Book Excerpt:
Jerry Lee Lewis Chapter
I HAVE NEVER MET JERRY Lee Lewis.
I don’t really have any stories about Jerry Lee Lewis.
And this chapter doesn’t really have anything to do with Jerry Lee Lewis.
Other than prompting this likely exchange:
Q. What does Ed Begley Jr. have in common with Jerry Lee Lewis?
A. There’s a whole lot of shaking going on.
Though I would not be officially diagnosed until August 2016, when the world was a different place in so many ways, I knew that something was up in 2004.
I had lost about half of my sense of taste and half of my sense of smell. I was having trouble with my balance and had a small and intermittent tremor in my left thumb and forefinger.
A trip to Vancouver one morning in 2004 certainly got my attention. I was looking forward to the drive, but they needed me the following day, so I got on a plane. But about a minute after liftoff, the plane pitched violently to the port side and plummeted from the sky, no longer a plane but now more like a feathered brick.
All I could muster was a very loud “Oh, boy!”
Which caused everyone ahead of me to subtly turn and look in my direction, hoping there wasn’t going to be any trouble. As it turns out, the plane wasn’t falling, I was. Or more accurately, I thought I was. I was actually upright, strapped into my seat.
That event, and the other conditions, caused my doctor to eventually order an MRI to rule out a brain lesion or a tumor. Fortunately, the scan showed no tumors.
So I went about my business, riding my bike up to Mulholland and around the lake in Franklin Canyon, going to the gym every day, eating super healthy, as always. It all probably worked in my favor, keeping the more severe manifestations of the disease at bay for nearly twelve years.
But then in 2016, things got harder to ignore.
I was constantly having to go back to the chiropractor, as my shoulder had lost a great deal of the range of motion. I had somehow pulled a muscle yet again, on my left side.
I had to be fitted for a special boot, as I kept tearing a muscle in my left foot, or was it the Achilles tendon? And I finally saw a pattern emerge . . . all of these muscle “injuries” were happening on my left side. Odd coincidence, it seemed.
I finally had to go to a speech therapist, as I was starting to slur my words, and I needed some help with vocal exercises to keep that at bay. Probably my age, I thought. None of us are young forever.
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After just one session, this speech therapist contacted my doctor, who suggested that I see a top neurologist at Cedars-Sinai.
I did. I then saw a second neurologist at UCLA, and both confirmed the diagnosis of Parkinson’s, and things just got weirder every day for the remainder of 2016, for all the obvious reasons.
For my part, I was content to do what the neurologist recommended and nothing more. “I’ll probably be dead in a year or three, like my dear friend Bob Hoskins. So what’s the point?” I was heard to say.
But my wife of nearly twenty-two years can best be described by my friend Don Henley’s song: “I will not go quietly.”
She would not go quietly during the first three years we were dating but not yet married.
She would not go quietly with my “I’m not having any more kids” declaration during that same period. Nor would she surrender on finding us a new and better home.
She scoured the internet, talked to dozens of specialists knowledgeable in neurological matters, sharing news of alternative treatments that can complement the standard and effective treatment for Parkinson’s, which is carbidopa/levodopa.
And that has proved to be a winning combination.
I’ve had it since 2004. I was officially diagnosed in 2016, and I still ride a bike every day, go to the gym, eat healthy, and I’m working as much as I have at any point in my life.
With this book, my condition will probably become widely known.
And that’s fine with me. As of this writing, I am still able to learn lines, and I’m still ambulatory to such a degree that I can perform most tasks asked of a seventy-four-year-old.
Which included roller skating in a series I had recently called Bless This Mess! I’ve still got it!
Parkinson’s, I mean.
But even with all that, it’s still quite sublime.
I realized early on that I had won the lottery, being born Ed Begley’s son.
That doors would open, and traffic violations, and even traffic accidents, were easily resolved.
For others, not so much.
How can we possibly fix that, and all the other problems in the world?
Social justice, climate change, hunger, homelessness?
For me, the only way to ready myself for that kind of work is to recognize:
That this is it, as I finish this humble memoir.
Though I certainly remember the past, and plan for the future, I try not to spend too much time dwelling on either.
I urge you to do the same.
Focusing on your breath and nothing else is a good start.
