Heroes in Business - Ed Begley Jr, actor Young Sheldon, West Wing, St Elsewhere, Batman Forever, Best in Show, Begleys Best products

Episode Date: July 3, 2021

The Environment is Everyone's Priority. Ed Begley Jr, actor Young Sheldon, West Wing, St Elsewhere, Batman Forever, Best in Show, Begleys Best products is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and famous celebrity host of the Eliances Heroes Radio Show am and fm broadcast, internet syndication podcasting.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. All right, and welcome back. We just had on Juan King, the CEO of Smoothie King. Super excited. And thank you, too, for the feedback we continue to have when I interviewed the CEO of TerraCycle. So make sure that you go to Eliance's.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com, the only place where entrepreneurs line. Well, I got to tell you, I'm so excited about our next

hero today. He has done so much and we're going to hear about all the amazing things that he's doing now. So this is going to be great. We have with us Ed Begley Jr., TV, stage, voice actor. He's been in West Wing, Batman Forever. And we're going to find out what he's doing now, which is going to blow you away. I've been to his website. You're all going to want to make sure that you follow and go to that website. But welcome to the show, Ed Begley Jr. Thank you, David. Thanks so much for having me on. All right. So first, I want to talk a little bit about your prior career, acting career, and then we're going to go into what you're doing now.

I'm going to have you steal that thunder because it's truly amazing because it's making an impact on the world. But talk to me about what the most, you've been in so many different projects and that, but the most memorable project that you've had as part of your acting career? I've been so lucky to be in so many good films and TV shows. I was in a movie years ago called The In-Laws with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin, a very funny movie with those two fine stars in the 70s. I was in a movie with Jack Nicholson called Going South, also in the 70s. In the 80s, I worked with the incredible Meryl Streep

and Roseanne Barr in a movie called She-Devil. I did a series called St. Elsewhere in the 80s. And now I'm working on Young Sheldon. I'm working on Best in Saul. I'm working on lots of Arrested Development, some very good shows that are being done these days. And I'm just grateful to still be working. How do you keep track of all

the things you're doing? Fortunately, IMDb handles all that. They keep track of it all. So I occasionally get my memory jog going. Oh yeah, I did that movie in Australia in 97. I forgot about that one. Movie called Joey with a little girl and a kangaroo, a Joey. So IMDb can jog my adult memory if I need a little boost. And you've received Golden Globe nominations, seven Emmy nominations for your acting work. What about maybe experience to help us understand the first time you received the Emmy honor? What was going through your mind?

I was on the set of the show called St. Elsewhere, a show that was on 82 through 88, a medical show and a fine show it was, and lots of wonderful actors. And when they said that I was nominated, I was just gobsmacked. I couldn't believe it. I didn't expect anything like that. And the five years that followed, each of the six years the show was on, I got an Emmy nomination and got nominated since for a lovely show called Control All to Leap. So I'm just, as I said, I'm 71 years old and I'm just grateful to still be working at my advanced years.

And boy, I think you've really made it when you end up appearing in shows as yourself, right? That's right. More than once. You got to have a sense of humor about yourself. And I've tried to not be too flip about the environmental message because it can be serious, but serious, but you have to also have a sense of humor about things. And there's a joke about me that as it was in the Simpsons, a very funny episode where I'm, I'm driving a car control. It's powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction.

And it's a very funny episode, but it gets a good message out there in the Simpsons and a few laughs too. I love that show, by the way. In fact, too, is I want to get to that as far as environmentalists and stuff. And again, we have with us Ed Beegley Jr. You could reach him at, by the way, going to Beegleysbest.com. That's B-E-G-L-E-Y-S-Best.com. That's B-E-G-L-E-Y-S-Best.com. We'll also have it on our website because you're listening and watching to me, David Kogan. That's host of the Alliance's Hero Show. So make sure you go to alliances.com. Okay. So Ed, what prompted you? I mean, what all the way back to the 70s to become active in an environmental movement? It was for a couple of bad reasons and also some good reasons. I guess

the really bad reason was living in smoggy LA. I got fed up with that and I saw waterways being polluted to the Santa Monica Bay and the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969. So by the time 1970 came around and some people like my friend Dennis Hayes were helping organize the first Earth Day, I went, you know, sign me up. I knew that the water was polluted and we needed to do something different. I knew the air was polluted because I breathed it every day in LA in the first 20 years of my life. And I set about making a difference. And here's the good news, David.

It's many years later. It's 54 years later, really. I'm sorry, 51 years, 1970, 51 years later. And I've been doing all this stuff and many other people doing a lot more than me. And we have, even though we have four times the cars in LA and millions more people, we have a fraction of the smog. So that's what we've done. We've proven that we can do it. We can do that with climate change and other things. We can make a difference if we all put our heads together. And you have since launched also to your own website,

creating and selling products that are environmental friendly. How did that part come to be? I mean, that's from when you started to having that now. That also started in 1970 because I started using vinegar and water to clean up instead of glass cleaner, you know, ammonia, glass cleaner. I started using baking soda instead of, you know, Comet, what have you. And then I would go to the health food store and I had other things beyond vinegar and water and baking soda that cleaned pretty good. So by the time, I guess it

was 2004 rolled around, I was interested in starting a company myself to give a lot of the money away to environmental charities and other charities. And so I started that Begley's Best Product line in 2004. But then I got very busy with acting. And so I didn't have time to do what I was doing, which was getting it bottled and shipping it out of my garage and all that stuff. I just didn't have the time. So I folded up that company and worked with another company who did all that shipping and work for me. And that company is called LabClean, a wonderful, wonderful outfit. And they make great products, every bit as green as mine and many more products

