Ed Begley Jr. is an actor, writer, and environmental activist. He is the keynote speaker for Festival U, which will be held virtually September 20, 2025 and is sponsored by the San Diego Memoir Writers Association.
In 1982, NBC took a chance on a TV pilot set in a Boston hospital called St. Elsewhere. The show, and the role of Dr. Peter Erlich, catapulted Ed Begley Jr. into stardom, likely to the stratospheric level of his actor father, Ed Begley Sr.
In his memoir To the Temple of Tranquility…and Step On It, Begley Jr. writes that he always wanted to act and just assumed his father would help him obtain important roles.
“I had the delusion that it would be so easy because my father made it look easy,” Begley said in an interview from his Los Angeles area home. “So, I thought well, give me a job on Wagon Train. I want to do Perry Mason, not just one episode, Dad, get me a series regular job. I auditioned for roles but had no idea what I was doing and didn’t get any work. Soon, I began training as an actor and only then started working. Somehow, I have been working ever since.”
Despite Begley’s pedigree, his road to stardom was as circuitous as Mulholland Drive. He was born in 1949 in New York but spent many of his formative years in an area of Los Angeles known as “The Valley.” Begley’s west coast childhood home was in Van Nuys, a modest 1,700 square foot place with two bedrooms, far from the star power residing in points south like Beverly Hills or Bel Air. But he had the attitude of an entitled young man.
“I had a lack of gratitude and a very loose grasp on the truth,” he said.
Begley’s photo on the cover of his memoir and his publicity photo as Dr. Philip Erlich belie the turbulent world in which he lived. While he appeared to be the typical California teenager in the 1960s and is, to this day, loaded with charm, his foray into the world of addiction nearly ended his life at least twice.
He gambled and abused alcohol and drugs. In his memoir, he talks about his experiences, many of which happened while he was under the influence. He once partied with a group of people at Spahn Ranch, an old movie set north of Los Angeles and spent time talking with a wannabe musician who asked Begley how to go about getting the right people to hear his music.
“This was in 1968,” Begley writes.” Though I didn’t get any of their names at the time, I would see and recognize several of them in the paper a year later. Linda, Susan, Patricia and Tex, and especially the wannabe musician.” That wannabe musician was Charles Manson.
The memoir is a collection of chapters, featuring mostly light-hearted and funny moments as Begley remembers them. He writes about his audition for a lead role on St. Elsewhere. He was unhappy when he didn’t get the role, then became angry because the role went to an unknown actor. Later, producers invited Begley to read for a smaller role, that of Dr. Peter Erlich. He had only four lines in the first episode.
When Begley met with the producers and executive director Bruce Paltrow, he wore a Hawaiian shirt, selected by a wardrobe employee who suggested that’s how the Erlich character would dress; bold and colorful. Paltrow didn’t see it that way.
“He thought I was a clown,” Begley laughed. “And — this is Bruce Paltrow talking — ‘So is Erlich a clown or something? Is he in clown school part time besides being a medical intern? Is that what’s happening, because I didn’t read that rewrite.’ I thought, he hates me and that it cost me a job.” But the Begley charm changed Paltrow’s mind and Erlich/Begley became a regular cast member.
Begley tends to gloss over some important details of his life. He says that’s mostly because he doesn’t have a complete recollection of many events. For example, he devotes about a page and a half to the time he nearly died after a group of young men stabbed him. The young towhead ended up in Compton because he and a friend took the wrong bus to their favorite card room, which was a few miles away in Gardena. Begley and his friend were both stabbed, but Begley took the brunt of the assault, which ended in a collapsed lung.
He writes, “It’s an unusual moment when you hear a siren blaring, and it keeps getting louder till you realize: ‘Oh, yeah, this one’s coming for me.’”
He was taken to the hospital and because he was 22-years-old, his physical wounds healed quickly. But he notes the trauma remained.
It wasn’t until the early 1990s that Begley realized he had to make changes. He says he had several “aha” moments on the road to sobriety and enlightenment, but the most impactful involved his firstborn child, Amanda.
“Amanda and I had a terrific bond,” Begley said. “I was in the hospital and had almost died from an overdose of drugs and alcohol and she wanted me to hold her. But I couldn’t hold her because I had all these tubes going into me. I said to myself this as low as it gets. My daughter is upset because I can’t hold her because I have tubes in me because I’m in the hospital for my drug and alcohol abuse. I thought to myself, that’s it. And it was. I was done. And here we are still sober many years later.”
Begley’s entire life changed that day along with his attitude. He learned to live for each moment. He learned to be considerate of others’ thoughts and beliefs. And he learned he had a higher power.
“For years I just wanted to get my way because I know that my way was the better way and if everybody else could see that, the world would be a better place,” he said. “But quite often in my life, it’s been much better to get what the Universe had in mind for me rather than what I had in mind for me.”
He points to his role on St. Elsewhere. The role he wanted, that of Dr. Peter White, was outed as a pedophile and murdered in the second season, while Begley’s Dr. Peter Erlich lasted all six seasons. Then there was the tumor. The Universe and a skilled surgeon intervened to save Begley’s life.
“I went in recently for removal of a painful kidney stone,” Begley said. “And while I was still sedated the doctor decided to look at my bladder and found a tumor the size of a pea. The tumor turned out to be malignant.”
Today, Begley leads a simple life, living each moment with his second wife, Rachelle. He’s been an environmental activist since the 1970s. He’s enormously proud of his three children – Amanda, who works for a non-profit in Los Angeles, Nicholas, who is an electrical engineer in Oregon, and Hayden, an actress whom Begley calls the queen of social media. He also dotes on his three grandchildren.
Hayden is the reason Begley wrote his memoir. He said the project initially began as an archive to document his colorful life for his children and grandchildren. Hayden began recording Begley’s recollections on her smartphone, but the Universe intervened once again. Her battery died and the pair decided to meet at later date to continue the project. Inspired, Begley went to his computer to jot down some notes and struck gold.
“The computer keyboard became like a Ouija board that actually worked. It took me to this hallway and the next one, then up to the attic and down to the basement of my mind and my experiences and it was delightful, every moment of it,” he said. “Whether or not anyone else wanted to read it, I enjoyed writing it.”
Begley still acts and is in an upcoming movie where he plays a doctor.
“How many people get to do something they love and continue to do it for 58 years?” Begley said. “I don’t care if you sell cars or aluminum siding, if you’re still working in your field and enjoying it after 58 years you are one lucky person.”
Luck may have had something to do with the twists and turns in Begley’s life. He survived a few near-death experiences, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, a gambling addiction, learning as a teenager that his mother wasn’t really his mother (read the book), and currently is managing life with Parkinson’s disease. He credits the love of his family and his spiritual advisor for helping him stay on the straight and narrow. And he offers this simple piece of advice.
“Cherish your time with your friends and your family, hold them dear, hold them close,” he said. “Be there for them as best you can and be there for those that you’ve never met who need help. Get your own house in order and then help others as best as you can.”
Begley says he does not have immediate plans to write another book, but if anyone wants to hear more of what he has to say, the Universe will let him know.
Hear more from Ed Begley Jr. here.
Article written by Carol Scimone
