are great comedians who love to pick on me, and those are three great ones. He's a superstar. He's a very funny man, as you know.

[Woody Harrelson]

He's great.

[Ted Danson]

I recommend everyone listening to this podcast to grab a joint and smoke. You'll be able to follow this conversation because your brain will slow it down.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It is a lot. So much information around. A lot. I think maybe I should listen to Alan Watson, just. This is it. For a moment, myself.

[Ted Danson]

No, please don't. Okay, so that was the Clintons and playing Trivial Pursuits.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Can I tell you how I moved up to Ojai? Yes, please.

[Ted Danson]

Yes.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I moved up to Ojai because I got invited by Malcolm and Mary up to their beautiful house in Ojai. We spent the night, and the next morning, there was a realtor at the door, Larry Wilde. And we went and looked at property, and that first place that we saw, we bought. We loved it. We were there for years. I was there 84 through 88, and Ingrid was there much longer. We became great friends after the divorce, she and I, as I know you guys did. And so I would go up there and visit, and it was just wonderful. What a beautiful part of the world up there. I love Ojai.

[Woody Harrelson]

It's very special.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yes, it is.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah. I've had friends that come up and go, what do you all do up here? Because there's. It's not. It's not apparent what you do. The similar.

[Ted Danson]

The nickname is Slohigh.

[Woody Harrelson]

Slohi. Yeah. But every tree and every, you know, hike up there and every. Every bit of it is precious to me. I've lived there since 1983.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You're very smart. We saw the wisdom of it. We moved up there and had the best time there. It's just gorgeous. And talk about being in the Allen Watts this is it frame of mind. You get to do that very easily in a place like that. You know, you can do it at the DMV in Sherman Oaks, too. It's a little harder to do there, but you can do it more easily in beautiful Ojai. That's why, you know, this Krishnamurti, I think, had a place up there and what have you. It's just so wonderful. Wonderful.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

So Begs the question, why'd you leave?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Ingrid and I had a divorce. It was certainly something had to change. I was not the husband I am in my second marriage, my first tryout. I. I literally. It's so funny when I think about it now. I literally thought that the act of getting married, putting the ring in my finger, would make me monogamous. I wanted to be monogamous. I truly, truly did. And I loved Ingrid. I wanted to be a good husband, but I didn't know there was more to it than that, you know? And I was not a good husband. And so that. That doesn't work well in the long run, as I think we've all.

[Ted Danson]

Were you sober then or not yet?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I was not sober when we got married, and I. But I got sober in 79 after three years of marriage. But I traded one addiction for another, which I also do not recommend. And so, you know, it was. It was not good. And I hurt people, and I don't do that anymore. It's fine if you. I'm not a. I'm not a puritan. If you want to have multiple partners, no problem. Just make sure your. Your partner or your wife or husband knows that your girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, just tell them, I don't want to. I want to have multiple partners. Let them decide what they want to do then. But you don't lie to them. That's not a good way to go. I learned that the hard way.

[Ted Danson]

Gotta just sneak in and looking at your face. I love you so much. You're one of my favorite people.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Likewise. You're a very good person. And you married a great, great person as well.

[Ted Danson]

I did.

[Woody Harrelson]

You guys.

[Ted Danson]

You guys.

[Woody Harrelson]

Well, she was. She was lovely.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

She was that.

[Woody Harrelson]

And I loved her. And your wife, Rachelle is quite something, too. I was very moved in your book about when you were. I guess you kind of had a feeling that something was wrong in 2006, but you were diagnosed in 2016 with Parkinson's, is that right?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Correct.

[Woody Harrelson]

And she dove in with such ferocity to find out how to make your life the healthiest, best life it could be at that point.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

She did. She was great because she saw the stuff that works. And that's true. You know, dopamine, worse, carbidopa, Levodopa works very well. Things like Sinemet, those drugs work well for the problem of the shaking, but they have side effects, as any drug does. And so if you take them over a long period of time, then there's additional problems that occur. And I'm not saying I. I Don't take carbidopa. Levodopa. I definitely take it. That's why I'm, you know, like this today.

