Orson Bean ✝

Orson Bean (born Dallas Frederick Burrows; July 22, 1928 – February 7, 2020) was an American film, television, and stage actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He was a game show and talk show host and a "mainstay of Los Angeles’ small theater scene." He appeared frequently on several televised game shows from the 1960s through the 1980s and was a longtime panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth. "A storyteller par excellence", he was a favorite of Johnny Carson, appearing on The Tonight Show more than 200 times. In the 1960s, Bean remarked in an interview that he became known as a "neocelebrity who's famous for being famous" for his appearances as a panellist on television prime-time gameshows. Orson Bean was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1928, while his first cousin twice removed, Calvin Coolidge, was President of the United States. Bean was 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. Bean said his house was "full of causes". He left home at 16 after his mother died by suicide.