July 22, 2025 • 31 mins
How do you become loved? To find the answer, we conclude our story behind the extraordinary life of comedian, actor, and author Orson Bean. Special Note: Includes some adult language.
Support the show: https://redpilledamerica.com/support/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Red Pilled America. Previously on Red Pilled America,
we began telling the story of the legendary Orson Bean,
a beloved actor, comedian, and racontour who charmed America for
over seven decades. In Part one, we followed his journey
from a troubled childhood, through his early career and his
first run in with the Hollywood Blacklist. When we left off,
(00:25):
Orson Bean's career was taking off. CBS wanted to make
him the next big funny man. They built a TV
pilot around him, but the Hollywood Blacklist started to grip
the industry, and Orson Bean was about to get caught
up in it. The effort to purge communists from Hollywood
may have started out with the right motives, because there
was actually a communist infiltration of the entertainment industry, but
(00:47):
like today's good intention me too movement that unfairly lumped
poor judgment with actual sexual predators, the hysteria of the
Hollywood Blacklist took out many people that were not Communists.
That's what happened to Orson.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, it was the thing I was there for.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Was a thing called the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee that
felt that the civil liberties journing wasn't doing a good
enough job.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So the Emergency Civility Experience.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It said, we don't have to you know, it was
real communists, So I just shut up and did some
of my jokes I've done, and that'd sullivant there, you
know I was. And the reason that they picked me
out is that I ran for office in the local
NewYork local of after because the the Blacklist was so
(01:34):
divisive among the performers that when you went to a
union meeting you sat on the left or the right
hand side to show your proclivities. If you didn't give
a shit, they assumed from where you sat that those
were your proclivities, so you had no choice.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So a group of us tried to get together.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
There was Charles calling with the newscaster Tony Randall people
like that, and said we've got to We've got to
form a slate that would be again, it's the Blacklist,
but not be aligned with these real communists that were there.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So Orson became part of a team that ran to
lead ASTRA, a labor union that represented television and radio talent.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So we ran a slate of people and we won.
I was elected first vice president. Charles Cullingwood was elected president,
and the New York Times published a great article is wonderful, And.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
The next thing you know, I get a call from
Ed Sullivan himself.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I was a regular on the Sullivan Show, and he said,
I'm afraid the booking next Sunday is out.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
And have you seen I don't know if it was
Aware or counterattack.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
That was the weekly or bi weekly or bi monthly
newsletter that Red Channels put out, he says, And they
listed that I was at this meeting of the Emergency
cyvill the Bus Committee, and what kind of a you know,
how can I say I'm not a communist if they
wanted this communist meeting by that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
They used his performance of jokes at some of these
protest meetings to brand Orson being a communist. The pilot
that CBS had filmed of his potential variety show was shelved,
and all of a.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Sudden the pilot disappeared.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It was never shown, and they Plastic Van Dyke me
with Dick Van Dyke.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It was a scary moment for Orson. By nineteen fifty five,
everyone witnessed those who were being blacklisted. They were publicly humiliated.
Their lives and careers were being destroyed. Orson could have
easily cowered in a corner, crippled with fear by what
he'd seen happen to others. Or he just could have
given up and found work wherever he could find it,
but the hustle of his youth took over. He jumped
(03:47):
on the phone, searching for opportunities. Orson was smart enough
to look in an area that was not controlled by
the blacklisters. Advertisers did not have the grip on Broadway
that they had on radio and television, because the major
revenue driver for the theater was ticket sales.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Odd was looking after me long before I believed in him,
and I got a Broadway show and it ran the
whole year.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The show starred Orson in a major Hollywood sex symbol
of the time, Jane Mansfield the scarlett Johansson every day.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And after a year, Ed Sullivan called back, as promised
he had said, I'll help you when I can, and
he called back in Sullivan. He said, I think the
heat is off enough. I can help you now, and
he booked me one more time. Ed was really People
make fun of Ed Sullivan, but he was quite a guy. Yeah,
he was a good man and was never given credit
(04:36):
for it. And he helped me. He didn't have to.