[Ted Danson]

And every day we're looking at hands that are not shaking at all.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It's like it passed the sobriety checkpoint. I'm pretty sure.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

So. But in addition to that, for extra credit, she heard that there are other things that worked and complimented. And many people, perhaps not everyone, but some people, and I was one of them, could benefit from things like glutathione. For people have any nervous system, you know, neurological disorder that can help. It's not going to make it go away, but it can help something called nad. You also get that in an iv and then hyperbaric chamber and oxygen rich hyperbaric chamber can help you.

[Ted Danson]

Have you done that?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I've done it. I'm going to do it later today.

[Woody Harrelson]

Really?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I do it fairly regularly.

[Woody Harrelson]

Do you really?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It infuses. It's an oxygen rich environment. You just get soaked in oxygen for that period of time for about an hour. It's not a permanent cure to any of it. None of this is. But it gives you great relief. And I finally started to get scientific about it. After the first time I did the hyperbaric chamber or the NAD or the glutathione, I'd walk back to my car. I go, rachelle had me doing this bullshit. I don't think I'm going to do that again. Wait a second. I'm walking. I'm walking steadier. I'm going, excuse me. I'm walking steadier back to my car than I am coming from my. No, no. I'm just imagining. I want it to be so. So I'm making myself think that next time I went, on the way in, I would do what I'm about to show you and I do it again on the way out. What I did was anybody old enough to remember the song Wipe out, it was the drum solo. Okay, I'm gonna try to do it out. Yeah. And I would do. I try to do Wipeout on the way in. I do it, and I could assess the level pretty well. I'm a man with Parkinson's trying to do Wipeout or any drum solo. And then on the way out, I do it again. It's always better on the way out.

[Woody Harrelson]

Wow.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Fairly scientific.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

And so I kept doing it and. And here I am having had it since 2004. Easily all the signs were there. We didn't know what it was, but things were happening to me. No one could explain. I had it since 2004, at least. But since 2016, I've been diagnosed by the top neurologist at UCLA and Cedars. So I definitely have it. And here I am still working so much. So it's so good that two different production companies. I told them after a second year on the show, I said, thank you for being so understanding in my Parkinson's. They went, what? You're what? What did you just say? They didn't know I had it. I was shocked. I thought they had seen me. Not that I trembled a lot, but occasionally I'd shake a tiny bit. I thought they were onto me. Nobody was on to me. So that's pretty good if people don't know it.

[Ted Danson]

So that's 12 years. 2004-16. 12 years. Undiagnosed, but untreated. Were you take. Trying to. Did you have an idea that you might have Parkinson's?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

No, it was untreated. Officially untreated. But it was treated every day by my own lifestyle that I lived with. Riding the bike every day up to Mulholland from Laurel and Ventura, then around Franklin Canyon Lake and back home, eating well, exercising every day. Upper body, you know, to go with the lower body kind of bike riding. I did that every day. And that was therapy, if you will, that was keeping it at bay. So I never really had any big sign of it. And then finally, 2016, it got so weird. I went to a speech therapist because I was starting to slur my words. I couldn't rattle off the names of things the way I used to rattle off the line. So I went to a speech therapist. After one session, she called up my doctor and said, I'm confused. I don't see it on his chart that he has Parkinson's. Is there some reason why you didn't write it down? They went, we didn't know he had Parkinson's. She. And she treats a lot of. Thank you so much. A lot of Parkinson's patients. And so she knew the first time. There are other neurologists that encountered me. I just never heard about it. There was. My cousin's friend is a neurologist. Three years before that, he saw me at a birthday party, my cousin's birthday party. When I left, he said, how long has Eddie had Parkinson's? My cousin said the same thing. I would say, what do you talk about? He doesn't have Parkinson's. Yeah, he does, because. Well, never mind. Just stay tuned. I think you'll hear from him on it.

