Hollywood’s Orson Bean Dies At 91

Popular actor and comedian, Orson Bean is gone at the age of 91 after he was struck by a vehicle as he crossed a street in Venice, California yesterday.

Orson was strolling in 700 block of Venice Boulevard, between Shell Avenue and Pisani Place when he was hit by a car that sent him to the ground.

He was then run over by another car who bystanders tried to warn.

LA police who confirmed that Bean died on the spot added that the drivers stayed at the scene and were cooperative.

The police wrote, “The car coming westbound did not see him and clipped him and he went down. A second vehicle was coming up, was distracted by people trying to slow him down and then looked up and then a second traffic collision occurred and that one was fatal.”

R.I.P Orson.

Orson Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows; July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020) was an American film, television, and stage actor, as well as a comedian, writer, and producer. He appeared frequently on televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a long-time panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth.

Orson Bean was born in Burlington, Vermont, the son of Marian Ainsworth (née Pollard) and George Frederick Burrows. His father was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a fund-raiser for the Scottsboro Boys’ defense, and a 20-year member of the campus police of Harvard College. Among his other relatives was his third cousin twice removed, Calvin Coolidge, who was president of the United States at the time of his birth. Bean graduated from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School; and between 1946 and the end of 1947, he served 18 months in the United States Army. While stationed in postwar Japan, he developed and refined a magic act during his off-duty hours.

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. He played the title character in the Twilight Zone episode “Mr. Bevis” (1960). For the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, he starred as John Monroe in “The Secret Life of James Thurber” (1961), based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber.