‘Modern Family’ star Ed O’Neill says he nearly joined friends in “organised crime”
nme.comModern Family star Ed O’Neill has recalled how nearly ended up joining the mob before landing his role on the Emmy-winning ABC sitcom.The actor starred as Jay Pritchett on the 11-season series, which ran from 2009 until 2020.Appearing on former co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Dinner on Me podcast on Tuesday (16 January), O’Neill said that when he cut from the National Football League’s Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969, he didn’t know what to do with his life and could have easily been pushed into organised crime.“Youngstown [Ohio] was not a good place to live for opportunities.
Really, there was nothing there for me,” the Married…with Children star said. “The only thing that I had that I could’ve done – and thank God I didn’t – was organised crime because I had friends in organised crime.”O’Neill recalled how his childhood friend Jim took him to a fancy restaurant, where they met with a bartender whom Jim bribed for information on someone he was looking for.“We left and [Jim] said, ‘You can do this kind of stuff for me, you know, I’ll protect you, I’ll give you easy stuff.
Just you collect here. You do that. You run, you drop something off here and there. You know, you may have to lean on a guy.
You’re good at that. You can make some good money,’” said O’Neill.“I said, ‘Let me think about it, Jim. Cause I’m, I don’t know.
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