[Ted Danson]

Wow. Wow.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

And I wasn't his patient, so he didn't call me up.

[Ted Danson]

Right. What were you eating? What was your diet like during those 12 years when you were.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I was eating vegan, know, with lots of mixing up the protein pretty good. I'd have avocado and peanut butter and tofu and what have you. Lots of fresh food, salads that I'd grown in the garden and what have you. And I ate a pretty good vegan and, you know, with a good amount of protein, stuff different, you know, soy kind of proteins, what have you.

[Ted Danson]

And do you attribute keeping it at bay at least to. Also to diet?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yeah, diet is part of it too. Now. Full disclosure, I'm known as a vegan, but I'm not really a vegan anymore. I think I'm now a Megan, which is mostly vegan. You know, I once in a while eat some things that are not purely vegan. But my wife said, you're going to eat them and you're going to shut up and do it. And I did it and I'm a little bit better because of what she tells me to do.

[Ted Danson]

Okay, let's flip because we just heard Rachelle tell you to shut up.

[Woody Harrelson]

So how does Rachelle. I understand who you are and who you've been for such a long time, but when somebody marries you and lives with you, was she on board with all the environmentalism and taking public transportation or bike riding or.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

This is my memory of it. Now. Feel free to give her equal time if you ever see her. You can record it and air it separately or whatever you want to do. But this is my memory. When we were dating. When we were dating, it was, honey, I made a tofu loaf and we'll take the bus down to the environmental rally, okay? The minute that the ring went on the finger, I want to stake in a limo ride. Don't bother waiting up for me. We're going to Chippendales. I may be exaggerating a little bit, but the behavior did change a little bit after we're married.

[Woody Harrelson]

All I'm saying, we will be checking with her.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Check with her, give her equal time. It's only fair. But please, I don't. Please, whatever you do, don't make her feel good about herself. If her self worth goes up, she'll leave me in a second. So please, I beg you, don't make her feel good about herself. Don't compliment her in any way. I never do.

[Ted Danson]

Do you find yourself. How old are you now? You're 71?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

74.

[Ted Danson]

74. I'm 75. Do you find yourself going, wait a minute. What. What do I do? I attribute whatever I'm feeling to Parkinson's? Or am I? If I didn't have Parkinson's, I'd be feeling the same way? Because age, you know, catches up with all of us.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

I mean, I find you remarkable. I don't think Parkinson's. While I'm. I'm looking at you.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You're very kind to say that. But I'll tell you this, and this is the truth, too, with everything I've said so far. Another truth is, you would think there'd be. Tell me how you are at math. Is there one year from 19. I'm sorry? Is there one year from 2023 to 2024? Is that one year?

[Ted Danson]

What's the question again?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Never mind, never mind. I'll make it simpler. I'm trying to do a gag and it's dying. I'm killing myself here. Is there one. Is it one year time span from age 73 to age 74.

[Ted Danson]

One year.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That's one year.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

No, it's just 73 ends.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It turns out it's a decade.

[Ted Danson]

All right.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

From 73 to 74. I'm now 10 years old, I can promise you.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, I see.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yeah. There's nothing left for anybody. Let's move on.

[Ted Danson]

No, it probably was my response.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Not at all. No.

[Woody Harrelson]

But Ted sometimes will complain to me about some so called age related thing.

[Ted Danson]

How come it's so called in my case? But Eddie gets total respect here.

[Woody Harrelson]

Now I'm gonna finish you, and I say you were exactly like that at age 45. Because you guys are. You guys are.

[Ted Danson]

That's true, you do.

[Woody Harrelson]

So in your case, you have that, like your inner music sounds like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

[Ted Danson]

And that's being generous, by the way. She sped that up for the podcast.

