RIP Orson Bean--1928-2020

[arpirose]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/orson-bean-longtime-actor-comedian-hit-killed-car-los-angeles/

Ths is a very sad story, which happens. way too often in Los Angeles.  Pedestrians being killed by autos.   He was quite a witty man.  This is very sad.

[TopBilled]

Sorry to read this. He was married to Alley Mills. 

I remember watching him as a supporting actor on TV's Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

Rest in peace

[spence]

He was on yet another hilarious SEINFELD as well

[DougieB]

He was in one of my all-time favorite films, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), playing the army-appointed psychiatrist testifying for the defense. He always seemed like a great guy. Sorry to hear he died in such an awful way.

[lavenderblue19]

Very sad.  He was a funny, intelligent actor. Always enjoyed watching him in films and tv shows.

RIP Orson Bean

[TomJH]

What is it with this week?

Yes, I recall Orson Bean as a most amusing panelist of great dry humour on various game shows, and enjoyed his performance in Anatomy of a Murder once again a few months ago.

RIP Orson Bean

[cigarjoe]

Bean was also involved with Wilhelm Reich and  Orgone Energy,  a pseudoscientific spiritual concept variously described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force.  He used to talk about it on Johnny Carson.

RIP Orson

[karlofffan]

He was a co-founder of Sons of the Desert, the Laurel and Hardy fan club.

[Swithin]

Orson Bean was an exceptionally well trained actor. He studied at HB Studio, one of New York's most venerable acting studios. His rich Broadway career included a role in the Comden/Green/Styne musical Subways are for Sleeping, in which he sang the very amusing song, "I Just Can't Wait Till I See You with Clothes On" to Phyllis Newman.

 

 

[Sepiatone]

Saw this in the morning paper...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/arts/orson-bean-dead.html

I'll let JAKEEM take up a whole page.

Sepiatone

[Swithin]

Thanks for renaming this thread. It has a much better title now as befits the talented Mr. Bean.

(As always, I think our dear and departed deserve their own threads. I eschew the "Death Takes a Holiday" thread which lumps them all together.)

 

 

[Dargo]

17 hours ago, TomJH said:

What is it with this week?

Yes, I recall Orson Bean as a most amusing panelist of great dry humour on various game shows, and enjoyed his performance in Anatomy of a Murder once again a few months ago.

RIP Orson Bean

A few years back, Bean also did a very funny guest shot on the Two and a Half Men sitcom, and where he played an elderly man who attempts to tell Charlie that the life of a playboy will only make him a lonely old man like he turned out to be. One of the lines he says particularly cracked me up..."I was just like you, Charlie. I nailed so many young starlets I can't remember half of 'em now. It was a life shallow life of hedonism. I once even did Anne Francis! (a name which Charlie by his facial expression isn't familiar with and which then makes Bean in blurt out ) TV's Honey West?! (Charlie then shakes his head again) Boy, you clueless young people today!"

R.I.P., Orson

(...btw, and speaking of your first comment above...while watching the Altman film The Player again last night on TCM, I suddenly realized so many of the actors and actresses that did cameo appearances in the film who are not with us anymore...it felt a bit strange to me because this film was made in the 1990s and what I would consider not that long ago, and started thinking of my own mortality...now ain't THAT a morbid little thought)

[shutoo]

my first thought was Mr Bevis, the eccentric fellow who gets a life makeover from his guardian angel  

RIP

[TomJH]

1 hour ago, Dargo said:

(...btw, and speaking of your first comment above...while watching the Altman film The Player again last night on TCM, I suddenly realized so many of the actors and actresses that did cameo appearances in the film who are not with us anymore...it felt a bit strange to me because this film was made in the 1990s and what I would consider not that long ago, and started thinking of my own mortality...now ain't THAT a morbid little thought)

After a while we all start doing that, Dargo. Ask Woody Allen. The only difference, though, he started it when he was ten.

[midwestan]

I remember that 'Twilight Zone' episode that Orson Bean was in.  What I really remember about him though, is that he was a frequent panelist on "To Tell The Truth", and when he voted on the person he thought was the real 'truth-teller', he always had a clever little doodle to put with the number of his vote that coincided with the person's claim to fame.  He seemed like a nice guy.  We need more Orson Bean's in the world.  I'm sure they're out there, it's just that we have a hard time recognizing them sometimes.  😟

[Dargo]

3 hours ago, TomJH said:

After a while we all start doing that, Dargo. Ask Woody Allen. The only difference, though, he started it when he was ten.

Oh, I'm sure many if not most people do this Tom, but I'd venture to say during watching older movies made up to maybe as late as the '60s and '70s.

In this case it was more pronounced in my mind because The Player doesn't seem to me to have been released all that long ago, and then with seeing all those cameos by the stars who have now passed on since. This movie probably has more cameos in it than even that early Doris Day flick made in 1949, It's a Great Feeling.

(...I guess the 1990's were further back than I thought, huh)

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, shutoo said:

my first thought was Mr Bevis, the eccentric fellow who gets a life makeover from his guardian angel  

Mine too, apart from the aforementioned To Tell the Truth doodles--Growing up watching that, I never knew what else he was famous for, until the Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit came along.  (Which I still put marginally above that Peter Jackson atrocity.)

Let us remember the good things about Orson, and pretend that his quirky-gag role in Being John Malkovich never happened...He deserved better.

[TomJH]

1 minute ago, Dargo said:

Oh, I'm sure many if not most people do this Tom, but I'd venture to say during watching older movies made up to maybe as late as the '60s and '70s.

In this case it was more pronounced in my mind because The Player doesn't seem to me to have been released all that long ago, and then with seeing all those cameos of the stars who have now passed on since. This movie probably has more cameos in it than even that early Doris Day flick made in 1949, It's a Great Feeling.

(...I guess the 1990's were further back than I thought, huh)

Well, Dargo, I recall taking a quite beautiful girl who charmed me like a bird out of a tree to The Player when it first came out. That was a long time ago and I hope she's doing well, as I haven't seen her in years. Hey, now you're getting me looking back and contemplating her mortality, as well as mine.

So as Jack Benny would say . . .

 

 

[Dargo]

16 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Well, Dargo, I recall taking a quite beautiful girl who charmed me like a bird out of a tree to The Player when it first came out. That was a long time ago and I hope she's doing well, as I haven't seen her in years. Hey, now you're getting me looking back and contemplating her mortality, as well as mine.

So as Jack Benny would say . . .

 

LOL

That's funny! What a coincidence!

I TOO remember taking a beautiful girl who charmed me to see The Player when it first came out. However, I don't have to wonder about her.

(...you see, I married her the year before this movie was released, and as I type this, she's fixing tonight's dinner in our kitchen)

[Allhallowsday]

A name and face I've known my whole life, but other than many TV appearances... why?   I grew up in the wake of his fame.  This last story is just terrible.  I always like him. 

Good night ORSON BEAN.