News Actor/Comedian Orson Bean Killed, age 91

[auntiehill]

From NBC News.

LOS ANGELES — Orson Bean, the witty actor and comedian, was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles, authorities said. He was 91.

The Los Angeles County Coroner's office confirmed Bean's Friday night death, saying it was being investigated as a “traffic-related” fatality. The coroner's office provided the location where Bean was found, which matched reports from local news outlets.

A man was walking in the Venice neighborhood when he was clipped by a vehicle and fell, Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Brian Wendling initially told local stations.

A second driver then struck him in what police say was the fatal collision. Both drivers remained on the scene. Police were investigating and didn't identify the pedestrian to local outlets, which named Bean based on eyewitness accounts.

Bean enlivened such TV game shows as "To Tell the Truth" and played a crotchety merchant on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

He appeared in a number of films — notably, “Anatomy of a Murder” and “Being John Malkovich" — and starred in several top Broadway productions, receiving a Tony nod for the 1962 Comden-Green musical “Subways Are for Sleeping.” But fans remembered him most for his many TV appearances from the 1950s onward.

How freaking horrible. I remember him not just from "Desperate Housewives," but from many game show appearances and TONS of appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He was also a staple of the LA theater, way back when I was in college. That poor man. You make it all the way to 91 and then get run down by some idiot.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I only ever knew him as Bilbo in the Bass/Rankin version of The Hobbit. While Martin Freeman is now my favorite version of Bilbo, there will always be a special place in my heart for Bean's version.

Rest in peace, Orson.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Rest in peace Mr. Bean.

 

[bigdaddy]

Yeah I saw this news and was too depressed to post it. To live that long and get hit. As a bicyclist who almost gets hit at least once a week it came close to home.

May he RIP. I hope the family is holding up as well as possible.

 

[RandyS]

Yeah I saw this news and was too depressed to post it. To live that long and get hit. As a bicyclist who almost gets hit at least once a week it came close to home.

May he RIP. I hope the family is holding up as well as possible.

That's how I felt twenty years ago when a similar fate befell Desmond Llewellen (the original Q of the James Bond films). He was either 84 or 85 at the time I believe.

I knew Bean as Mr Bray from Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. The only Western I ever liked. As as Mr. Bevis from a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

This tragedy is why cars need to be restricted in cities somewhat, and for cities in North America to be more pedestrian-orientated (e.g. turning one part of New York into a pedestrian-only road/street.)

 

[Keith1701]

Very Sad, Rest in Peace.