[Woody Harrelson]

I mean, he's brilliant and I respect him, but he's on this kind of lovely, goofy time zone thing, which is great.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It's one of the things I admire about him.

[Woody Harrelson]

Exactly.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

He is Alan Watts. You're there, baby.

[Woody Harrelson]

He. He is. And I get the benefits of living with that because I'm not that. I'm much more. Yeah, sorry. But I.

[Ted Danson]

She's fast. You're very fast.

[Woody Harrelson]

But he does make me live more in the moment because he does so, so beautifully.

[Ted Danson]

I'm like an anchor.

[Woody Harrelson]

You're like a dead weight on me. A beloved. Beloved. Deadweight.

[Ted Danson]

I used to say that I'm the. I'm her, you know, ragtail to her kite.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Right, right.

[Ted Danson]

You know, I do give you some degree. Well, I just like to think of this. You know what?

[Woody Harrelson]

Don't get into it.

[Ted Danson]

I'm not going to get into us.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I'm Rochelle's ballast too.

[Ted Danson]

Thank you. Yeah, ballast. I'm balanced.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I'm definitely.

[Ted Danson]

Or if we were a Scientologist, I'd be the suppressive one. We, we know. This is how we know that Mary's come up with a great idea. She'll say something, I'll go, oh, no, no, no. And immediately it's recognizes. Oh, this is good because you just immediately said no.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

The things I said no to for years with her. I will never, ever move from this house. I said that and I meant it. My old house on Mountain View. I will never, ever get married again. I will never, ever have more children. Three for three, kicking and screaming. She had to drag me out of that house on Mountain View. But now, who loves the new house better than anyone? It's me. I just love it.

[Ted Danson]

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[Woody Harrelson]

Well, now that we know you lived through it and you're safe and sound, can you tell the story of which I love so much of your Christmas? Was it Christmas eve or Christmas night?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Christmas Eve of 1975.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Definitely not sober years.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

This was the height of my alcoholism. Yeah. So I didn't want to drink at home. That seemed kind of grim on Christmas Eve. I call up my buddy Neil, my dear friend Neil rhodes, an occasional drinking buddy. And we went to dantana's because that seemed kind of Christmassy to us, you know, kind of a family feel. But there wasn't. There was like a couple of little lights on, A chianti bottle hung from the ceiling. It wasn't much. So I said, we gotta go someplace more Christmassy. And Neil said, well, then we have to go to the rainbow barn grill. That speaks Christmas to everybody in Los angele, I think. So we went there, but it was indeed more Christmasy. People had, you know, like, Santa hats on and stuff. And so when I walked in the bar, Frosty, the bartender, you know, had the bottle of vodka out he was about to pour, said, no, no, Frosty. I just drank a quarter vodka tanas. This is our. Not our first bar of the night, so no way. I gotta drive back over to the valley. There's no way I can have any more vodka. Give me some chardonnay. After having a full quart of vodka, I was going to be sensible. You don't want to be driving too drunk. I said, give me. So I drank a bottle of chardonnay. Then he pulled out, like, some breath mints for me to have. And I was slightly offended because I knew I hadn't had any garlic or onions. And then I remembered I really hadn't had any food. So I was doing all this on an empty stomach. And he kept shaking the mince. I said, I don't want one. Why are you trying to. He said, no. 714 man said, I know those Orange county ladies. 714 Erico they're pretty hot. But, you know, politically, we might get in an argument. I don't know about this. He said, no, no. And he held it close. I could see it was 714 was the number of the pill that he had before him. It was called a Quaalude. Anybody here remember Quaaludes?

