02-09-2020, 10:36 PM
Orson Bean (I had no idea that he was still alive... another Silent comedian, and the biggest contribution of the Silent to American culture is comedy... as the 4T continues we get increasingly self-righteous and stubborn... Just a reminder: we will need Artist comedy again to take the stuffiness out of our lives... just as the Crisis comes to an end.
Orson Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows; July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020) was a veteran American film, television, and stage actor, and a comedian, writer, and producer. He was a game show and talk show host,[1][2][3][4][5] and a "mainstay of Los Angeles’s small theater scene."[2] He appeared frequently on several televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth.[2] "A storyteller par excellence",[4] he was a favorite of Johnny Carson, appearing on The Tonight Show over 200 times.[6]
Bean became one of the first "neocelebrities" in television – someone who was "famous for being famous."[2]
In 1952, Bean made a guest appearance on NBC Radio's weekly hot-jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, which was his first big break.[citation needed] His vocal mannerisms were ideal for the mock-serious tone of the show, and he became the show's master of ceremonies ("Dr. Orson Bean") for its final season. Bean was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson),[5] and appeared on game shows originating from New York. He was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth[15] in versions from the late 1950s through 1991.[8] On July 5, 1965, his father appeared as a subject of the panel and he had to disqualify himself from participating.[citation needed] He appeared on Super Password and Match Game, among other game shows. He hosted a pilot for a revamped version of Concentration in 1985,[citation needed] which was picked up later on in 1987 as Classic Concentration with Alex Trebek.[citation needed] An appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was cancelled due to his being on the "black list," and he was rendered persona non grata there for years because of it. Sullivan eventually relented and rebooked him, opining that he was the master of his own show, not "Campbell's Soup."[2]
Although Bean was placed on the Hollywood blacklist for attending Communist Party meetings while dating a member, he continued to work through the 1950s and 60s.[2][5][9] He played the title character in the Twilight Zone episode "Mr. Bevis" (1960).[citation needed] For the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson,[citation needed] he starred as John Monroe in "The Secret Life of James Thurber" (1961), based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber.[citation needed]
For ten years, he was the house comic at New York's Blue Angel comedy club.[2] 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.[5] He once hosted a television show "Blue Angel" on CBS.[4]
He "maintained a steady career since the 1950s and cut his teeth on and off Broadway before becoming a live television staple."[2]
On Broadway he starred in the original cast of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Walter Matthau and Jayne Mansfield.[2] Then, in 1961, he was featured in Subways Are for Sleeping with Sydney Chaplin, for which he received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Musical,[2][8] He performed in Never Too Late the following year. In 1964, he produced the Off-Off-Broadway musical Home Movies — which won an Obie Award.[16][17] And the same year appeared in the Broadway production I Was Dancing.[18] He starred in the musical “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac”.[2] He also 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[19] and starred in Illya Darling, the 1967 musical adaptation of the film Never on Sunday.[8][citation needed] Doing stand up comedy, magic tricks and passing on wit and wisdom, he became a regular on I've Got a Secret, What’s My Line? and To Tell the Truth. He guest starred on television talk and variety shows, e.g., The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Among dozens of appearances, he starred in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and Desperate Housewives while tallying guest appearance credits, e.g., How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Two and a Half Men, The Closer.[2] Bean was a regular in both Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman[citation needed] 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.[8] He played John Goodman's homophobic father on the sitcom Normal, Ohio. He played the main characters Bilbo 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. He also played Dr. Lester in Spike Jonze's 1999 film, Being John Malkovich.
Bean appeared as a patient in the final two episodes of 7th Heaven's 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] At the age of 87, Bean in 2016 appeared in "Playdates", an episode of the American TV sitcom Modern Family.[citation needed] He appeared in a 2017 episode of Teachers (TV Land, season 2, episode 11, "Dosey Don't"). He appeared as the elderly Holocaust survivor in the 2018 film The Equalizer 2.[citation needed]
He was a chief creator and "mainstay" of The Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California.[2][4][5]
In later life, "his politics turned more conservative." His daughter married Andrew Breitbart, and Bean authored intermittent columns for Breitbart News.[2][8] He ventured the thought that being a conservative in 21st-century Hollywood was a lot like being a suspected Communist back in the 1950s.[2]
For much of his career and to 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.[4]
An admirer of Laurel and Hardy, Bean, in 1964, served as a founding member of The Sons of the Desert, the international organization devoted to sharing information about the lives of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and studying and enjoying their films.[5]
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.[5][20] Bean wrote an autobiographical account about his life-changing experience with the orgone therapy developed by Austrian-born psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Published in 1971, the account is titled Me and the Orgone: The True Story of One Man's Sexual Awakening.[5][21]
Bean was married three times. His first marriage was in 1956 to actress Jacqueline de Sibour, whose stage name was Rain Winslow and who was the daughter of the French nobleman and pilot Vicomte Jacques de Sibour and his wife, Violette B. Selfridge (daughter of American-born British department-store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge).[2][22][23][24] Before their divorce in 1962, Bean and Jacqueline had one child, Michele.[25]
In 1965, he married actress and fashion designer Carolyn Maxwell with whom he had three children: Max, Susannah, and Ezekiel.[2][26] The couple divorced in 1981. Their daughter Susannah married journalist Andrew Breitbart (died 2012) in 1997. Bean's third wife was actress and Dr. Quinn co-star Alley Mills, 23 years his junior. They married in 1993, and lived in Los Angeles until his death in 2020.[2][25]
