![]() ![]() He looked at me for a moment and then said, ‘You stole my name!’ And he meant it. Orson Welles himself came into the Blue Angel one night, summoned me to his table. “I tried Orson Bean, putting together a pompous first name and a silly second name,” he told the Hollywood Reporter in 2014. Bean played small clubs near Boston and Philadelphia for a year, honing his acting and writing, before setting out for New York, which opened the doors to “The Ed Sullivan Show” and Broadway.įrom 1950 to 1960, he was the house comic at the Blue Angel night club in New York, where he adopted the stage name Orson Bean after workshopping a few other monikers. He tested his sleight of hand on the professional circuit before switching to stand-up comedy when he returned from Japan after World War II. He began as a magician, mesmerizing the neighborhood kids with his tricks. She fell apart after his father left home and died by suicide the day after Bean refused her plea to visit her.īean, who said he peed on his cousin - sitting President Coolidge - when he was 6 months old, survived by building a wall around himself and developing a set of entrepreneurial skills that allowed him to make an early break from his mother’s boozy embraces. He noted that his parents’ lovemaking was as loud as their screaming fights, and his mother - a jealous type - had a penchant for sherry. ![]() Bean recalled his troublesome childhood in his one-man show “Safe at Home,” which was based on his eponymous memoir. Orson Bean’s truest gift may have been his ability to connect with audiences.īorn in Vermont in 1928, Bean, whose real name was Dallas Burrows, grew up during the Great Depression in a cramped Cambridge, Mass., apartment that he shared with his volatile parents. We knew him as a television personality and master storyteller. “People shouldn’t get into show business because they want to become stars or become rich they should get into it because they can’t help but put on a show.”Įntertainment & Arts Appreciation: Orson Bean’s emails to this critic reveal the chatty charm that made him so beloved “Make a living doing commercials or soap operas or tending bar - and then do theater,” he once told The Times. All along, his true passion was the stage, though he acquiesced to television, films and even commercials just to pay his bills. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “Being John Malkovich” and “Desperate Housewives” while racking up dozens of guest appearance credits, with “Two and a Half Men,” “The Closer,” “Modern Family” and “How I Met Your Mother” among them.īean, who wrote several memoirs and a cookbook for cats, was briefly blacklisted, became a hippie, a peddler of a self-help method and a beloved Venice resident as he bolstered the local theater scene with wife Alley Mills. He was fondly remembered by baby boomers for bringing his wit and sophistication to “What’s My Line?,” “I’ve Got a Secret” and “To Tell the Truth” and guest-starring in variety series and talk shows, including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” and “The Mike Douglas Show.” Later in his career, he starred in “Dr. ![]() Bean’s onstage antics included stand-up comedy and magic tricks as he made the rounds on game shows and late-night television. ![]()
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