Let everything else slip away.
You might just find yourself present for this moment: Right.
Now.
Where we all visualize a better world. And then we strive to make it so.
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Acknowledgments
It had long been suggested that I write a memoir, but I could never seem to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and actually begin.
So I must credit my daughter Hayden for finally motivating me. She showed up one day, armed with her smartphone and a simple goal. I would sit there and tell the full and complete story of my seventy-three years in Hollywood. Or at least as much as her data plan and battery would allow.
But to be fair, it all really started a year prior to that.
For that is when the remarkable literary agent David Vigliano reached out to me and suggested I write a memoir. A suggestion that came with the generous offer of connecting me with a ghostwriter.
But now that I think of it, I didn’t know David Vigliano at the time, so to give credit where it’s due, I must thank and acknowledge Brett Dalton, Rachelle’s dear friend and financial adviser.
But as I began taking notes to one day turn over to this ghostwriter, I soon became aware that it was way too much fun to turn over to anyone, and I was going to write it all myself. I soon had forty-five pages of notes that were not so much notes as they were actual chapters of a book.
I then asked a few dear friends (and wonderful writers) to give it a read, and their input proved invaluable.
Thank you, Dave Mirkin, Bruce Wagner, Wallace Shawn, Dennis Klein, Bill Bentley, and Marc Vahanian for giving me your time and laughing at all the right places.
To Rebecca De Mornay, for making Harry Dean Stanton so happy for so many years.
To Brad Koepenick, for his vital help with this book, and for being such an amazing friend and mentor to Hayden over the years.
To Bradley Lane, Dave Pabian & Teri Karshner for inspiring me at Valley College, and beyond.
To Don Henley, for saving Walden Woods and allowing me to be part of it. And then there’s the matter of being one of the greatest singer-songwriters ever. And a great and loyal friend.
And while we’re on the subject of musical geniuses, thank you, Tom Waits. For introducing me to Ingrid, my first wife. And inspiring me as a musician and an actor.
To my dear friend Cheryl Tiegs, for throwing me the best birthday of my life, my fiftieth.
To Cindy and Alan Horn, for partnering with Cheryl to give me that same wonderful birthday, and for conspiring with Norman and Lyn Lear to do such important environmental work for the past four decades.
To my agents and managers from my younger years, Mike Belson and Eric Klass; Jason Winters and Erik Sterling; and Jon Carrasco and Stephen Roseberry. The fact that they are still a part of my life speaks volumes as to what a good job they did for me in my youth.
To Dick Stahl, for uttering the line that is the title of the book.
To Gita and Mukesh, for bringing the perfect balance of meditation, mangoes, and Mulligatawny to my life.
To Pam Grier, for still taking my calls, even though we’re not on a show at this precise moment.
To Wendie Malick, for taking my calls while we are on a show together.
To Paula Poundstone, who I should probably devote an entire book to . . . not just this acknowledgment. I love you, Paula!
To Anthony Turk, for always making certain that they do not send a car to pick me up.
To Chuck Lorre and Steve Molaro, for giving me the best job I could imagine these past five years.
To Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, for allowing me into the Better Call Saul family, where I got to do work that I didn’t think possible in these, my twilight years.
To David O. Russell, for making nothing but great movies. And even allowing me to be in one of them: Amsterdam.
To Chelsea Handler, for providing such inspiration with her great books, and for providing a shower when I’d arrive by bike.
To Dave Lederman, for getting me all those wonderful jobs, and many more.
To Keith Addis and Mike Abrams, for keeping me gainfully employed these past twelve years. And for getting this book back on track when I was headed in the wrong direction.
To Jarlath Dorney, who exemplifies all that is great about the Irish.
To the Hachette Book Group, and specifically Brant Rumble, for being so incredibly helpful and encouraging at every step of the way.
To Eric and Tania, Peter and Wendie, Bruce and Jamie, Gavin and Yukimi, Dave and Savanah, and of course Bev, for bringing so much laughter and music into my life.
To the center of my life and inspiration at every turn, my three perfect children, Nicholas, Amanda, and Hayden.
To my amazing grandchildren, Ellison, River, and Ari.
And of course, to my hysterically funny and amazingly beautiful wife Rachelle. You bring me more joy than you probably know.