He didn't give a shit about me, but he did
because he said he would call back and book me again.
So then suddenly the Blacklist was over, thanks in part
to our victory in the Union, and thanks in part
to the fact that the network was finally fed up
with paying this protection racket.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
With the Ed Sullivan Show appearance giving the industry the
all clear sign, Orson's film and TV career began to
take off again. He landed roles on the big screen,
including Anatomy of a Murder starring Jimmy Stewart. He was
cast in the TV classic The Twilight Zone. His private
life was also developing. Orson married actress Jacqueline Decibor in
(05:16):
nineteen fifty six. They had a daughter. It didn't slow
his career. He secured more roles on Broadway, but the
space that Orson really took off was on TV, where
he blossomed as a sharp witted comedian on talk shows
and game shows. Orson became a regular guest on The
Jack Parr Tonight Show. Orson's appearances were so frequent that
he became a regular guest host when Parr was on vacation.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
For those of you who have just joined us, I
have and ask to make the following announcement. The American
Peeping Tom Society will hold its annual meeting next Saturday
outside the Brooklyn YMCA why WC.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
When he hosted, he was able to pick his own
guests and pushed for the show to book the program's
first black stand up comic, Nipsey Russell. They agreed. He
also booked a nineteen year old unknown singer that he'd
seen perform at a local nightclub.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
This girl is a young girl that I saw down
at a nightclub called the Boncois when she was there
a couple of months ago. She's never been, to the
best of my knowledge, on network television before. She has
the most charming manner and the most charming voice. She's
flown in from Detroit to be with us for the night,
and she's working out there at a club called the
Caucaus Club. Lies in Caucus room. And her name is
(06:31):
Barbara Streisand. And Barbara is going to sing when a
bee lies sleeping in the palm of your hand. Barbara
Streisand welcomer.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
When a Bee Liice sleeping orson was looking like he'd
be the heir apparent when Jack Parr retired. He'd appeared
and guests hosted over a dozen times. But then one night,
on February eleventh, nineteen sixty, a major scandal hit the
Tonight Show. Back then, like today, the show was recorded
earlier in the day and then broadcasted across America at night.
(07:11):
But on this particular night, word had hit the news
desks that Jack Parr was going to shock the audience
with a protest. People tuned into the show in record numbers.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
As you will see shortly during the taping of the
Jack Parr Program earlier this evening, Jack Parr walked off
the show in protest against the deletion of one of
his stories from last night's show. In the exercise of
its proper responsibility to the public, NBC deleted this material
last night because it considered it to be in bad taste.
It is NBC's hoped that Jack par will reconsider his
(07:48):
action and return to the program.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
The night before, a story part told during the recording
was censored by the time the show aired in the evening,
a sign of how much the times have changed. The
network censored the words water closet, a phrase used at
the time for the bathroom. The censorship upset the host
so much that he felt he needed to take a stand.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
All right, are you ready? Last night on this.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
Program, if you would read some of the newspapers, you'd
think that I had committed a terrible obscenatory. Last night,
I told a little story that I thought was about
as funny as anything I had ever been given.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
It was a story. I'm not going to go into
it because they'll cut me off again.
Speaker 7 (08:38):
But it is not at all, in any sense of
the word an obscene story.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
True of the story perhaps should not be told at.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
Like an eight o'clock on Sunday night, but at this
hour it certainly could be told.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
It was very adult and very funny.
Speaker 7 (08:54):
Three hundred people in this audience laughed like they haven't
laughed perhaps in some time.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Of course, that's no excuses it. But then I said,
was that all right? I've you know?
Speaker 7 (09:04):
Did anyone was anyone offended? Wasn't one voice? And frequently
there are voices that are surprised. This was cut out
of the show last night, and I cannot understand why
cutting it out is the right of NBC to do,
but not so in some way telling you the content
(09:24):
of it leaves the terrible impressions of impression in your mind.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Now I've made a decision about what.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
I'm gonna do, and uh, only one person knows about this.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
It's you. Downs. My wife doesn't know it, but I'll
be home in time and I'll.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
Tell her I'm leaving the Tonight Show. There must be
a better way of uh.
