:: May 2005 Volume 4/Number 3

Sitting Down With: Ed Begley, Jr.

By Julie Deife

Ed Begley, Jr., known to many for his portrayal of Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the long-running hit television series, “St. Elsewhere,” for which he received six Emmy nominations, allocates equally his website content to promoting his professional life and environmental solutions. Ed the actor and Ed the environmentalist is really the same guy. Ed has never focused on problems; he focuses on solutions, as you’ll read here. Ed and his dog Molly sat with Julie Deife over tea at Ed’s home.

Julie: How much time do you spend every day consciously cultivating an environmentally aware lifestyle?

Ed: To be honest, I think about if very rarely now. Back in 1970 when I started doing the things that I continue to do today, it required a lot of effort.

Julie: For example?

Ed: To recycle in 1970, you had to drive to one of two places that I know of in L.A. You could go to Sun Valley to a trash collection yard and they had a few bins for amber glass, green glass, white glass, and plastic milk jugs and newspaper. They had another one in Marina del Rey. And they were only open on Sunday from noon to three.  

Julie: Did you drive an electric car in 1970?

Ed: Yes, and that also required a lot of effort because they were nothing like they are today. They were going 15 miles per hour. I had a Taylor Dunne electric car that was basically like a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn.
And it took a lot of effort to ride public transportation then. And to ride your bike took a lot more than it takes today, not just because there were far fewer bike paths, but you were bike riding in killer smog in 1970. To ride your bike, you were basically dying for everyone else’s sins. You know?

Julie: It still feels that way to me. What was your motivation for all of this?

Ed: These things felt right. They made sense, just doing very logical calculations, these things have proven to be the best economic path, I could take in my life. I don’t pay for electricity to charge my car or run my house. I don’t use a lot of natural gas to heat my house or to heat my water. That’s done by solar. I have solar hot water in this house as well. I go to the grocery store, certainly, but I don’t have to go all the time because I grow a lot of food on site.
I’ll never have to paint that fence ever again [pointing to a white picket fence encircling the yard] or worry about termites because it’s recycled plastic, and it will last…you tell me…a hundred years? All these things that I did—the good insulation, the double-paned windows, the compact fluorescent bulbs, the energy saving thermostats—all these things make good economic sense, and they simply feel right.

Julie: You’ve said that the ‘blue collar’ worker can’t do a lot of the things you have, because they can’t afford to. That’s a lot of people. What do you suggest?

Ed: I always urge people to pick the low-hanging fruit first. Just buy a compact fluorescent bulb or two. Buy an energy saving thermostat. Get a bicycle. Talk about good for the environment! It’s good…the world becomes your gym.

Julie: Do you ride your bike to work?

Ed: Going to Santa Monica for an appointment, I do ride my bicycle. Going over Sepulveda Pass is a great ride, a very safe ride, because there’s a bike lane all the way. I do that and I feel fantastic because I’ve had a real good workout. It’s about an hour and ten minutes each way to Santa Monica. And to be honest, in traffic it’s going to take you an hour and ten minutes in the car if it’s rush hour.

Julie: Well Ed, what is it? Paper or plastic, when you shop?

Ed: Neither! Get a canvas bag. I have canvas bags from the early ‘90s and from the late ‘80s that have gotten enough holes in them…the handles are starting to look a little dodgy.

Julie: That’s quite a feat to eliminate paper and plastic bags from your life.

Ed: Whether you like it or not, you’re still going to wind up with some plastic bags. The LA Times comes wrapped in it.
I throw very little away, because most of it is pre-cycling, which is what we’re talking about—eliminating the need for things before the purchase.

Julie: Where are you focusing your activist energies these days?

Ed: I work with the Coalition for Clean Air a lot. We’ve had so many successes, but there’s still a lot of work to be done like the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Julie: What else?

Ed: I have a lot of work on the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board, that is dedicating and maintaining open space in the Santa Monica Mountains, the Simi Hills, the Verdugo Hills. We’re just trying to hang on to what we’ve got and continue to expand open space so that people can have a place to recreate…to enjoy…to get away from the strip malls and the freeways.

Julie: Is the Environmental Media Association active?

Ed: The Environmental Media Association acts as a liaison between the entertainment community and the environmental community. We just had a thing recently with Daryl Hannah, with Ed Norton, with Danny DeVito…with all these wonderful actors and actresses where we were putting solar power on low-income homes in South Central.

Julie: Yourselves?

Ed: We do it with a partnership with BP, who makes a great solar panel. If you put up two kilowatts of panels on your roof, a family in South Central gets a solar set up on theirs. It’s done in partnership with another 501C3, The Heritage Foundation. Suddenly a low-income family sees their electric bill going from $150 a month to $50 a month. It’s a big deal!

Julie: Any other energy saving ideas?

Ed: I was given that book, “Fifty Ways to Save the Earth.” I thought, let me try all fifty. Every single one worked.

Julie: Oh really? You did it?

