McG becomes Arches angel

McG has come a long way since his youth in Newport Beach. The now tall and lean McG tries to spend weekends at his simple but luxurious home in Balboa or hang out on his vividly green lawn, which occupies a second lot on the property.

So why would the guy who catapulted to fame after his “Charlie’s Angels” films and Fox TV series “The OC” want to take over the Arches location?

McG (born Joseph McGinty Nichol) helped give the 81-year-old restaurant some star power when he and the creator of “The OC,” Josh Schwartz, featured it in TV series, but his history with the business goes back further than that. His parents frequented the restaurant, and after he turned 21, he and his friends yukked it up often at the bar and in the booths. If only those walls could talk, he quipped.

“I’ve always been fond of the place. It reminds me about what I love about the town, and that’s why we elected to put it in ‘The OC’ — after hours and hours of discussions, believe me,” McG said.

Rather than having it possibly be subject to new development or an office building, he said, he wanted to make sure it was preserved.

“The property was in danger of going away, and we don’t want that,” McG said. “I really want it to be tied to Hoag Hospital, Surfrider, firefighters, the junior auxiliary — all those things. I want everyone to feel welcome to meet there, as an extension of their homes.”

He said he plans on turning profits from the restaurant into scholarships for some of the local high schools, including the one he attended, Corona del Mar High School.

McG grew up in Eastbluff and Big Canyon, and is a UC Irvine graduate. While in high school, McG said he was like the “village idiot among Adonises.” He wore braces all four years of school, wore headgear, couldn’t surf quite as well as his brother and his buddies, and stood only 5-foot-2 on his high school graduation day. But the kid had passion — he loved music and his friends.

Those fledgling passions shot him to the top, and now he spends a lot of his time in Los Angeles, hob-nobbing with the rich and famous, and he gets to be himself — a filmmaker.

He also gets to spend his weekends laying low in his Balboa home, where a six-sheet movie poster featuring a larger-than-life picture of Ann-Margret hangs on the wall, a 1960s Harley with a drip-pan underneath it, just beside it. Of course, he also loves the poster because of the presence of John Forsythe’s name — who played Charlie in the original “Charlie’s Angels” on TV.

But it wasn’t like the freeway from Newport to Hollywood was paved in gold. He worked hard, came up with innovative ways to get noticed and did just that.

After high school, McG studied psychology and comparative cultures at UC Irvine, but aspired to be like music producer Rick Rubin.

“I wanted to go to med school … but I was tired of being broke. I wanted to be like Rick Rubin, who started a record label in his dorm room … but take advantage of the Orange County music scene,” including No Doubt and Social Distortion, McG said.

So he paired up with his longtime buddy Mark McGrath, made a music video for Sugar Ray, hid the tape in a pizza box and sent it out to a record executive. The two have been friends since childhood, and McG considers their long-standing friendship his greatest accomplishment.

“They were signed 30 seconds later,” he said.

Through hard work and surrounding himself with talented people, his career continued to snowball, and he subsequently produced music videos for other Orange County acts, including The Offspring, as well as big names like P. Diddy.

His film debut came in a big way, but it didn’t come easily. After Drew Barrymore canceled on him many times, he finally had a meeting with her about directing “Charlie’s Angels.” By the end of the meeting, they were ecstatic to work with each other.

And although the two “Angels” movies have made more than $600 million worldwide, McG said he’s not necessarily motivated by money but rather for the art of filmmaking.

As Fox’s “The OC” airs commercials for its final four episodes, McG looks at it as the high school experience — the show lasted four years — and a chapter that needed to end. But he’s proud of the work.

He said everything in the four episodes he was the executive producer for were things he had seen growing up in Newport, and he’s quick to rebut hiscritics who say the show is unrealistic racy.

“At the end of the day, it’s serialized television about a fascinating location” people outside are interested in,” he said. “I’d like to think most people have a smile when they reflect on it, and for those with complaints — how has it hurt you?”

McG reflects fondly on his days as an awkward teen roaming the streets and beaches of Newport, even if he was sometimes given a hard time by his brother and his friends, including Volcom founder Richard Wolcott.

McG said he was never a very proficient surfer, but went out with his brothers and his friends anyway. It was in the whitewash of the waves at the river jetty where he got his lesser known nickname — McFlea.

“I’d get pitched over the falls, and everyone would yell, ‘McFlea!’,” he said, laughing.

And he was just a normal kid. He played in a band with three of his buddies, who are investing with him in The Arches location.

“We were called the Q-tips … because I hoped girls would shorten the name to Q-Ts,” he said, asking if that was totally hokey.

But he enjoyed himself like most kids do, and he still does, even if these days he said he still doesn’t “surf well.”

He loves that Orange County has become a destination that he thinks comes closer to rivaling Los Angeles, New York and London.

But what he likes most is not what people on the outside see looking in.

“It’s the charm I’m most excited about — what’s really here. It’s the indigenous culture of Laguna Beach, the charm of Corona del Mar, the art scene in Costa Mesa — it’s not all about plastic surgery and superficial ideals,” McG said.

Both on-screen and off, McG says he’s dedicated to Newport-Mesa and hopes the restaurant he opens will show it.

“My arms are wide open, and I am treating it that way,” he said. “This town has been good to me, and anything I can do to give back, I want to do, including preservation.”