Orson Bean (born July 22, 1928) is an American film, television, and stage actor, as well as an author. He also appeared frequently on televised game shows in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Bean is perhaps best known as a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth, which provided a fitting forum for his affable wit. Born Dallas Frederick Burrows in Burlington, Vermont), to George Frederick Burrows (15 November 1900-10 April 1989) and his wife Marian A. (Pollard) Burrows, (he is a second cousin to Calvin Coolidge, who was President of the United States at the time of his birth.Orson Bean at the Internet Movie Database Bean made frequent guest appearances on The Tonight Show (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson). He was a regular on both Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and its spin-off, Fernwood 2Nite, and also played storekeeper Loren Bray on the television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman throughout its six-year run on CBS in the 1990s. He played John Goodman's homophobic father on the short-lived sitcom Normal, Ohio. And in a 1960 Twilight Zone episode, "Mr. Bevis", Bean played the title character. On Broadway, he was the star of the original cast of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955), and was featured in Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), for which he received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Musical, as well as Never Too Late (1962). He also starred opposite Melina Mercouri in Illya Darling, the 1967 musical adaptation of the film Never on Sunday. In 1964 he produced the Obie Award winning Home Movies. Two of his significant credits were playing 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. Bean was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s [1].
Bean has been married three times: to Jacqueline De Sibour (1956 - 1962); to Caroline Maxwell (1965 - 1981); and to actress Alley Mills (who is twenty-three years his junior) since 1993. He recently appeared on the sitcom Two and a Half Men, in an episode titled "Does This Smell Funny?"
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Additional filmography
Books
- Me and the Orgone (1971) ISBN 0-9679670-1-5
- Too Much Is Not Enough (1988) ISBN 0-8184-0465-5
- 25 Ways to Cook a Mouse for the Gourmet Cat (1994) ISBN 1-55972-199-5
- Mikey (2007) book for download
Recordings
- At The Hungry i (1959 Fantasy UFAN 7009) Comedy
- I Ate The Baloney (1969 Columbia CS 9743) Comedy
