Environmental activism

Since 1970, Begley has been an environmentalist, beginning with his first electric vehicle (a Taylor-Dunn, golf cart–like vehicle),^[15] recycling, and becoming a vegan.^[16] He promotes eco-friendly products like the Toyota Prius, Envirolet composting toilets and Begley's Best Household Cleaner.

Begley's former home is 1,585 square feet (147.3 m²) in size, using solar power, wind power via a PacWind vertical-axis wind turbine, an air conditioning unit made by Greenway Design Group, LLC., and an electricity-generating bicycle used to toast bread. In 2008 he stated that he was paying around $300 a year in electric bills.^[17]

Noting that the suburban lawn is environmentally unsustainable, especially in Southern California, owing to water shortage, Begley has converted his own to a drought-tolerant garden composed of native California plants.^[18] He is noted for riding bicycles and using public transportation, and owns a 2003 Toyota RAV4 EV electric-powered vehicle. In 2023 and 2024, he took public transit to the Academy Awards.^[19]

Begley's hybrid electric bicycle was often featured on his television show Living With Ed. Begley also spoofed his own environmentalist beliefs on "Homer to the Max", an episode of The Simpsons by showing himself using a nonpolluting go-kart that is powered by his "own sense of self-satisfaction" and on an episode of Dharma and Greg.^{[citation needed]} Later, he appeared in "Gone Maggie Gone", another episode of The Simpsons, in Season 20. In the episode, during a solar eclipse, he drives a solar-powered car that stops running on train tracks as a train approaches, but the train also stops because it is an Ed Begley Jr. Solar Powered Train. According to another of Groening's animated comedy series, Futurama, Begley's electric motor is "the most evil propulsion system ever conceived" as stated in "The Honking" (19 minutes in).^{[citation needed]}

Begley and friend Bill Nye are in a competition to see who can have the lowest carbon footprint.^[20]

In 2009, Begley appeared in the Earth Day edition of The Price Is Right. He announced the final showcase, which included an electric bicycle, a solar-powered golf cart and a Toyota Prius.^[21]

Begley was featured during The Jay Leno Show's Green Car Challenge. Various celebrities drove an electric Ford Focus automobile and tried to set records on an outdoor track. During the second lap, cutouts of Begley and Al Gore would pop out, and if the celebrity had hit either of them, one second was added to his or her time.

Begley is the author of Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life (2008) and Ed Begley Jr.'s Guide to Sustainable Living: Learning to Conserve Resources and Manage an Eco-Conscious Life (2009) both published by Random House.^[22][23] He also wrote A Vegan Survival Guide for the Holidays (2014) with Jerry James Stone.^[24]

Political

Begley was also on the advisory committee for the group 2004 Racism Watch, founded by fellow actor Ed Asner. The group was formed to respond to the advertisement campaign of the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney presidential campaign that they claimed was encouraging racism. The advertisement in question, "100 Days", made a reference to terrorism and terrorists while highlighting a photograph of an anonymous man of Middle Eastern descent.^[33]

William Daniels

When Begley was a child, his future St. Elsewhere series lead, William Daniels, met Begley's father when the two were working on live television. By the time Begley Jr. grew up, he was already a fan of his mentor's work; he would work with Daniels on St. Elsewhere, where the two had on- and off-screen chemistry for six seasons. Daniels, himself, on the show, was a moody Irishman like Ed Sr., though a far more nurturing father figure. This proved so rich that the role grew beyond even the writers' expectations.^[34] Begley Jr. said about his future TV chief of surgery, "I was a huge fan of Bill Daniels. I had seen him in Two for the Road. I had seen him in The Graduate, and in Parallax View. He was an actor I just thought the world of. He played these 'Type A' personalities quite effectively, but (in real life) he is the sweetest guy in the world." He also added: "He is an actor I just thought the world of. I had no delusions about how my character came to be. I rode on the coattails of Bill Daniels... the kind of Mutt and Jeff routine of Dr. Craig looking up and berating a 6 foot 4 doctor Victor Ehrlich. So I owe all my success on the show to Bill Daniels."^[35] After the series was canceled, the two still remained friends, living not too far away from each other. In 2002, Daniels, Begley Jr., along with the rest of the former surviving St. Elsewhere cast members, the late Stephen Furst and Eric Laneuville all appeared on an episode of Scrubs.

Norman Lloyd

Before St. Elsewhere in the early 1980s, the struggling and unknown Begley met Norman Lloyd, who became a mentor to him while Lloyd was directing an episode of Tales of the Unexpected. The two became friends. In a 2014 interview with Jimmy Falcon of Cloverleaf Radio, he said this about Lloyd:

Not only did I enjoy working with him, but I see him fairly regularly. I just had dinner with him 4 nights ago. We had dinner together at Sarah Nichols's house, his neighbor of mine and friend of his. We had a lovely time and reminisced – he's unbelievable. He's going to be 100 years old this year—and still very active, getting around on his own. He's a force of nature, so Norman Lloyd was somebody I idolized. When I was quite young, wow, James Dean is great and this is one and that. Now look at Janis Joplin, what a great voice and Jim Morrison, those people left us so young, like my point of view has change somewhere, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, saying, 'No, you idolized Jimmy Stewart, Gloria Swanson.' The people that have families and happiness and a long, economy life. You know, Norman Lloyd, he wasn't much older than me, when I did St. Elsewhere, and I went 'These are my role models, now, people had a long/happy life and continued to be creative.' Those are my role models, not the people that left us so early and I'm sorry they did, I don't mean to trifle with that, but, my role models changed from the people who had an incredible, brief spurt of creativity and life, but to people that went the distance, they became my role models at some point in my early 30s really.^[36]

On November 9, 2014, along with former St. Elsewhere co-stars, Begley attended Lloyd's 100th birthday in Los Angeles. Begley said, "I worked with Norman Lloyd the actor, and Norman Lloyd the director, and no one informed me better on the art of storytelling than that talented man. He is a constant inspiration and my eternal friend."^[37]

Film

Television