[Ted Danson]

Vaguely.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Oh, boy. Yeah. Ed Vagley, Quaalude Jr. And so I. The drug was considered an hypnotic drug. And it definitely. But there were warnings with it. You were not supposed to drive under the influence of it, certainly not supposed to have alcohol. So I had a quart of vodka at Tana's, bottle of Chardonnay at the Rainbow. And I told Frosty, I said, there's no way I'm going to take a Quaalude. Thank you so much, but no. I'm going to take a Quaalude with all of that. You know what? Give me half. So I took a half. Ten minutes later. Give me another half. Ten minutes later, another half. And I kept taking halves. Pretty soon, I said to Neil, I said, I don't think I can even make it back the Valley. Can I crash in your couch? And more importantly, will you drive? This is 1975. It's a few years ago, but I remember to this day what Neil said. He went and miming that he was not prepared to drive. So I poured him into the car. And then I started to go west. Sorry, east on Sunset. Said, you know what, buddy? You're such a pal. We gotta go to Greenblatt. So do you have any booze at home? Because we're gonna want something for the morning. So I said, we'll stop at Greenblatts. And you know what, man? You're here for me all the time. I really love you. And then that's when he got this weird look on his face. And I thought, have I offended him? Does he think something else is going on? I just was telling him I love him. And I realized the reason he got a weird look on his face. He was looking out the front of the vehicle, which I was not doing. I was staring at him for like 30 full seconds. Suddenly there's glass and metal everywhere. And I crash into all these cars, slide along the right side of these four very large gentlemen from the inner city, less than thrilled with me. Then I crash into this Honda Civic, knock it through the intersection I wanted. I just kill a person. I hit it so hard. And the different parts rolling down the hill and what have you at San Vicente and Sunset. And this guy Gets out of the car and with, thank you, God, he's alive. He gets out with crutches. He has crutches already. He'd been in a skiing accident as a cast on one leg. I said, good, he'll save some money at the emergency room tonight. But I said, I got to talk. This other car, there's a third car that I did not hit. But I had to focus all my attentions on them. I said to them, guys, there are two sheriff's departments in that vehicle. By the way, guys, do me one favor. One only. It's Christmas Eve. Arrest me and take me in. Have you been drinking? Mr. Begley said, I've had a couple of some Christmas eggnog. But no, write it up any way you want, though, because I'm going to sue Toyota. I'm going to win because I've been pumping these breaks since back at Doheny, and I'm going to sue them and win. If you arrest me and put me in jail, it's going to help. The reverse psychology worked. I had them under the car looking for a leak in the brake line. I was on so much adrenaline, I was yelling all this stuff. I was talking something like, I'm talking right now. I was not really slurring. I wasn't stumbling because I'm 25 years old and on adrenaline like crazy. But then by the time I fill out all the paperwork for it, what have you, I started to get a little toasty again. And the guy whose car I hit with the crutches, he's calling for a cab. I hang up the phone and I say, no, I won't have it, sir. This is my fault. I'm going to drive you home. And I put the poor guy in the car. But after like a half block, I go, what is that sound I'm hearing? This weird metallic sound, like, bunk, bunk, bunk, bunk. He said, you're knocking the side view mirrors off the cars that are parked on Sunset. Would you let me out, please? No, I'm going to take you home now. Let me out. Starts hitting me with his crusher. Let me out of the car, you freaking maniac. Hobble home then. And then Neil woke up and I said, do you think we could still make it to Green Blatts to get some booze? That's just the way it was.

[Woody Harrelson]

Wow. It is a miracle having really. I say this, remembering the old you, but it is a miracle that you're sitting here.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

It is a miracle. How did I live through that?

[Woody Harrelson]

Somebody was looking out for you, man.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Killing myself would have been poetic justice. But if I had hurt another person, or, God help me, a family, could you imagine living with that?