Speaker 6 (09:56):
Making a living in this. There's a way of entertaining people.
Speaker 7 (10:01):
Without being constantly involved in some form of controversy, which
is on me all the time.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
It's rough for my wife and child, and I don't
need it. I like the National Broadcasting Company.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
They've been swell to me, and I've been pretty wonderful
to them.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
I took over a show with sixty stations. There's now
one hundred and fifty eight. This show is sold out.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
It's the highest I think money producer for this network.
And I believe I was let down by this network
at a time when I could have used their help.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
You have been.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Peachy to me always, Jack, you know what I said.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But even after Parr's departure, The show went on with
its scheduled guests, including one stand up comic from Boston.
Speaker 8 (11:00):
I like to join you for the first thing, Hyev,
and I would like them to call out two friends
of this show, two friends of Jack who happened to
be on tonight. They were booked a long time ago
and they are here, and I'd like to bring them
both out together, if that's not a disservice to them.
They're wonderful guys and they've both been a great credit
to this program. And I'll just intone their names because
(11:23):
they don't need any big build up. They're good guys.
Orson Bean and Shelley Berman.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Orson, having already faced censorship in the cold Hearted Blacklisting
just a few years earlier, spoke his mind about the
transpiring events.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Something to say.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm very moved by it.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I'm very touched. I'm very upset, and I don't know
exactly what I feel. But it becomes rarer and rarer
in this day and age, particularly in this business, to
find somebody who is capable of feeling anything.
Speaker 9 (11:55):
And I think that the.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Reason for Part's success talent can be discussed from that
will Doomsday. He is able to feel as a human being,
and it's fascinating. And here he has come at loggerheads
with a mass institution which is no better and no
worse than the other multi million dollar institutions. They are
(12:16):
all dehumanized. NBC is just as dehumanized as any of them.
They have no loyalty. Well, I don't know if they're
going to run this or not. They probably won't because
(12:43):
they don't have any loyalty. And on top of that,
they don't have any guts.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Well its probably.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Jet Parr eventually returned, and Orson would go on to
guest host of Tonight's show many times in his absence.
In fact, he'd do so over one hundred times throughout
the years. But it was a full throated defensive Parr
that Orson believed quietly ended his prospects for eventually inheriting
the show. When Jack Parr finally retired two years later,
(13:11):
an afternoon quiz show host named Johnny Carson was selected
by the network as Parr's successor. Who knows what would
have happened if Orson wasn't already booked on that fateful
night in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 10 (13:22):
Nevertheless, Orson's quick wit an undeniable comedic talent made him
a hot commodity on the TV game show circuit, where
he became ubiquitous. Welcome back to red Pilled America. Orson's
quick wit and undeniable comedic talent made him a hot
commodity on the TV game show circuit, where he became ubiquitous.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
This is the brilliant Broadway musical comedy star and regular
panelist on To Tell the Truth Orson.
Speaker 11 (13:46):
Bean, Hello, this is my partner Betty buck now, a
gentleman who will be rejoining the CBS nighttime lineup beginning
December twelfth at ten o'clock with To Tell the Truth.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Mister Orson, b Hardy pros.
Speaker 9 (14:03):
Awston.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
It's great to have you with us.
Speaker 8 (14:05):
I must say, I hope you won't mind if I
say there's good reason for you to be celebrating.
Speaker 9 (14:10):
What was it? Thirteen October thirteenth last became the father
of a young man.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I didn't right.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
His name is Max Max Beans.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
Well you tell Max.
Speaker 12 (14:21):
I'd like to ask your questions about Auston when.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
He was little.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
This Burrow's number three. Was he always this vile and
low down, miserable and mean as he is to just
very that no, he wasn't.