Ed: I did every single one and then some—for extra credit. Every single thing I did not only worked well—it was good for the environment, but forty-nine of them were great for my pocket book in the short term. The fiftieth, the solar electric, I will tell you there’s not a payback that’s quick. Nowadays with the tax credits, which I did not enjoy…there were not tax credits when I did it, but with those tax credits, it’s an eight-year payback.

Julie: Eight years can be a very long time.

Ed: Right. Most people don’t like things that take eight years to pay back. They’re not in it for the long haul. They want things quickly, and they want them now.

Julie: So the problem goes deeper.

Ed: The problems that we are facing environmentally, I think they’re ultimately spiritual in nature. People think that things are going to fix their life. If they have more things, they’re going to be happier. If things made you happy, there’d be nothing but happy people in Bel Air and unhappy people in the bush.

Julie: How has your lifestyle affected your career?

Ed: This is the smartest thing I did, not just for the environment, but for my career. I don’t have to take the crappy TV movie now. I don’t have to do the infomercial or the rotten project, because I can live here sustainably for very little. It’s good for my artistic choices.

This house, as you can tell sitting here, is 1,700 square feet. It’s a small house and a small lot with a small backyard. It’s a pretty modest setup. People come…a lot of friends in the industry will look at it and say, “My God, I guess Ed fell on hard times! Look at this little house.”

There has been some negative, and that was perception. That was mostly back in the early or mid ‘90s. By that I mean that people were scared of what I was doing. Riding a bike? Driving that little electric car? Get a limo, dude. That’s what everyone else is doing.

I don’t think I was ever blacklisted, but I think I did just generally give people the creeps. I think it cost me work back then. I don’t think it does now. I was told by agents and managers that it cost me work. I’ll never know if that’s true.

Julie: Do you find yourself mostly speaking to the converted?

Ed: We’re almost always preaching to the converted. But I have, in the past, gone into the lion’s den. I’ve been on the O’Reilly Factor. I’ve been on the Dennis Miller show regularly.

Julie: Why did you start yoga?

Ed: When I first did Kundalini yoga in 1970 at Robertson and Melrose, I just thought it would be something good to do. I’ve always been kind of a Type A personality…always on the go…so I thought I’d get a little balance.

Then, I had an injury that was very severe in 1994, a severe neck injury. I was working in Prague, taking the subway to the set, but someone insisted I get into a car and the driver ran right into a dump truck. Pain is a great teacher.

I couldn’t tuck my shirt in to the right. couldn’t turn to the right to see cars getting off the freeway. I could see getting on the freeway, but to get off the freeway I could not turn around to look.

I went again to Angel City Yoga and this teacher was there doing the class. Her name was Laura Faye. She was pretty good. She came over (and said), “What’s the matter? You can’t do the…?” (Whispering) “No. I’m sorry to disrupt? The class, but my knee…I can’t…” “OK. (How about) the other thing?” (Whispering) “Yeah, I can’t do the other either because I can’t raise my arm…” “You know, you need to do a private (lesson). I’m not pitching privates here with anybody, but you need to get a private to work on some of these injuries.” (Whispering) “OK, I’ll talk to you after class.”
After the class… “Could you do a private? I guess it is kind of…I shouldn’t be in a group. I should do a private before I do the group.” “Yeah, if you want to do that we’ll do that. What’s the problem?”

I’m telling you, after three sessions with her, I had a great deal of relief from this problem. I could start to move my arm. After a month, I had, I would say, 80% relief from the problem. After two months, I had 100% relief.

Julie: How’s your practice today?

Ed: I’m going to now make a confession that you may not want me in LA Yoga Magazine; I do yoga fairly rarely now.

Julie: Well, Ed, I’m sure this isn’t news to you, but asanas aren’t the sum total of yoga.

Ed: Exactly. This whole environmental thing I spoke about…it’s really tied-in to yoga. I needed to slow down. I really needed it so badly in my life. I did not set about slowing down. What I set about doing was riding a bicycle for environmental reasons, taking the bus for environmental reasons.

What happens when you ride a bike or take the bus? You slow down. My life slowed down. Driving an electric car that I had to plug in…used to be that if I drove to Santa Monica and back, I had to plug in in Santa Monica just to make it home. My life slowed down.

I went, “I’ve got to stay here in Santa Monica,” and I would read the paper. “But I’ve got a lot to do! Oh, wait a minute. It’s kind of nice sitting here in Santa Monica reading the paper. Actually, I’m going to put the paper down. I’m not going to do anything. I’m going to sit here…right here on Ocean Blvd., and I’m going to do nothing. Oh, my God. I like doing nothing.”

Julie: You’re practicing yoga all the time. You’re growing your food. You’re meditating in the garden.

Ed: I meditate regularly. That’s one thing I’m very good at. I find times to meditate. I just sit. I can be in my car. I can be in my house, and I just get washed over with this wave of serenity and pleasure I didn’t know existed on this planet. If there’s a sentence that sums up the way I have tried to guide my existence, it’s just to live simply so that others may simply live.

For more information about Ed Begley Jr. and his environmental activism see www.edbegley.com.

All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2002-2005 LA Yoga Magazine