[Woody Harrelson]

Right.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

No, I couldn't live with that.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. I'm glad you went there, because in the book, you're very careful to acknowledge the fact that you did so much damage to relationships that you had that. I mean, drunk stories are hilarious, especially if you've survived it and all of that. But there's a great deal of humility in the book about consequences, impacts people.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That you hurt, people you're married to, friends of yours, people you love standing somewhere waiting for you when you so drunk you just don't show up. Just ethically, it can be a real problem when you're in the middle of that alcoholic storm.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, well, we've made you tell a lot of those stories because they're astounding. I have to the book, I think part of your geniuses. I mean, people listening to you right now, you're so fast. Your brain is so fast. You can bounce from story to story, but somehow in your book, because you bounce all over the place in the book. But it is tied together in this most brilliant way. And it's so authentically your voice, but it really. I really loved your book. I really could not recommend it more highly.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Bless you, Ted.

[Woody Harrelson]

And it's a beautiful book about very specific times in Los Angeles, but also about an actor who didn't just have an easy path of it. You had years that you were worried about money. But much of the good fortune that comes your way has to do with how beloved you are and what a good friend you were to so many people and. But also how. You know, I don't think you. I don't recall that you studied acting, but you ended up being such wonderful actor. You're so kind. Yeah, I just. I've always felt so lucky I got to work with you right off the bat.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Me, too. Me, too.

[Ted Danson]

You.

[Woody Harrelson]

And even though I didn't want to hang out with you at night because you were scary.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Very scary. You dodged a bullet there. Thank you.

[Woody Harrelson]

I was really happy that we remained friends, you know?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Me too.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

But I had a good teacher there with all that that you're talking about. And I'll say yes, and thank you that I had some measure of kindness and some other good qualities, I got them almost all from Bruno Kirby. He was such a good friend, such a great guy.

[Woody Harrelson]

You talk about him a lot. What did you love about him?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

He was a guy that was so loyal. He would do things like if I got a better offer, I'd just take it, you know, like, oh my God, I've got to go to this party, you know, because Francis Ford Coppola is going to be there and I think, you know, this one and that. So I'd say, Bruno, I'm sorry I can't make it to your friend Tony Amatulo's party. You know, I've got a. I've got to meet my friends out on Long Island, I'd say, or some nonsense, none of which was true. But then I ran into Bruno and Tony, you know, out in the middle of Times Square on the way to go to the A list party. You know, Bruno had committed to his old friend that he was going to be there. He wasn't going to let an A list party drag him somewhere else. He had committed to his friend Tony. And so I was just like fly by night, you know, do whatever I thought was the best career move and drop people, you know, at the drop of a hat. But Bruno was not like that. He was fiercely loyal. I got in a horrible car accident later, you know, back in. I guess that was 72 that I got in that accident before all this that we're talking about with the other car accident. I've been in a lot of accidents, haven't I?

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah, and you had. We haven't even talked about your most life threatening accident.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Well, and I will tell about that too. But Bruno Kirby came every day out to Pasadena Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, brought me my mail and brought me healthy food out there. And he did not live in Pasadena, he lived in Hollywood. So I learned about friendship and loyalty from Bruno. What a great guy.

[Ted Danson]

What a great guy.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Great actor. And I went back to acting school. I went back and studied from Peggy Fury and Stella Adler because of Bruno.

[Woody Harrelson]

That's right. That's right.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yes.

[Woody Harrelson]

And then what happened? What was the park bench story when you, you were busy, you were at a bus?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Yes, I was.

[Ted Danson]

