How Ed Begley Jr. Discovered Shocking Truth About His Biological Mom & Family
Ed Begley Jr., the prolific actor known for his roles in TV shows such as Arrested Development and Better Call Saul, has been opening up about his past, including the day he found out some shocking family history regarding his biological mother.
In promoting his new memoir, To the Temple of Tranquility—and Step on It, Begley spoke to The Wall Street Journal and shared how he discovered that the woman he thought had been his mother, Amanda, was, in reality, his stepmom.
“Just before I turned 16, I was with my father [Ed Begley Sr.] en route to take my driver’s license test. On my birth certificate, the box for my mother’s name was blank. Amanda had died of cancer in 1957 when I was 7,” the Curb Your Enthusiasm actor explained.
“I asked about the empty space. Dad was silent but eventually told me that my real mother was Sandy, someone I long thought was a family friend,” he continued.
Begley added that his father later told him Sandy had been an NBC page with whom he had an affair. “The result was my sister, Allene, then me, 11 months later,” he stated. “Nothing in our family was what it seemed. Our older brother Tom turned out to be our cousin.”
While he said he and his sister would meet with Sandy regularly and enjoyed her company, he confessed to feeling “cheated” and “lied to.”
“I met Sandy as my mother for the first time at 16. She never married. Her only family was her mother, and she didn’t hide us from her. We’d see Sandy about once or twice a year, and she saw my success before passing in 1998,” Begley shared.
Begley has had a prolific career across film and television, making his first movie appearances in the likes of Blue Collar (1978), An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982), and This Is Spinal Tap (1984). His appearance in This Is Spinal Tap was one of many collaborations with Christopher Guest, going on to star in Guest’s Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), For Your Consideration (2006), and Mascots (2016).
But he struggled early in his career, and that, combined with the revelation about his biological mother, led to further problems.
“Little work followed, and I was upset that my mother’s identity had been hidden from me for so long. Both led me to start drinking and stealing pills from the medicine cabinet,” he said.
However, he got sober in 1979 and turned his life around, going on to have a long and varied career in film and television. Most recently, he’s appeared in Peacock’s Queer as Folk reboot and the ABC sitcom Not Dead Yet.
He married his first wife, Ingrid Taylor, in 1976, and the couple had two children together. In 2002, he tied the knot with actress Rachelle Carson, and together they have one daughter.
The St. Elsewhere star praised Carson for her support after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2016. “I rarely tremble. My wife did enormous research, and I have a great neurologist,” he said, adding, “Once again, I’m very lucky.”
