Lifting weights with the Terminator, staying optimistic behind bars,
and discovering the Jackson 5 in between smoke sessions with Cheech.
Stay tuned man, and learn the true story of Tommy Chong.
Long before he and Cheech Marin were recording hit comedy songs like
"Basketball Jones" or "Sister Mary Elephant," Tommy Chong was playing the guitar and performing
in bands that were actually quite successful, making their mark on the Canadian music scene.
In a 1993 Nardwuar interview, Chong reveals that he began to
play guitar in his teenage years for a fully respectable reason.
"I was about 16 when I found out music could get you laid, so I got into music boy."
He started off his professional musical career with a group called The Shades who later renamed
themselves "Little Daddy & the Bachelors" and were based out of Vancouver, then when they met singer
Bobby Taylor, the group changed to Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers. In addition to opening for
major bands like the Supremes, the Vancouvers were also instrumental in helping the launch of
acts including Ike and Tina Turner and for helping to discover the Jackson 5, though Rolling Stone
reports that Taylor has traditionally gotten the credit for launching that famed band.
Despite having appeared in numerous feature films and played roles in major hit television shows,
Tommy Chong doesn't really consider himself an actor, once saying in an interview with Forbes -
"I'm not an actor. I'm Tommy Chong,"
He further clarified that the roles he tended to accept simply had to involve
him acting as himself. It makes sense, as you are basically watching the same person
when you see his role as the Man in "Up In Smoke," as Leo on "That '70s Show," and, say,
a Tommy Chong interview with a FOX news affiliate where he is not acting at all.
Chong has long drawn a clear distinction between himself and his longtime working
partner, Richard "Cheech" Marin, in this regard. Chong said to Forbes -
"Cheech is more of an actor, he went on to do 'Nash Bridges' and 'Tin Cup.'"
To be clear, Chong is entirely happy with the arrangement, going on to say -
"Me, I'm more like Leo in 'That '70s Show.' And I love that. You know,
people don't have to wonder what I want in my dressing room. They know what gifts to
buy me and how to make my day. I love being me, there's no work involved."
Sure, Tommy Chong first experimented with pot in his teenage years, but during that
time he also took up another habit that led to a much healthier lifelong pursuit:
weightlifting. As he explained to the Los Angeles Times -
"I started weightlifting when I was 16 at the Calgary Y.
Then I ended up in Vancouver when I was 19,
and that was when I started weight training under proper supervision. I've kept it up ever since."
Despite the ostensibly unhealthy lifestyle often associated with regular recreational drug use,
Chong has actually devoted himself largely to healthy living even beyond
just working out. As he explained in an interview with The Green Fund,
working with weights was only part of the process. To look his best, he needed to lose fat,
which made a strict, healthy diet a necessity, even after he started smoking. He went on to say -
"And the only reason that I felt good about it is because all my bodybuilding heroes,
it was the only substance that they would smoke. Arnold Schwarzenegger,
for instance […] after he won a contest, he would light up and smoke a joint."
“Now, what we used to do, at Zabel’s house, was have pot parties.”
Over the many years they've known each other, Chong has trained and worked out
with Schwarzenegger, legendary 1960s California bodybuilder Vince Gironda,
and noted trainer Tanner Martty, who according to the Los Angeles Times,
helped prepare a then-76-year-old Chong for his turn on "Dancing with the Stars."
Tommy Chong was imprisoned in a California federal penitentiary from October 2003 to July 2004 after
accepting a plea bargain. He pled guilty so that charges would be removed against his wife and son
relating to online sales of marijuana-smoking paraphernalia via his family-owned company,
Nice Dreams Enterprises. Or, as Chong put it, tweeting recently -
"I got nine months for selling bongs."
It seems rather ridiculous now, as less than two decades later cannabis itself continues to become
legal in state after state along with the hardware used to ingest it, but a crime was charged and a
sentence handed down. Fortunately, Chong didn't seem to mind his time behind bars all that much.
"You know I've never been to jail… It's kinda fun man."
In fact, years later, as he said during an episode of the "It Happened In Hollywood"
podcast he even had some encouraging words for other celebrities who could find themselves in
his position and likely headed for the same length of stay in the same type of prison -
"Relax [...] There's no punishment in the federal prison. You get a computer. You get
a nice comfortable cubicle. You're in there with nice, intelligent people."
Chong regarded his time in the minimum security Taft Correctional Institution in Bakersfield,
California, as more like an extended break from life. While incarcerated, Chong wrote a book,
made friends, and studied various religions. He also encouraged his new prison buddy,
convicted stock market cheat Jordan Belfort, to write a book. Belfort followed his advice
and his book became the source material for the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Tommy Chong has a few thousand friends on Facebook, and an impressive 530,000-plus
followers on Twitter, with him being more active on the latter.
But it is on Instagram where Chong has the largest reach and where he remains truest to
form. There he has more than 2.6 million followers and has logged an impressive
12,700-plus posts at the time of this video. Chong's Instagram posts are much like those
you might expect to see from someone like Tommy just enjoying life. Chong posts everything from
pictures and videos of him and his wife or dancing to silly memes he finds funny to pictures of him
with his grandkids. Chong also often posts images of him and Cheech together, uploads
lots of cannabis-themed content, and sometimes puts up throwback images to his younger days.