When, when was this?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

This is 1972. February 17, 1972, is with my friend Paul Appleby, my roommate. We decided to go down to Gardena to play cards. And he had a car. I think he had a car. We could have borrowed a car. I said, no, I know the bus system really well. We'll take the bus down there. And we lived at Vineland Aventura in the valley, kind of near where I live now. We got on the first bus very easily, was there, right according to my paper schedule, got on it, went to Santa Monica Western Walked up to the Western Avenue bus. Got that fairly quickly, within a few minutes, as per the schedule. And the casino is on Western Avenue, so this is great. You see, I'm a genius. Taking the bus cost us like 45 cents or something the whole way. And we're going to get all the way down to Commerce, the city of commerce, to play cards. Then we get to Western Imperial. The driver says, end of the line. No, no, we're going further. The bus goes down. We saw the map. It goes further. No, that's the Gardena bus line. The guy said, you got to get out here and change your garden. It's a separate city, which I should have known. That's why you can play cards there. It's not. You're not gambling in the city of Los Angeles. You're gambling in a city that decided it would allow poker. So, okay, it's broad daylight. We're waiting there, me and my friend Paul, and suddenly this crowd of kids, maybe about seven or eight young men, walking towards us with purpose. And here's the interesting thing about psychology. I didn't run away or take any evasive moves because I didn't want to seem uncool. I didn't want to seem, you know, like, I don't know what. But I. I just kind of stayed there. I stood there and waited to see what they wanted to say to me. And suddenly we were down on the ground and I was being stabbed. But I didn't even feel that. When you're getting kicked and punched, you don't really feel a knife. It's more surgical. And then I had a lot of trouble breathing. It turned out I had a collapsed lung and I healed from all that. But the good thing is, a very short period of time. You have some very negative thoughts after something like that. But I did not hold on to them long at all because I thought, this is going to eat me alive. It's like drinking poison and hoping the other guy's going to die, you know, I didn't want to have any bad feelings towards them because it just made me feel bad. So I got into a place of forgiveness very quickly, and that was healthy for me. They had. They rounded up some kids that they claimed did it, but I. I could not identify them. I wasn't making it up. I just didn't know who was who. I couldn't identify anybody. So I was always afraid that maybe, you know, they'd gotten a confession under some weird conditions or something. So I. I wasn't able to do anything at The. At the trial. But the most important thing that I could control, I didn't carry hate in my heart after that. And that was the right decision.

[Woody Harrelson]

That was the thing Mandela said when he was stepping out of the prison. Before he took that first step over the threshold, he said he knew that if he carried hate in his heart toward his captors, he would never be free.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

There's a man that mastered it with the amount of time he spent in prison. I'm hesitant to even say a word after you said the name Nelson Mandela, my minor. Nothing is just that, nothing compared to what he did, what he accomplished and what he endured. So, yeah, that's the secret to that sort of thing, I think. I think he was a very wise man to do that for everybody, including himself.

[Woody Harrelson]

Hard to do. Hard to do for anybody.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I got to know Bishop Desmond Tutu, thanks to you, really, because it was because of Alfre. And I met Alfre through you. So I got to meet and work with Desmond Tutu and a few different things he was doing because of you, really. And beautiful.

[Ted Danson]

Alfre co founded Artists for Free South Africa.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

That's right. Thank you, Artists for Free South Africa.

[Woody Harrelson]

And then eventually became Artist for New South Africa. But Desmond Tutu, he was such a lovely, bright man.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

What a lovely man. What a gift to know him.

[Woody Harrelson]

Yeah.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

How lucky are we to know him, to have known him. His spirit is still with us.

[Ted Danson]

Hey, one more. Speaking of spirit, Chavez. I keep mispronouncing his name.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

You did it fine. Yes, Cesar Chavez. Great, great man.

[Ted Danson]

