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Actor Ed Begley Jr. Struggled With Family Lies and Alcohol Until He Found Himself
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(David P.)
Oct 14, 2023, 11:48:35 PM10/14/23
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Actor Ed Begley Jr. Struggled With Family Lies and Alcohol Until He Found Himself
By Marc Myers, Oct. 3, 2023, WSJ
Ed Begley Jr., 74, is a movie and TV actor who has appeared in more than 100 films. He is the author of the memoir “To the Temple of Tranquility—and Step on It” (Hachette). He spoke with Marc Myers.
I was quite the liar as a kid. Mostly I lied when accused of something that I feared would result in horrible punishment.
As a young liar, I loved adding details, thinking it made my story more believable. Later I realized making up stories had an upside: It was good training for acting.
My father, Ed Begley, was an Oscar-winning actor. For my first two years, we lived in Van Nuys, in Los Angeles. Then my dad moved the family to Merrick, a New York suburb. We stayed there whenever he appeared on Broadway. I lived in Merrick from kindergarten through seventh grade but spent summers in Van Nuys. I loved California.
The woman I knew as my mother, Amanda, was a different story. Just before I turned 16, I was with my father en route to take my driver’s license test. On my birth certificate, the box for my mother’s name was blank. Amanda had died of cancer in 1957, when I was 7.
I asked about the empty space. Dad was silent but eventually told me that my real mother was Sandy, someone I long thought was a family friend.
Later he told me Sandy had been an NBC page with whom he had an affair. The result was my sister, Allene, then me, 11 months later. Nothing in our family was what it seemed. Our older brother Tom turned out to be our cousin.
In earlier years, Allene and I would meet Sandy with my father regularly at Grand Central Station. We didn’t know who she was then, but we were crazy about her. When I first found out about her, I felt cheated and lied to. It took me a while to realize how grateful I should have been.
I wasn’t big on gratitude then, a major character defect and part of my budding alcoholic brain that would start abusing substances later. Nearly everyone in my family suffered from alcoholism.
I met Sandy as my mother for the first time at 16. She never married. Her only family was her mother, and she didn’t hide us from her. We’d see Sandy about once or twice a year, and she saw my success before passing in 1998.
At home, after Amanda died, Allene and I had a streak of questionable caregivers. One was our aunt, who once fell into a ditch drunk. We had to pull her out.
Finally, my father called a nanny service, and Jeanette appeared. She was with us from the time I was 7 to 12. She was French and played the organ, painted, grew vegetables and was tough. Then my father married a much younger woman. They were married for less than a year.
I wasn’t a very good student. I was a daydreamer who didn’t understand why I had to learn stuff that didn’t apply to me or help me in any way.
My first acting job was in TV’s “My Three Sons.” I was 17 and was instantly hooked. But little work followed, and I was upset that my mother’s identity had been hidden from me for so long. Both led me to start drinking and stealing pills from the medicine cabinet.
After Los Angeles Valley College, I was a camera assistant. Then friends helped me break into acting. I learned on the job.
My father died when I was 20, in 1970. I took it very badly. To lose him was frightening and hard.
In 1979, I finally got sober, stayed sober and began to grow up. Most of my roles were as character actors. “The In-Laws” in 1979 was a big break. The film was hugely popular, and I became fairly employable at that point.
Today, I live with my wife, actress Rachelle Carson, and our daughter, Hayden, in L.A. We moved into our French Mediterranean home in 2016 after we had it built and outfitted with environmentally friendly technology.
It’s a LEED platinum-rate home. I have plenty of room for my vegetable garden out back, for a 10,000-gallon rainwater tank and for nine kilowatts of photovoltaic energy.
One of my prized possessions is my father’s Oscar for “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962). I long believed my father had shortchanged me. Later, I realized he was a great dad. Gratitude had finally kicked in.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/actor-ed-begley-jr-struggled-with-family-lies-and-alcohol-until-he-found-himself-9c3a5137
By Marc Myers, Oct. 3, 2023, WSJ
Ed Begley Jr., 74, is a movie and TV actor who has appeared in more than 100 films. He is the author of the memoir “To the Temple of Tranquility—and Step on It” (Hachette). He spoke with Marc Myers.
I was quite the liar as a kid. Mostly I lied when accused of something that I feared would result in horrible punishment.
As a young liar, I loved adding details, thinking it made my story more believable. Later I realized making up stories had an upside: It was good training for acting.
My father, Ed Begley, was an Oscar-winning actor. For my first two years, we lived in Van Nuys, in Los Angeles. Then my dad moved the family to Merrick, a New York suburb. We stayed there whenever he appeared on Broadway. I lived in Merrick from kindergarten through seventh grade but spent summers in Van Nuys. I loved California.
The woman I knew as my mother, Amanda, was a different story. Just before I turned 16, I was with my father en route to take my driver’s license test. On my birth certificate, the box for my mother’s name was blank. Amanda had died of cancer in 1957, when I was 7.
I asked about the empty space. Dad was silent but eventually told me that my real mother was Sandy, someone I long thought was a family friend.
Later he told me Sandy had been an NBC page with whom he had an affair. The result was my sister, Allene, then me, 11 months later. Nothing in our family was what it seemed. Our older brother Tom turned out to be our cousin.
In earlier years, Allene and I would meet Sandy with my father regularly at Grand Central Station. We didn’t know who she was then, but we were crazy about her. When I first found out about her, I felt cheated and lied to. It took me a while to realize how grateful I should have been.
I wasn’t big on gratitude then, a major character defect and part of my budding alcoholic brain that would start abusing substances later. Nearly everyone in my family suffered from alcoholism.
I met Sandy as my mother for the first time at 16. She never married. Her only family was her mother, and she didn’t hide us from her. We’d see Sandy about once or twice a year, and she saw my success before passing in 1998.
At home, after Amanda died, Allene and I had a streak of questionable caregivers. One was our aunt, who once fell into a ditch drunk. We had to pull her out.
Finally, my father called a nanny service, and Jeanette appeared. She was with us from the time I was 7 to 12. She was French and played the organ, painted, grew vegetables and was tough. Then my father married a much younger woman. They were married for less than a year.
I wasn’t a very good student. I was a daydreamer who didn’t understand why I had to learn stuff that didn’t apply to me or help me in any way.
My first acting job was in TV’s “My Three Sons.” I was 17 and was instantly hooked. But little work followed, and I was upset that my mother’s identity had been hidden from me for so long. Both led me to start drinking and stealing pills from the medicine cabinet.
After Los Angeles Valley College, I was a camera assistant. Then friends helped me break into acting. I learned on the job.
My father died when I was 20, in 1970. I took it very badly. To lose him was frightening and hard.
In 1979, I finally got sober, stayed sober and began to grow up. Most of my roles were as character actors. “The In-Laws” in 1979 was a big break. The film was hugely popular, and I became fairly employable at that point.
Today, I live with my wife, actress Rachelle Carson, and our daughter, Hayden, in L.A. We moved into our French Mediterranean home in 2016 after we had it built and outfitted with environmentally friendly technology.
It’s a LEED platinum-rate home. I have plenty of room for my vegetable garden out back, for a 10,000-gallon rainwater tank and for nine kilowatts of photovoltaic energy.
One of my prized possessions is my father’s Oscar for “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962). I long believed my father had shortchanged me. Later, I realized he was a great dad. Gratitude had finally kicked in.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/actor-ed-begley-jr-struggled-with-family-lies-and-alcohol-until-he-found-himself-9c3a5137
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