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Orson Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows; July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020) was an American film, television, and stage actor and comedian. He was a game show and talk show host and a "mainstay of Los Angeles’ small theater scene." He appeared frequently on several televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a longtime panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth. "A storyteller par excellence", he was a favorite of Johnny Carson, appearing on The Tonight Show more than 200 times.
In the 1960s, Bean remarked in an interview that he became known as a "neocelebrity who's famous for being famous" for his appearances as a panellist on television prime-time gameshows.
Bean graduated from Rindge Technical High School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1946. He then joined the United States Army and was stationed in Japan for a year. Following his military service, Bean began working in small venues as a stage magician before moving in the early 1950s to stand-up comedy. He studied theatre at HB Studio.
Bean claimed that his name was a blend of the pompous and the amusing. He recalled that Orson Welles once called him over to a table and said, "You stole my name," and then dismissed him with a wave.
For 10 years, he was the house comic at New York's Blue Angel comedy club. In 1954, The New York Times noted in a review of The Blue Angel, Bean's delivery was always well played, even if a joke fell flat. In the summer of 1954, he hosted a television show, The Blue Angel, on CBS in which he served as emcee, introducing various acts at the simulated nightclub. Time Magazine, reviewing the show, called Bean "a quiet, wry, young comedian ... who has a happy way with a joke"."The New Shows, Time, Aug. 2, 1954 He "maintained a steady career since the 1950s and cut his teeth on and off Broadway before becoming a live-television staple."
He was a chief creator and "mainstay" of The Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California.
Among dozens of appearances, Bean starred in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Desperate Housewives while tallying guest appearance credits on programs such as How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Two and a Half Men, and The Closer. Bean was a regular in both Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and its spin-off Fernwood 2Nite. He also portrayed the shrewd businessman and storekeeper Loren Bray on the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman throughout its six-year run on CBS in the 1990s. Bean voiced the main characters Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins in the 1977 and 1980 Rankin/Bass animated adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and The Return of the King. In 2000, he appeared in the Will & Grace episode "There But For the Grace of Grace" as Will Truman and Grace Adler's old college professor. He also appeared in the short-lived Fox sitcom Normal, Ohio as the homophobia father of a gay man (played by John Goodman).
Bean appeared as a patient in the final two episodes of 7th Heavens seventh season in 2003. In 2005, Bean appeared in the sitcom Two and a Half Men in an episode titled "Does This Smell Funny to You?", playing a former playboy whose conquests included actresses Tuesday Weld and Anne Francis. He appeared in the 2007 How I Met Your Mother episode "Slapsgiving" as Robin Scherbatsky's 41-year-old boyfriend, Bob. In 2009 he was cast in the recurring role of Roy Bender, a steak salesman, who is Karen McCluskey's love interest on the ABC series Desperate Housewives. At the age of 87, Bean in 2016 appeared in "Playdates", an episode of the American TV sitcom Modern Family. He appeared in a 2017 episode of Teachers (TV Land, season 2, episode 11, "Dosey Don't"). He appeared at the age of 89 as a doctor in the Superstore episode "Delivery Day" in 2019. In 2020, Bean appeared in the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, as the rascally character Bruno, a potential green card spouse for Joan-Margaret, in the episode "The Scent" (S6E10). It was Bean's final television performance.
In 1965, he married actress and fashion designer Carolyn Maxwell, with whom he had three children: Max, Susannah, and Ezekiel."Designer Will Create Style to Suit Wearer", The New York Times, April 22, 1964. The couple divorced in 1981. Their daughter Susannah was married to journalist Andrew Breitbart from 1997 until his death in 2012. In the early 1970s Bean took his family on a sabbatical break from New York to live briefly (for about three months) on a farm commune in Victoria, Australia.Interview with Orson Bean on The Dick Cavett Show, first telecast on March 8, 1972.
