To the Temple of Tranquility...And Step On It! by Ed Begley Jr

Author:Ed Begley Jr. [Begley, Ed Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2023-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

History for the Pie

INGRID AND I HAD DRIVEN an hour and half to see our friends Malcolm and Mary in Ojai, and the drive was even more beautiful than I remembered.

Especially if you took the back way via Highway 126, a scenic two-lane road that cuts through Fillmore and Santa Paula, then finally down the Dennison Grade into the Ojai Valley.

This was 1984, and Ojai was a sleepy town of about seven thousand people, and it’s roughly the same today. The smell of orange blossoms in the air. Clear skies above. Clear waters below.

It was a delight to get an invite from these two. As you might recall from an earlier chapter, I worked on Mary Steenburgen’s first film, Goin’ South, in 1977. But I had also worked with Malcolm MacDowell on Cat People in 1981, and Ingrid and I both loved spending time with this fun couple.

Mary is not only an accomplished Academy Award–winning actress but also an incredibly kind and gracious lady from Little Rock.

Malcolm MacDowell is a wonderful actor but also a glorious and fun provocateur who spent countless hours finding new and inventive ways to wind me up.

And like the many evenings I’ve spent with my dear friends Don Rickles and Dabney Coleman, I found it impossible to get angry when attacked… it was always so damn funny.

But for now, he and Mary had asked us up for dinner and later invited us to spend the night. They didn’t have to twist our arms, as their home was as lovely as the town.

They lived in what was an old coach house, hearkening back to a time when normal passage to this farming community was done by stagecoach.

And to make the trip even more appealing, we played a game of Trivial Pursuit after dinner. A game I was well-known for playing. Johnny Carson would sometimes try to stump me with a question or two, live on The Tonight Show.

The show 20/20 once devoted a whole segment to it in our home. But this night at Malcolm and Mary’s was just great food and great fun.

The next morning they did something quite unexpected. They had their friend and real estate agent, Larry Wilde, pop round and show us some houses that were available for rental or purchase. I suppose it wasn’t that odd… I had remarked to Ingrid over dinner and games: “I could live here. Could you live here?”

It’s important to note that Ingrid and I had considered moving out of L.A. many times. Not just the aborted Atlanta move that we discussed prior to getting St. Elsewhere. We had, several times since, found ourselves questioning the merits of living in L.A.

While driving our daughter Amanda and a car full of six-year-olds home from school, Ingrid had been hit from behind and had her purse taken, followed by some scary remarks from the assailants.

Jeff Goldblum got held up at gunpoint on my front lawn. And then there was the unfortunate business of me getting stabbed and beaten while waiting for a bus on Western Avenue.

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