Ted McGinley, Gigi Rice to Serve as Co-Honorary Mayors

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

Ted McGinley and Gigi Rice have been named the next co-honorary mayors of Pacific Palisades—a tradition in the community that dates back more than seven decades.

Rice and McGinley are taking over the position from Eugene Levy, who served as honorary mayor from 2021 to 2024.

The couple, which has been displaced since the Palisades fire began on January 7, has lived in the Huntington for more than 30 years. They are splitting their time between friends and family—including one of their sons—while remediation work is underway on their home, which is still standing.

“These are very difficult times,” McGinley said to the Palisadian-Post. “You can’t put a happy-go-lucky message on it—we’re just there like everybody else, and we understand what we’re all going through.”

The two have volunteered and given back in various ways: McGinley as a Pacific Palisades Baseball Association coach in 2010 and 2011, as well as Teen Talent Contest Judge in 2019 and 2020. He also coached basketball and flag football. Rice has been an AYSO soccer coach and does cleanup efforts at the beach. They both volunteered at St. Matthew’s Parish School while their sons, Beau and Quinn, were attending, as well as at the PPBA Pancake Breakfast and snack bar.

The co-honorary mayors join a list of previous leaders that began in 1951 with Virginia Bruce and includes Adam West, Vivian Vance, Martin Short, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Steinfeld, Steve Guttenberg and more. This is the second time the position has been led by co-honorary mayors, with Billy and Janice Crystal serving from 2018 to 2020. McGinley and Rice were nominated by a group of previous honorary mayors.

“It truly is an honor,” McGinley said. “We’re thrilled to be part of it.”

McGinley is an actor, with roles in shows like “Shrinking,” “Married… with Children,” “Happy Days,” “The Love Boat” and more. An actress, Rice has had roles in “The John Larroquette Show,” “Delta,” “Do Over,” “Frasier” and others. She previously played the on-screen wife of Levy in “The Man.”

McGinley said the idea of mayorship has “come around before—years and years ago” when he was coaching baseball, but at the time, he said they just wanted to be people who lived in the community.

“But now, Gigi and I, we’ve been wanting to help the Palisades,” McGinley said of taking on the role as the community recovers from the fire. “Gigi said, ‘If not now, when?’ That’s sort of what we’ve hung our hat on, and that’s what we both really feel like—if we don’t do it now, when are we going to do it? This is the time, and we feel like we want to get involved.”

Rice described wanting to be “of service in any way” that they can, that they “believe in this community” and “want it to come back—come back beautiful and strong.”

“We want to be cheerleaders,” Rice continued. “There’s a lot of sadness, loss, grief. With friends, we know hundreds of people who have lost everything.”

In past years, the honorary mayors have attended various community events, including the Pali Bee, the grand opening of Palisades Village in 2018, and Christmas tree and menorah lightings. Rice and McGinley acknowledged that their time will look different, but they plan to be at as many reopenings and events as possible—including Fourth of July—noting the comfort neighbors and friends have had when seeing each other while the community is largely “scattered.”

“We’ve lived there for 30 years, so we have a very clear understanding of what the Palisades was and what it meant to our family,” McGinley said, “and what it meant to people who’ve lived there for a long time, and even people who lived there for a short time, who moved in because of what it was.”

McGinley described spending “more hours in that park than you could imagine” of Palisades Recreation Center, with Rice adding the family was a part of things like Gerry Blanck’s Martial Arts Studio and tutoring programs, recalling former spaces like Greg’s Grill and Mort’s Deli.

“We’ve seen it change and grow,” Rice described, “but the thing that stayed the same was everybody who goes there and raises their family, we all want the same thing, and that’s this love and community and protection. We just want everybody to be healthy, happy and thriving.”

McGinley said that he and Rice believe their kids “benefited greatly from being a part of the Palisades community.”

“We’re there because we want to help,” McGinley said. “We’re there because we believe in Pacific Palisades and the community and the people, and we want to try to help. I know this may seem like a trite, simple way to do so, but we’re hoping that in some way, we can make an impact … ”

“And bring some joy and some support … and attention,” Rice added.