Speaker 10 (14:39):
He was a regular celebrity personality on popular game shows
like What's My Line Password? And To Tell the Truth
and became one of the first personalities that was famous
for being famous. But unlike the reality show figures of today,
it was Orson's humor that kept him alive and thriving
in the business. In nineteen sixty two, his personal life
(15:08):
took a bit of a hit when his wife, Jacqueline
left him for another man, leaving their daughter Michelle with Orson.
But just a few years later he'd fall in love
again with fashion designer Carolyn Maxwell, and the two married
in nineteen sixty five. By nineteen seventy, Orson and his
wife had been building a family together in New York City.
He was constantly working in film, TV and commercials, making
(15:30):
more money than he ever knew what to do with,
so he opened and funded a small progressive school, But
the growing political tensions of the time troubled Orson.
Speaker 9 (15:39):
A federal grand jury in Detroit Today charged the thirteen
top leaders of the Weathermen with plotting to bomb public
buildings in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Berkeley, California. A
Weathermen are the militant faction of the Students for a
Democratic Society. Only one of the thirteen is now in.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
Custody, a concern that reached a tipping point when members
of the far left Weatherman Underground missed Stakenley set off
a bomb in his neighborhood. The blast was close enough
to shake his home.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Police are centering their search in Chicago for the young
woman who escaped the townhouse during the explosions.
Speaker 10 (16:14):
Orson had had enough. He'd been burning the candle at
both ends for twenty years and was now looking for
a way out of the spreading madness. So Orson took
a gig in a play that was opening out of
the country. To get away from the turmoil. He packed
up the family and moved to Australia. His self imposed
American exile ended after a year and a half. Orson
came back to the States, where he promoted his new book,
(16:36):
Me and the Oregon, a book about his sexual awakening.
On his return, he was still a hot commodity on TV.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Is Here to Night.
Speaker 13 (16:43):
He's a raconteur, actor, comedian, paper tearer, magician, and I
don't know what he's doing lately outside of being with us.
Maybe he has nothing to plug at all. Well, welcome
orson bean. I wanted to start with a joke, all right,
the new year, with an out and out joke, no
pretense to There's.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
A book called Breaking It Up, the Best Root Teens
of the Stand Up Comics, and they send it to
me in the Advanced Thing the other day, and I'm
in there. I am the very first one because it
is chronological above the new wave of comic comics. And
they started way back in the fifties with me and
go up through Gabe Kaplan and the David Steinberg and
Robert Klein and the Nues. And they've got the first
(17:21):
joke that I ever told on your show there, so
it bears repeating. It's about the parrot. The guy who
has a parrot who is in a very bad way.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Joan.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
This parrot is, he writes to the Love Lord column.
He's desperate for a female parrot. He sits looking out
the window as a pigeons fly by. Anything people come
to the man's house and the parrots looking at them
with terrible, malevolent beady eyes, making obscene suggestions as they
walk past the cage. He's in a very lonesome pair
a lonesome part to put him away. The guy reaches
into the cage to change the paper or something. The
(17:51):
bird is on his arm. You know, it's terrible. Finally,
the guy takes the parrot to a vet. The vet
examines the parrot, says, well, he says, it's obvious what
your parent needs. He says, to the matter, I have
a sweet young female bird in the back that parrots
in his cage. Listening to the conversation, and a vet says,
for fifteen dollars, he says, your bird can go in
the cage with my bird. And the parrot's in there,
(18:12):
and guy says, Jesus, I don't know. He says fifteen
bucks in the pirate says, come on, come on, what
the hell. Finally the guy says, all right, He gives
the vet the fifteen. The vet takes a parrot, puts
him in the cage with the female bird. That close
the curtain. The two men go and sit down. There's
a moment of silence, and then suddenly feathers come flying
over the top of the curtain. The vet says, holy
(18:33):
gee runs over, opens the curtain. The male bird's got
the female bird down on the bottom of the cage
with one claw. With the other claw, he's pulling out
all the feathers the same for fifteen bucks. I want
your naked.