Now solidly in his mid 80s, Tommy Chong is a pretty charming octogenarian. Despite having
battled rectal cancer in the past decade he is overall in very good health for a
man of his advanced years. His attitude has remained positive even after his diagnosis,
with ABC News reporting him even joking around and calling his cancer, quote, "a pain in the butt."
And yes, he attributes much of his good health to lifelong marijuana use, which he told GQ,
helps him relax and manage his pain levels. Not only did Chong reportedly treat many of the
symptoms associated with his cancer with cannabis and marijuana suppositories he also credited the
substance with helping him deal with the illness emotionally and mentally, telling ABC News -
"The main thing about pot is it affects your mental state. Instead of moaning and groaning
about what you have, you start listening to music and reading books, and you get very creative. […]
It takes the brain off: 'The glass is half-empty' and puts it on 'The glass is half-full.'"
While already a success on the standup and comedy album circuit, Cheech and Chong's first feature
film "Up in Smoke" cemented their stardom. Given that "Up In Smoke" was released on September 15,
1978, Tommy Chong was a few months past his 40th birthday when the film came out.
Chong had already enjoyed modest success on the music scene,
both in Canada and in some American markets like Chicago,
and the comedy performances and recordings he did with Cheech Marin were well known in many circles.
With "Up In Smoke," Chong began his journey toward true stardom
and becoming a household name — a status that does not seem to phase him at all.
Cheech and Chong went on to release multiple more movies following "Up In Smoke," including
"Cheech and Chong's Next Movie," "Nice Dreams," "Still Smokin'," and "Things Are Tough All Over."
Chong served as the director on a number of the Cheech and Chong movies, and both he and Cheech
usually received primary credit as the writers, though often scenes were improvised.
"Listen, I sold two lids last night, how's that?"
"Oh yeah? All right homes, who'd you sell 'em to?"
"Me."
At an age when most people would be kicking back and taking it slow,
content to putter around and think back on the good old days,
Tommy Chong remains thirsty for new experiences and new information. As noted,
he began to explore an array of religions while in prison in 2003 and 2004. Then he
went on "Dancing with the Stars" and mastered all kinds of complicated dances. And in the 2020s,
he remains open to new things at all times. As he said during an Inside Hook interview -
"With me, it's about not being able to accept, not being able to say, 'Okay,
I really made it. I'm at the finish line, I've done it. I've done everything I've
wanted to do.' I can't say that because I'm still learning things that I have to learn."
When asked about the secret to his interesting life and long, successful career,
he again mentioned the embrace of the new and of being forward-looking, saying in part -
"Just be ready for the new things. Embrace new. I've been around so many people,
and they just cuss out everything […] People resist new, I embrace it. I want to learn."
And he wants to stay busy, too, as evidenced by his ongoing live shows with Cheech,
potential surprise visits to customers who make purchases from Cheech & Chong's Cannabis Company,
plenty of personal travel, and of course, time with his grandkids.
As discussed, Tommy Chong is not an American by birth, and according to Google Arts and Culture,
he only became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the late 1980s.
Chong was born in Edmonton, as a musician with The Shades, Chong spread his time between Edmonton,
Calgary, and Vancouver, as well as American cities like Chicago.
Chong did not spend much time in America prior to
his meeting and subsequent partnering with Cheech Marin in the late 1960s,
and he again cites bodybuilding as a major reason for his relocation to the United States.
"Then when I came down to LA, 'cuz one of the reasons I came to LA
was to work out at Gold's Gym, that was a dream."
Chong has spoken proudly of his Canadian heritage,
most vocally when Canada legalized cannabis several years ago. Tommy
Chong is also of Chinese descent, which makes sense when you stop and consider his surname.
Chong's full name is Thomas B. Kin Chong, and his father, Stanley Chong,
immigrated to Canada from China, while his mother, Lorna Jean Gilchrist,
was of Irish and Scottish descent. Chong has neither made his heritage
a major part of his public identity nor has he ever obfuscated his Asian heritage.
For Tommy Chong, the stoner act is no act at all - he has been a mostly lifelong user of cannabis,
first smoking marijuana in his teenage years. And as he told The Guardian in an extensive interview,
his use of the substance was foundational to his comedic
work with Cheech Marin. He explained, saying -
"We always smoked a little before we went out there. That was part of the job. It was my job
as a writer and performer to deliver the goods. So if that meant being stoned, I gladly did it.
I found that the more stoned I was, the more crazy the movie was, and the more successful we were."
Chong rarely smoked more than a joint on any given day, though, and often consumed even less than
that, but he has tended to consume cannabis in some form almost every day of his life.
These days, Chong reports often using edible cannabis products instead of smoking marijuana,
such as eating marijuana-infused baked treats that his wife helps him bake.
As for other substances, Chong readily admits to having used cocaine,
acid, ecstasy, and more, but in his Nardwuar interview, he claimed to consume very little
alcohol and to never smoke cigarettes, saying that nicotine was dangerous.