Orson Bean Net Worth

Orson Bean's Quotes

• The trap is man's armored character structure and there's only one way out of it. It's not drugs and it's not religion and it's not politics. It's going back to the old apple tree and trying to do better than Adam and Eve did.
• [on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), 2/56/76, about his pierced left ear] What the hell? I think, you know, if a pirate can wear an earring, why can't I wear an earring? Why should we be the only male of a species that isn't into adornment?
• [on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), 5/25/78, about his pierced left ear] I say it's for purposes of self-adornment. That's all. And, you know, we are the only species in life where the male is less grand than the female.
• [referring to one of the world's deadliest snakes] The Gabon Viper, so named because it bites you on the gabon.
• [on Dick Shawn] I never liked him and I never found him funny. I was also jealous of him because he got parts I wanted to do. I don't know. I never warmed up to Dick Shawn. I found him arrogant. I remember one time I rode in an elevator with Henry Fonda. I was a young comic. He kind of gave me hard eyes and brushed me off and for years I told people what a prick he was. Then I got to spend a week with him and he was wonderful. I had the most wonderful week with him! And I had bad-mouthed him after being in an elevator with him. I thought, "What the fuck was I thinking?" I formed an opinion that had nothing to do with anything. So I don't know . . .

Interesting Facts about Orson Bean

1. First cousin twice removed of Calvin Coolidge.
2. Founding member of 'Sons of the Desert', a national organization dedicated to the memory and films of comedy team Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
3. In The Return of the King (1980), Bean voiced both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Sir Ian Holm plays Bilbo, but has also played Frodo in the BBC radio version. So Bean and Holm have both played both parts.
4. His father George Burrows was the chief of campus police at Harvard University.
5. Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. pg. 38. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
6. Was nominated for Broadway's 1962 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Musical) for "Subways Are for Sleeping."
7. Bean made frequent guest appearances on "The Tonight Show" (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson).
8. Blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.
9. Though blacklisted for his outspoken liberal views in the early 1950s, he had become an ardent supporter of Richard Nixon during the 1968 Presidential election year. Nixon had been a notorious "Red-Baiter" in the 1940s and 1950s.
10. Was the founder of the arts-oriented 15th Street School of New York.
11. On one To Tell the Truth (1956) episode in 1965, the panel was to try to guess which of three contestants was the police chief of Harvard University. The happily stunned Bean disqualified himself from the questioning as it was his own father.
12. Father-in-law of Andrew Breitbart, who was married to Susannah Bean ("Susie").
13. He studied drama at HB Studios in Greenwich Village in New York City.
14. Frequent contributor to "Big Hollywood", which was the original blog created by his late son-in-law, Andrew Breitbart. "Big Hollywood" has become one of many subsections of Breitbart.com.
15. Graduated from Cambridge High & Latin School with fellow classmate Peggy Cass.
16. Has four children; Michelle, Max, Susannah, and Ezekiel.
17. Founder and first director of the experimental Fifteenth Street School in New York, New York, which only existed for a few years, closing in 1975. It was modeled after A.S. Neill's Summerhill School in England.
18. His paternal grandfather was born in Ireland and his paternal grandmother was born in Scotland.
19. Bean made more than 200 appearances on "The Tonight Show" during the Johnny Carson era - including more than 100 stints as guest host - and more than 60 sit-downs on "The Merv Griffin Show.".
20. Co-founder of the non-profit actors collective Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California.