What a leader. How you met him and the relationship you had that ended up you being asked to partake in carrying his casket when he passed away.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I had helped from a distance for years, going as far back as the 60s. Friends of mine said, you know, you got to stop buying grapes and stop buying lettuce because there's a strike on and what have you. So I did that. That was easy. Then there was a strike fund. I didn't have a lot of money, but I sent some money to the strike fund for the United Farm Workers. And then in the 80s, after doing stuff from a distance, suddenly this car pulls up at a restaurant called Pans near LAX there, and I'm having a bowl of oatmeal, and this guy pulls up in this kind of beat up car, and I go, wow, that guy looks just like Cesar Chavez. But it couldn't be him. He's an internationally known labor leader, like Jimmy Hoffa. Level of people knowing who he is. But then I realized after just one Second, that's exactly the kind of car that Cesar Chavez would be in, because he wasn't trying to get rich for himself or his family. He was just, you know, a man who had been a farm worker, wanted better conditions. And they had no toilets in the field back then. They had no drinking water for the people in the fields. They had no shade for them, you know, just a simple little umbrella over where they're picking the grapes or the lettuce or whatever would change their lives. And it's something that's possible, but they didn't bother to do it. So we got better conditions for them in the fields, a health fund, you know, pension fund, and did incredible things for them. And I. But when I met him, I waited till the. He came into the restaurant, sat at a table. When he walked past me, I knew that was definitely him. After they ordered and before the food came, I went over to Mr. Chavez. I just want to say hi, Ed Begley. And I've been following your work for years and helped in my small way, but I just wanted, here's my business card. If I can ever help, let me know. And he said, well, what's your passion? I said, well, the environment. I try to do what I can. I said, but I know it's not just save the owls and save the whales. There's kids getting sick from the pesticides in the Central Valley and what have you. So I, I know that's important, you know, and, and I named some of the towns, like McFarland and Early Mart, where the kids had gotten sick from cancer clusters. And so he was very impressed with that. And I got to be friends with him and friends with the family. So when he passed away in 1993, 35,000 people showed up for that funeral. I'd never been to a funeral like that. Maybe one of the Kennedys or somebody or Lady Di has that many people showed up, but nothing like that. It was remarkable. And on the 10 year anniversary of his death, I wrote a play about his wonderful life and his work. And we did it at the Noho Arts Complex. Well, first at the El Portel, then at the Noho Arts Complex about the great Cesar Chavez. And it was, the family came and everything. It was a lovely, lovely play.

[Ted Danson]

I hear you're going to do it again. Is that right or did I make that up?

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I'm committed to pursuing that vigorously with Danielle Barbosa, who was there the other night, this wonderful actress who played the great Dolores Huerta, who's still with us, this wonderful activist and woman Dolores Huerta, who co founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. She came many times to see the play. And Danielle Barbosa played Dolores Huerta in the play. So she said, are you going to do that play again? Because I just seen her a week before and it said, yeah, I want to do that again. I committed to it at that thing we were at together and I met it. I would like to do it again, so I probably will.

[Ted Danson]

Time to say goodbye to you, Ed.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Well, I had a great talk. I always do with you guys. You guys are delightful to talk to.

[Ted Danson]

Well, you're one of my heroes and you're well adored in our family. And the book everybody is. So say it again is so worth it.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

To the temple of Tranquility and step on it.

[Woody Harrelson]

And even though we had you tell some of the stories of your crazy, wild days, I'm really glad you did get sober so that you're here. And I bet you're incredibly inspirational at those meetings when you talk to folks. And I'm just grateful to you for being such a good friend.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

Bless you. Right back at you. I've loved you for many, many years and that love continues for both of you. I love and admire you both.

[Ted Danson]

Have a great day. Say hi to Relle, please.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

I will.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Okay. That was so much fun. Such a joy to spend this time with two of my favorites, Mary Steenbergen And Ed Begley Jr. Thank you both. Before you go, here's an illustration of what a special guy Ed is. Before the recording, he gifted us an extremely heavy vase of flowers that he had hauled down the sidewalk and carried up a flight of stairs himself. That's Ed for you. That's it for this week. Special thanks to our friends at Team Coco. And if you enjoyed this episode, send it to a loved one. You can always watch us by visiting YouTube.com teamcoco as always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you like. See you next time. Where Everybody Knows your You've been listening to where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sara Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grohl. Talent cooking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Genn, Mary Steenburgen and John Osborne. We'll have more for you next time. Where everybody knows your name. Just in and so good. Thousands of spring finds up to 70%.

[Ed Begley Jr.]

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[Ted Danson]

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[Ed Begley Jr.]

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[Ted Danson]

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