Speaker 10 (18:45):
But he came back from Australia a changed man. He
wanted to drop out of the limelight, work less, and
spend more time with his kids. Material things just didn't
mean anything to him anymore. Now in his mid forties,
Orson entered what he referred to at the time as
his hippie face. He gave away most of his possessions,
loaded the family in a van, and traveled the country,
(19:07):
enrolling his kids in school wherever they landed. But by
nineteen eighty the trauma of his childhood seemed to catch
up with him. His marriage was faltering, and a year
later he'd be divorced. At the time, Orson was living
in New York City, but when final notice of the
break became official, Orson believed he was receiving a message
from God. He listened to the message and moved to
(19:28):
Los Angeles to be closer to his kids, but the
move marked the beginning of a ten year long dark
phase in his life. He began to overdrink gigs, became
fewer and farther in between. Now living in the Venice Canals,
his decline became noticeable enough that a neighbor invited him
to an AA meeting, and it was at these meetings
(19:49):
that Orson began to exit the darkness.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I was in a twelve step program from drinking too much,
and I lasted in seven years and found out that
I guess I really wasn't an alcoholic. I was just
drinking too much for a while and then when that stopped.
But in the course of it, there was a guy
that was a speaker, and he was profound. He was
a criminal who had done a hard time in the pen.
But I spoke to him after a meeting and I said,
(20:15):
what should I do? I was new in the twelve
step program, and he said, get down on your knees
every morning and thank God for the night's sleep, and
do it again. I thank you for the day. I said, well,
I don't think I believe in God, it said, doesn't matter.
I said, well, why do I have to get on
my knees? He said he likes it. So I started
doing it, and I since all else had failed, I
(20:35):
decided I would follow the instructions and I did it
day after day, week after week, and it started feeling
less uncomfortable. Then it started feeling wonderful, and little by
little I began to feel as if I was really
being heard by whatever it was that had created me.
Speaker 10 (20:53):
He'd eventually find God, then Christianity, a journey he documented
in his book entitled Mail for Mikey. As these things
usually go. When we find God, life has a way
of falling into place. By the early nineties, his career
started to pick up again, as did his personal life.
During a reading for a play in Los Angeles, he
(21:14):
met his future wife, Ali Mills. They married in nineteen
ninety three, and that same year he landed his longest
running TV gig as Lauren Bray on CBS's Doctor Quinn
Medicine Woman, starring Jane Seymour.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I tell you I ain't interested in the wicked Little Wives.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't even like John, he ask me. I'd rather
raised piglets.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
That's plainer, less noise, and if they're grown, you can
eat them now.
Speaker 10 (21:42):
With God and his soul and Ali in his heart,
Orson's career was actually accelerating in his mid sixties. At
around this time, someone entered his life, a young man
named Andrew Breitbart began courting Orson's daughter, Susie.
Speaker 14 (21:55):
I was waiting tables down in Venice on Abba Kinney,
which is sort of the hippie dippy avant guard area,
and I remember seeing Orson Being.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
He would he would sit.
Speaker 14 (22:07):
There at this restaurant on Sundays doing the New York
Times crossword puzzle, which is sort of a caricature of
what you would think Worson Being did with his weekends.
And then I started dating his daughter. I went over
to their house on the Bend on the canals, and
as you're nervous about to meet your father in law
or the guy the father of the person that you're dating,
(22:28):
I started going through his library and I saw that
he wrote a book called Me in the Oregone, and
so I started thumbing through this book and it starts
talking about basically the path towards enlightenment is having the
most amount of sex you possibly can't. And I thought
to myself, I think I've hit the jackpot here.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
He also found a book by rush Limbaugh next to it.
Speaker 9 (22:53):
In rush Limbook, you.
Speaker 14 (22:54):
Know it's you know, it's interesting about that.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
At that time, I.
