Ed Begley, Jr., is arguably the hippest guy in series television. For five seasons, he has expertly portrayed the toadying sexist-clown resident Dr. Victor "You're a pig!" Ehrlich on NBC-TV's distinguished hospital-vérité series, St. Elsewhere, garnering four Emmy nominations for himself along the way. The son of the legendary angry actor for whom he is named, Begley has become king of the comic-cameo film appearance and shortly will be "seen" as the son of the invisible man in the forthcoming John Landis production Amazon Women on the Moon. He has the slipperiest sibilant S in show business and swears that his hair has never been bleached.

Bill Zehme followed Begley home from work one night to his cozy pied-à-terre in North Hollywood (the main casa Begley is an Ojai ranch) and rolled tape. Zehme recalls, "Ed drives 20 miles over the speed limit and speaks about as fast. But he's disarmingly candid. For our conversation, he flung himself onto an authentic psychiatrist's couch and instructed me to pull up a chair. 'I felt it would be appropriate,' he explained. It was."

Q 1

PLAYBOY: Would you entrust your life to Dr. Ehrlich?

Ed Begley, Jr.: Never. That may be an unfair reaction to problems he has that are not related to his medical knowledge. He's actually a good surgeon. But he has this fey attitude that seems to interfere. I suspect people like that, people who have this wild card in their deck. You never know when it's going to come up. Fifty-one times you're gonna be fine, but that 52nd time--bingo. Suddenly, he's stitching your pancreas to your lower lip. It doesn't appeal to me.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: How's your bedside manner?

Ed Begley, Jr.: Clumsy. I am as square and provincial a character as you might imagine--not an adventurous soul in the sexual arena. My sex drive was stymied early on by the whole Catholic routine. I was an altar boy. I mean, I never even masturbated until I was 16. I didn't have sex until was nearly 21, which is pretty late for getting laid. And that was virtually laid at my doorstep, if you will.

The miracle was that my first experience also happened to be my first and only time with two women. Do you want to hear this? I had an apartment right across from Valley College out here, where I was studying theater. This cute girl I knew had left home, so I invited her to move in with me. I had visions, of course, of consummating my great affection for her, but she was resistant. Having never been any sort of Lothario, I didn't push it. She wasn't granting sexual favors and, after a few weeks, resentments built and she finally moved out. Later, I learned she was mostly interested in girls, so my ego wasn't quite as bruised.

Flash forward a couple of years: We became friends again. One day, she came over with a girlfriend who was even cuter than she was. And, unless I was misreading the situation, this girl was really making eyes at me. She seemed to like guys. Well, we began to drink and, at some point, they seduced me. It was a wonderful time. Although, to this day, I find myself having my hands full with just one woman. I'm not so arrogant as to think I could entertain large groups of people in the old sackeroo.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: You're a survivalist; give us your shopping list for the apocalypse.

Ed Begley, Jr.: I used to be extreme about it. I'm not psychic, but I have had one vision in my life--that Los Angeles would fall into the sea in 1971. My vision came on January 21 and the big earthquake actually hit on February ninth. It was dangerously close. I went up into the Rocky Mountains to wait it out and stayed quite a while.

For years, I had a survival jeep in which I carried around 50 pounds of brown rice, water, a tent, a shovel, a saw, seeds for planting. I figured I could live on the rice until vegetable-growing season. Even now, I fill up my glove compartment with a snake-bite kit, a sewing kit, miniature tool sets. I love stuff like that. All sorts of craziness. I'm a sick dude.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Since we're on the subject of compulsive behavior, burden us with the shame of being a neatnik. Is it true you actually arrange your pocket money numerically?

Ed Begley, Jr.: [Sighs] Compulsive neatening and straightening is a tough cross to bear. I used to be pretty bad. In the Sixties, I had a series of apartments that were very comfortable for me but nobody else. They smelled of Lysol. You had to remove your shoes upon entering--a nice Oriental custom, but it made people self-conscious about their socks. If somebody was using an ashtray, I'd clean it out and put the matches back in it--while the person was still smoking. When I was a total vegetarian, I made dinner parties very tense. I asked questions like "Is there any chicken broth in this soup?" "Were those vegetables on the same plate as the turkey?" "Are there eggs in that salad?" I've cut that out, but there's still a limit. I don't care how long anybody fusses over chorizo, I'm not gonna eat a plate of steaming entrails.

And, yes, it's true: I've held on to the habit of numerically arranging my pocket money. It has a slight practical application, I suppose. If I need a 20, for instance, I know right where to look. Also, I usually know how much I have on me, within a few dollars. Right now, I probably have about $190. [Checks pocket] Well, I've got $ 226--way off. But it's some sort of security. I've never understood people who claim to have misplaced their money or car keys. I always know exactly where my money and car keys are--in my right pocket. I'd say I've lost my keys twice in 20 years. No bullshit. I'm a maniac, but it makes for good copy.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: You once found a garbage bag containing a dismembered human body behind your home--which sounds like a fastidious guy's idea of a religious experience. What happened?

Ed Begley, Jr.: I had a little house in Studio City that shared an alley with a motel. A woman who worked at the motel knocked on my door one day and said, "I think your cat crawled under your house and died, because there's a terrible smell." Well, my cat was very much alive, but she wasn't kidding about the smell. I thought it was a rat, maybe. We went out back, poking through the trash cans to find its carcass, and we came upon these bags stuffed with bloody sheets. So I thought, Oh, my God, somebody killed a pet!

Later on, some cops showed up, wondering if I'd seen anything suspicious. The smell was now overwhelming. I said, "What's this about?" They tried to keep me from looking over the back fence, but I saw about four unmarked cars, five squad cars, ten police photographers, a whole crowd in the alley. They had assembled on the ground this stuff, and, still, I swear to you, I didn't get it. I said, "What is that? It looks like a hassock or a saddle or...a torso!"

Strangely enough, I never felt for a minute I was a suspect. I guess it would be pretty lame to kill somebody and put her in your trash can.