than I have. Ed, let me ask you though, how now, you know, with there's so many various products that are out there, how is it possible that there are still dangerous products being sold? You know, most people like me will be out and show up at a protest, you know, to fight a hazardous waste dump near their community. But there's a hazardous waste dump right in your community. Indeed, it's in your house. It's under your sink often. We buy all these products and we take them home willingly. And you got kids crawling on the floor, putting their hands in their mouth and pets on the floor with their paws and they're licking things off the floor. So you don't want to have them be in a toxic environment, especially if you do what we're asking people to do now for years, which is to seal up your home and make it very energy efficient and tight. Now there's not as much, you know, wind blowing in and out of the house as it used to be, you know, certainly with a leaky house. So we've gotten them to do that. Now you really, really,

really need to use non-toxic stuff. So, and here's the most important thing I'm going to say, David, it's fine that my stuff is non-toxic. That's a plus, but they also clean very well. They got to clean good. They got to clean every bit as good as those harsh cleansers and the begley's best line does exactly that so i'm very proud of that my friend mark cunningham would you know for coming up with these wonderful formulas and they're out there we've got about 12 different skus 12 different products that you can buy what are some of the more popular ones on your site? I mentioned pets a while ago. Somehow that's a very popular one, the pet odor and stain remover. We have a glass cleaner. We have an all-purpose cleaner.

We have different hand soaps and dish soaps, and we've got lots of stuff that works very well and all very green and quite aggressive in their cleaning. Amazing. You're doing so much. I mean, just it's absolutely amazing. I want to talk a little bit more, too, about just what is going on, you know, with climate change and all that. We hear so much stuff within the news and it's very hard to decipher what is actual and what's not. How do you know what is? What I do and what I urge people to do is to go to someone you trust, like, let's say, National Geographic magazine. They know a lot about climate change and other things. I certainly trust them. They've been around a long time. Go to people like, you know, Noah, NASA, NASA.

And it's bipartisan, nonpartisan kind of stuff that we're talking about here. They're not part of one political party or the other groups like NASA and NOAA. political party or the other groups like NASA and NOAA, and then, you know, independent organizations, you know, like National Geographic or Science Magazine, Nature Magazine. These are where the scientists, the top scientists in chemistry, in, you know, many different fields, you know, Nobel Prize winning people publish their peer reviewed studies. So there's peer reviewed studies about a lot of the stuff like air pollution and climate change that you can find there, but just go to somebody that you trust. And I would even roll the dice, say, go to a college campus and talk to a college professor about it. And nearly all of them agree with the technical stuff that I know to be a fact about climate change and air

pollution, what have you. Go to somebody who has a degree in things and listen to them. You're usually going to do good. Absolutely phenomenal. Again, we have with us Ed Bagley, Jr., television, stage, voice actor. He's been in so many things. And again, you can reach him at Bagley's Best by going to B-E-G-L-E-Y-S-B-E-S-T.com. So what do you see as far as the future of other products that you will looking at coming out with that people need? We don't have a laundry detergent yet.

We're working on that right now. So we've got our eyes set on that and getting that out there. That's something people use a lot of. And, you know, we're just always trying to get more stuff out there, you know, and make sure that people know about it. And that's why I'm so grateful to you, David, for having me on so I can talk about it, talk about these other really pressing issues like climate change and air pollution and groundwater contamination and the drought, what have you. Those are important things. But you've got to also focus on the positive, which is four times the cars in LA, millions more people, but a fraction of the smog. There's good news out there, too. It's not all bad news. The good news is if we pull together, we can make a change like we did with the air in LA and many

other places around the country. Absolutely. I want to do a little bit of snooping right now, Ed. We're here in your home. What is something that's unique or something that you value most in the room that we're in right now? Let's see if I can move like this and you can see it. The background over this side. Sorry, I'm going the wrong way. Back there, do you see? Yes. Yes. I can't do it backwards. That's my father's Oscar. My father won an Academy Award for Sweet Bird of Youth and he left it to me in his will. And so it's the most important thing to me, physical thing that I own, the most important thing to me, of course, my wife and children, my wonderful kids and grandkids, my lovely wife, Rochelle. But as far as material things go, I'm very honored and grateful that my father left me that important award that he so deserved, as he did his Tony Award and other awards that he won.

He was a great actor and a great father. award and other awards that he won. He was a great actor and a great father. And you mentioned about being a father. What type of advice do you have for parents out there who want to be able to raise their children to make a difference in the world like you have and you continue to do? Kids are very tactile. They like to get their hands on things and touch them and understand how they work. That's how they learn the laws of physics and what have you by, you know, falling off a couch or something that you begin to see at an early age, how, you know, physics work, gravity and many other things. But you get them out there. One of the most important things I like young people to do and parents to do with their kids is get the kids

out there making compost, take that old food and make it into new food by composting it. If you have a piece of dirt in your backyard, your front yard, plant a vegetable garden, get those kids out there with their hands in the dirt, seeing that earthworms are good for us and not being going, oh, worms are yucky. Worms aren't yucky. They're wonderful.

They're part of the web of life that supports us all. Get out there and grow some food with the family. It's a wonderful way to do things as a unit. Well, Ed, thank you so much for being one of the first voices when it comes to bettering our planet, for your unwavering commitment to the environment and success, and making really this an issue that all of us can understand. That's a hero. Ed Begley, Jr., that's right.

You can reach Meg Begley's best by going to b-e-G-L-E-Y-S-Best.com. This has been Vinny Vic Hogan with the Alliance of Heroes show.