Speaker 14 (22:59):
Considered myself a bit of a literal. This was nineteen
ninety one, and I remember not being angry at Orson
at the time. I just couldn't understand how a guy
who lived in Venice, who was a comedian, a guy
who had been blacklisted. It made no sense to me
how he could like Rush Limbaugh. And I had never
(23:19):
listened to Rush Limbaugh, but I knew instinctively that he
was an evil guy. And Orson said, are you sure
that you've listened to him? Because he's not evil, He's
actually a very lighthearted, funny and informed guy.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
And I had never.
Speaker 14 (23:32):
Again, I had never heard the guy, and I was
absolutely convinced that Orson was wrong.
Speaker 10 (23:38):
Curious, Andrew, who considered himself a default liberal at the time,
began listening to Rush Limbaugh, which paved the way for
Andrew's eventual transition to right wing politics. In other words,
Orson Bean helped create one of the most revered conservative
media figures in history. Andrew married Orson's daughter, Suzi in
nineteen ninety seven and would become a part of the
(24:00):
Bean family. Orson's career continued on the upswing with his
nineteen ninety nine role in the cult classic being John Malkovich.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Flores, get Guinness on the phone.
Speaker 15 (24:11):
Yes, sir, gigas congapound, Fine.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Damn fine, woman Flores. I don't know how she puts
up with a speech impediment of mind.
Speaker 8 (24:18):
You don't have a speech impediment doctor Lester.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Flattery, We'll get you everywhere, my boy. I'm afraid I
have to trust Floris on that one. You see, she's
got her doctorate in speech impedimentology from Case Western. I
apologize if you can't understand the word I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
No, I understand perfectly.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's very kind of it a lie, you see, I've
been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech.
Speaker 10 (24:47):
But as the early two thousands arrived, the atmosphere and
Hollywood began to alter m With the foreign box office
now on the rise, the industry was no longer reliant
on the domestic box office to be profitable. As a result,
the left leaning political proclivities of Hollywood became unconstrained. Celebrities
(25:11):
were now free to speak their mind about politics, and
were even encouraged by entertainment media to do so. A
new Hollywood blacklist descended on the industry, looking to purge
right wingers in Tinseltown. In response, the secret conservative Hollywood club,
the Friends of Abe was born. Orson, who was once
branded a Kamie, didn't feel his politics had changed, but
(25:33):
nonetheless now found his beliefs outside of those dominating Tinseltown. Again,
he was faced with the prospect of being blacklisted by
the industry. To deal with it, Orson took an approach
few and Hollywood are able to pull off. He refused
to be disliked. Do you find that because of your
conservative views that it is very difficult being an actor
(25:55):
and a producer in Hollywood?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
You know, I think you have to agree to be
hated in order to be hated.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I sho won't be.
Speaker 10 (26:03):
After the election of Barack Obama, the blacklisting of conservatives
went from a quiet effort to public practice. But just
like the Hollywood blacklisting of the nineteen fifties and the
censorship of his old colleague Jack Parr, Orson didn't let
the machine quiet him. He attended tea party rallies as
a public protest to Hollywood's changing tide, using his signature
(26:25):
wit to navigate the terrain.
Speaker 12 (26:27):
I'm so happy to be here at this's Tea Party
because it happens. I was at the original Boston Tea Party.
My friend Paul Rivera talk being a a good.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
When I was.
Speaker 12 (26:40):
When I was a kid growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts
and high school, I would go to the young Communist
meetings to.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Meet the hot rebellious babes.
Speaker 12 (26:49):
And now this is where you come to eat. They
mean the hot rebellious babe.
