37 Facts About Orson Bean

Orson Bean was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1928, while his first cousin twice removed, Calvin Coolidge, was President of the United States.

Orson Bean was the son of Marian Ainsworth and George Frederick Burrows.

Orson Bean's father was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union, a fund-raiser for the Scottsboro Boys' defense, and a 20-year member of the campus police of Harvard College.

Orson Bean left home at 16 after his mother died by suicide.

Orson Bean graduated from Rindge Technical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1946.

Orson Bean then joined the United States Army and was stationed in Japan for a year.

Orson Bean credited its origin to a piano player named Val at "Hurley's Log Cabin", a restaurant and nightclub in Boston where he had once performed.

Orson Bean claimed that his name was a blend of the pompous and the amusing.

Orson Bean recalled that Orson Welles once called him over to a table and said, "You stole my name," and then dismissed him with a wave.

In 1952, Orson Bean made a guest appearance on NBC Radio's weekly hot-jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, giving the young comic his first national exposure.

In 1954, The New York Times noted in a review of The Blue Angel, Orson Bean's delivery was always well played, even if a joke fell flat.

Orson Bean once hosted a television show, "Blue Angel", on CBS.

Orson Bean was placed on the Hollywood blacklist for attending Communist Party meetings while dating a member, but continued to work through the 1950s and 1960s.

Orson Bean only stopped working in television for a year.

Orson Bean voiced and sang the role of Charlie Brown on MGM's original 1966 concept album of the musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and starred in Illya Darling, the 1967 musical adaptation of the film Never on Sunday.

Orson Bean was a chief creator and "mainstay" of The Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California.

Orson Bean played the title character in the Twilight Zone episode "Mr Bevis" that was an unsuccessful television pilot.

Orson Bean was a regular in both Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and its spin-off Fernwood 2Nite.

Orson Bean 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.

Orson Bean appeared in the short-lived ABC sitcom Normal, Ohio as the homophobic father of a gay man.

Orson Bean appeared as a patient in the final two episodes of 7th Heavens seventh season in 2003.

Orson Bean appeared in the 2007 How I Met Your Mother episode "Slapsgiving" as Robin Scherbatsky's 41-year-old boyfriend, Bob.

Orson Bean appeared in a 2017 episode of Teachers.

In 2020, Orson 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".

Orson Bean appeared on game shows originating from New York.

Orson Bean was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth in versions from the late 1950s through 1991.

Orson Bean appeared on Super Password and Match Game, among other game shows.

Orson Bean hosted a pilot for a revamped version of Concentration in 1985; it was not picked up, but elements carried over to Classic Concentration with Alex Trebek, primarily the theme, graphics and announcer Gene Wood.

Orson Bean played the eccentric, foul-mouthed Dr Lester in Spike Jonze's 1999 film, Being John Malkovich.

Orson Bean appeared as a Holocaust survivor in the 2018 film The Equalizer 2 and as Meg Ryan's editor in Joe Dante's 1987 film Innerspace.

When Mills was baptized as an adult, Orson 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.

An admirer of Laurel and Hardy, Orson Bean, in 1965, was a founding member of The Sons of the Desert.

Orson Bean wrote an autobiographical account about his life-changing experience with the orgone therapy developed by Austrian-born psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich.

Orson Bean was a distant cousin of President Calvin Coolidge.

Orson Bean ventured the thought that being a conservative in 21st-century Hollywood was much like being a suspected Communist back in the 1950s.

On February 7,2020, while crossing Venice Boulevard in the Venice section of Los Angeles, Orson Bean was struck by the drivers of two vehicles, with the second driver striking him fatally.

The driver of the first vehicle did not see Orson Bean and "clipped him and he went down", said Los Angeles Police Department Captain Brian Wendling.