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 … 展开

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

In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1974 Bean recounted the source of his stage name. He 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. … 展开

In 1952, Bean received his first national exposure when NBC Radio revived its hot-jazz series The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. This burlesque of stuffy symphonic and operatic broadcasts featured dixieland jam sessions, with the host (always introduced … 展开

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. "Basically I was blacklisted because I had a cute communist girlfriend," he said in a 2001 … 展开

On Broadway Bean starred in the original cast of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Walter Matthau and Jayne Mansfield. Then, in 1961, he was featured in Subways Are for Sleeping with Sydney Chaplin, for which he received a Tony Award nomination as 展开

Bean played the title character in the Twilight Zone episode "Mr. Bevis" (1960) that was an unsuccessful television pilot. For the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, he starred as John Monroe in "The Country Mouse" (1961), based on the … 展开