He was a "distant cousin" of President Calvin Coolidge.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Bean
Orson Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows; July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020) was a veteran American film, television, and stage actor, and a comedian, writer, and producer. He was a game show and talk show host,[1][2][3][4][5] and a "mainstay of Los Angeles’s small theater scene."[2] He appeared frequently on several televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth.[2] "A storyteller par excellence",[4] he was a favorite of Johnny Carson, appearing on The Tonight Show over 200 times.[6]
Bean became one of the first "neocelebrities" in television – someone who was "famous for being famous."[2]
In 1952, Bean made a guest appearance on NBC Radio's weekly hot-jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, which was his first big break.[citation needed] His vocal mannerisms were ideal for the mock-serious tone of the show, and he became the show's master of ceremonies ("Dr. Orson Bean") for its final season. Bean was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson),[5] and appeared on game shows originating from New York. He was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth[15] in versions from the late 1950s through 1991.[8] On July 5, 1965, his father appeared as a subject of the panel and he had to disqualify himself from participating.[citation needed] He appeared on Super Password and Match Game, among other game shows. He hosted a pilot for a revamped version of Concentration in 1985,[citation needed] which was picked up later on in 1987 as Classic Concentration with Alex Trebek.[citation needed] An appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was cancelled due to his being on the "black list," and he was rendered persona non grata there for years because of it. Sullivan eventually relented and rebooked him, opining that he was the master of his own show, not "Campbell's Soup."[2]
Although Bean was placed on the Hollywood blacklist for attending Communist Party meetings while dating a member, he continued to work through the 1950s and 60s.[2][5][9] He played the title character in the Twilight Zone episode "Mr. Bevis" (1960).[citation needed] For the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson,[citation needed] he starred as John Monroe in "The Secret Life of James Thurber" (1961), based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber.[citation needed]
For ten years, he was the house comic at New York's Blue Angel comedy club.[2] 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.[5] He once hosted a television show "Blue Angel" on CBS.[4]
He "maintained a steady career since the 1950s and cut his teeth on and off Broadway before becoming a live television staple."[2]
On Broadway he starred in the original cast of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Walter Matthau and Jayne Mansfield.[2] Then, in 1961, he was featured in Subways Are for Sleeping with Sydney Chaplin, for which he received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Musical,[2][8] He performed in Never Too Late the following year. In 1964, he produced the Off-Off-Broadway musical Home Movies — which won an Obie Award.[16][17] And the same year appeared in the Broadway production I Was Dancing.[18] He starred in the musical “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac”.[2] He also 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[19] and starred in Illya Darling, the 1967 musical adaptation of the film Never on Sunday.[8][citation needed] Doing stand up comedy, magic tricks and passing on wit and wisdom, he became a regular on I've Got a Secret, What’s My Line? and To Tell the Truth. He guest starred on television talk and variety shows, e.g., The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Among dozens of appearances, he starred in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and Desperate Housewives while tallying guest appearance credits, e.g., How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, Two and a Half Men, The Closer.[2] Bean was a regular in both Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman[citation needed] 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.[8] He played John Goodman's homophobic father on the sitcom Normal, Ohio. He played the main characters Bilbo 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. He also played Dr. Lester in Spike Jonze's 1999 film, Being John Malkovich.
Bean appeared as a patient in the final two episodes of 7th Heaven's 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] At the age of 87, Bean in 2016 appeared in "Playdates", an episode of the American TV sitcom Modern Family.[citation needed] He appeared in a 2017 episode of Teachers (TV Land, season 2, episode 11, "Dosey Don't"). He appeared as the elderly Holocaust survivor in the 2018 film The Equalizer 2.[citation needed]
He was a chief creator and "mainstay" of The Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California.[2][4][5]
In later life, "his politics turned more conservative." His daughter married Andrew Breitbart, and Bean authored intermittent columns for Breitbart News.[2][8] He ventured the thought that being a conservative in 21st-century Hollywood was a lot like being a suspected Communist back in the 1950s.[2]
For much of his career and to 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.[4]
An admirer of Laurel and Hardy, Bean, in 1964, served as a founding member of The Sons of the Desert, the international organization devoted to sharing information about the lives of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and studying and enjoying their films.[5]
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.[5][20] Bean wrote an autobiographical account about his life-changing experience with the orgone therapy developed by Austrian-born psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. Published in 1971, the account is titled Me and the Orgone: The True Story of One Man's Sexual Awakening.[5][21]
Bean was married three times. His first marriage was in 1956 to actress Jacqueline de Sibour, whose stage name was Rain Winslow and who was the daughter of the French nobleman and pilot Vicomte Jacques de Sibour and his wife, Violette B. Selfridge (daughter of American-born British department-store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge).[2][22][23][24] Before their divorce in 1962, Bean and Jacqueline had one child, Michele.[25]
In 1965, he married actress and fashion designer Carolyn Maxwell with whom he had three children: Max, Susannah, and Ezekiel.[2][26] The couple divorced in 1981. Their daughter Susannah married journalist Andrew Breitbart (died 2012) in 1997. Bean's third wife was actress and Dr. Quinn co-star Alley Mills, 23 years his junior. They married in 1993, and lived in Los Angeles until his death in 2020.[2][25]
He was a "distant cousin" of President Calvin Coolidge.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Bean
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.