Craig T. Nelson of Coach fame has been a famous Hollywood star for decades. Back in the 1970s, however, he fled Hollywood in favor of living off the grid on a farm in Northern California.
Now, with a new movie coming out today that revolves around the hardship of trying to run a farm in Wisconsin, Nelson is opening up about why exactly he did that.
Nelson Talks Farming
“It was a search for meaning. And I had lost it in Hollywood,” Nelson, 80, told Fox News.
In the early 1970s, Nelson was already finding success in Hollywood. In 1973, however, he left that world behind. Using an inheritance from his mother, he bought land near Mount Shasta in Northern California. There, he began building a cabin for his family despite having no electricity or running water.
He really went off the grid!
“And that was a seven-year journey of absolute struggle, having never built anything before,” he recalled.
Nelson was given a book about building log cabins by a friend. He remembers that this book “showed me a weakness and a character defect that I was carrying, which was a lack of patience. And I have no knowledge of how to do this, and so I had to learn. And you learn with a family. I had two kids at the time. Noah, my youngest son, was born up there in the mountains.”
“And eventually it got done,” he continued. “It got done with community, it got done with help from people that you normally wouldn’t go to and or ask for help. And I learned, and so I was an apprentice plumber. I was a surveyor. I logged, I was a janitor, I taught school…I mean, I did anything I could to make some money and ended up on food stamps, of course, and had to eventually hitchhike back to Hollywood and try to establish myself as some kind of actor.”
Related: Aussie Nicole Kidman Reveals Why She Almost Ditched Hollywood For Nashville Farm Life
‘American Values, Traditional’
Nelson did just that, becoming a household name for his work in movies like Poltergeist and television shows like Coach. Even so, he still loves farming to this day.
In his latest interview, Nelson said that farming is “in my family’s blood for sure” going all the way back to the 1800s. He appreciates farmers because he knows the hard work that goes into “feeding our country and trying to make a living at it.”
“And the margins that they’re living on are so small,” he explained. And so you identify with the struggle, and the beauty of that is, is that within that there is a humor and there’s a reverence and there’s a sense of community and… American values, traditional. Spend a couple of weeks on a farm and, you know, you’ll find out quickly where your heart lies.”
Related: Angelina Jolie Joins Ranks of Hollywood Stars Desperate To Flee LA
Nelson’s Marriage
Nelson’s wife Doria, who he’s been married to for nearly 40 years, has been by his side through all of his farming adventures. When asked what the key to their successful marriage has been, Nelson replied that it’s “realizing that I have a friend who has my self-interest at heart.”
“See, I’m married to somebody that’s so extraordinary that she’s bewildering as I keep discovering things about her that are magical.” he added. “[She has] a sense of wonder about life that just keeps me intrigued. I have a completely different view.”
“I mean, I can be there…I can go with her, and I can tolerate that kind of thing,” Nelson concluded. “And I say tolerate, for a while, but then I have to go off on my own and get very despondent and start thinking. And I do that primarily to get away from any kind of reality. But she keeps me focused, and she keeps me in love.”
Unlike many stars in Hollywood, it’s clear that Nelson is a down to earth person with a good head on his shoulders. If only we had more celebrities out there like him!
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