Bean's third wife was The Wonder Years co-star Alley Mills. They married in 1993 and lived in Los Angeles until his death in 2020. When Mills was baptized as an adult, Bean walked with her down to the beach so "Pastor Ken" from First Lutheran Church of Venice could baptize her in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. For many years, Bean and Mills played roles in First Lutheran's annual production of A Christmas Carol; Bean played Ebenezer Scrooge.
An admirer of Laurel and Hardy, Bean, in 1965, was a founding member of The Sons of the Desert. This international organization is devoted to sharing information about the lives of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and preserving and enjoying their films.
In 1966, he helped found the 15th Street School in New York City, a primary school using the radical, democratic, free school Summerhill as a model. Bean wrote an autobiographical account about his life-changing experience with the Orgone developed by Austrians-born psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Published in 1971, the account is titled .
He was a distant cousin of President Calvin Coolidge. In later life, "his politics turned more conservative" and he authored intermittent columns for Breitbart News. He ventured the thought that being a conservative in 21st-century Hollywood was much like being a suspected Communism back in the 1950s.
For much of his career and until his death, he was represented by the Artists & Representatives agency. In its brief statement after his death, they noted he was an "assiduous nurturer of rising talent".
| How to be Very Popular at American Film Institute catalogue. |
| short |
| Episode: Three Letters |
| 2 episodes |
| 3 episodes |
| Episode: "It Happened in Paris" |
| 3 episodes |
| Episode: "Arsenic and Old Lace" |
| Episode: "San Francisco Fracas" |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "A Travel from Brussels" |
| Episode: "Charley's Aunt" |
| Episode: "Bilko's Insurance Company" |
| Episode: "The Newman Johnson Story" |
| Television Movie |
| Episode: "Mr. Bevis" |
| The Play of the Week |
| Episode: "The Secret Life of James Turber" |
| Episode: "To Walk Like a Lion" |
| Episode: "The Bean Show" |
| Television Movie |
| 2 episodes |
| Voice, TV movie |
| Segment: "Love and the Teacher" |
| Episode: "The Adventure of the Chinese Dog" |
| Television Series |
| Voice, TV movie |
| Unknown episodes 1977–1978 |
| Episode: "Heads or Tails/Little People, The/Mona of the Movies" |
| Television Movie |
| 1 episode |
| Television Short |
| Episode: October 31 |
| Game Show Contestant / Celebrity Guest Star |
| 3 episodes |
| 2 episodes |
| Voice, Episode: "Fairy Tales for the 90's" |
| Television Movie |
| Made for Video |
| TV movie |
| 146 episodes |
| Unknown episodes |
| Episode: "Obsession: Part 1" |
| Episode: "Spring" |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "In Search of Pygmies" |
| Episode: "Surprise Artie" |
| Episode: "Possession Is Nine Tenths of the Law" |
| Episode: "There But for the Grace of Grace" |
| 7 episodes |
| Episode: "Piece Talks" |
| 2 episodes |
| Voice, TV movie |
| Episode: "Red Glare" |
| Episode: "Does This Smell Funny to You?" |
| Episode: "The Price You Pay" |
| Episode: "The Round File" |
| Episode: "Good Times and Great Oldies" |
| Episode: "Grannies, Guns and Love Mints" |
| Episode: "Slapsgiving" |
| TV movie |
| Recurring role, 23 episodes |
| Episode: "Funeral Crashers" |
| Television Movie |
| Episode: "Rebuild" |
| Episode: "Playdates" |
| Episode: "Story Eight" |
| 2 episodes |
| 2 episodes |
| Episode: "Dosey Don't" |
| Episode: "Delivery Day" |
| Episode: "The Scent" |
| 1978 | Grammy Awards | Best Recording for Children | The Hobbit | ||
| 1999 | Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | Being John Malkovich | ||
| 1954 | Theatre World Awards | John Murray Anderson's Almanac | |||
| 1962 | Tony Awards | Best Supporting or Featured Actor in a Musical | Subways Are for Sleeping |
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