Speaker 10 (26:55):
Humor is the calming elixir that seems to disorient even
the most strident of political players. It served Orson well,
and in the heart of the Obama era, he landed
a role on the TV show Desperate Housewives Welcome Back
(27:20):
to Red Pilled America. In twenty fifteen, Orson returned to
his true love, the theater, staging a one man's show
adapted from his autobiography entitled Safe at Home. The entire
show staged that the Pacific Resident Theater is still live
on YouTube. Orson somehow weaves humor into some of the
most tragic moments in his life, hinting at the secret
(27:43):
to his longevity. For his phenomenal performance, Orson received a
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. Orson continued acting into
his nineties with an appearance in Denzel Washington's twenty eighteen
Equalizer IWI franchise.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Orson once joked that he wanted to still be working
at one hundred and thirty doing and in yogurt commercials,
but he fell short of that dream. On Friday February seventh,
twenty twenty, Orson was still doing what he loved to do.
He was crossing the street en route to the Pacific
Resident Theater, the same venue of his one man show, when,
(28:19):
at ninety one years of age, his days were cut short.
Speaker 13 (28:22):
Legendary comedian and actor Orson Bean was hitting killed crossing
a busy street in Venice.
Speaker 9 (28:28):
This is being called just an accident. Noah Rest made
in this.
Speaker 15 (28:31):
From the original Twilight Zone to dozens of TV sitcoms
and dramas. Bean was a working actor for almost seventy years,
and Dick Van Dyke knew him for the last sixty five.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Who were not going around New York together as young comedians.
Speaker 9 (28:45):
I was kind of the physical comedian.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
He was the intellectual comedian.
Speaker 15 (28:49):
But of course this is the face and the smile
that so many have grown to love, not only on
your television, but movie screens and of course the theater
as well.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Which leads us back to the question how does someone
make people love them? Well, Orson made one way clear.
You make them laugh.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Not in the business, because that was the class clown.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
I rot up on the chair when the teacher was
out of the room and tried to make people laugh.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I wanted to make people love me. I didn't think
they loved me at home. I wanted them to love
me in the classroom.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Orson will go down in history as one of the
most beloved Americans of all time because he made people laugh.
He was a man that endured a childhood that would
have crippled most people, and he channeled that experience into
developing and mastering the gift of humor. And he shared
his gift with us for over seventy years.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Joke telling is an art form. The joke should be
short and always told in the present tense. An example,
an old guy picks up a hooker. He takes her
up finalely, he drops his pants. The hooka says, I
got to have the money first.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
He pays her. She runs away. He stands there. He says, well,
it shouldn't be a total loss. I'll take a shift.
Speaker 10 (30:19):
Red Pilled America's an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced by
Patrick Carrelchi and me Adriana Qortez for inform Ventures. Please
visit Redpilled America dot com to purchase one of our
Maiden America products. It really helps the show and you're
helping American manufacturing. Visit Redpilled America dot com and click
on the Maid in America button at the top of
the page to order yours today. Now, our entire archive
(30:42):
of episodes are only available to backstage subscribers. Subscribers get
access to our entire archive of episodes as well as
our behind the scenes podcast. To become a backstage subscriber,
please visit red Pilled America dot com and click the
support button in the topmenu. That's red Pilled America dot
com and click support in the topmenu. Thanks for listening,
(31:03):
but
This is Red Pilled America. Previously on Red Pilled America,
we began telling the story of the legendary Orson Bean,
a beloved actor, comedian, and racontour who charmed America for
over seven decades. In Part one, we followed his journey
from a troubled childhood, through his early career and his
first run in with the Hollywood Blacklist. When we left off,
(00:25):
Orson Bean's career was taking off. CBS wanted to make
him the next big funny man. They built a TV
pilot around him, but the Hollywood Blacklist started to grip
the industry, and Orson Bean was about to get caught
up in it. The effort to purge communists from Hollywood
may have started out with the right motives, because there
was actually a communist infiltration of the entertainment industry, but
(00:47):
like today's good intention me too movement that unfairly lumped
poor judgment with actual sexual predators, the hysteria of the
Hollywood Blacklist took out many people that were not Communists.
That's what happened to Orson.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, it was the thing I was there for.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Was a thing called the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee that
felt that the civil liberties journing wasn't doing a good
enough job.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So the Emergency Civility Experience.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It said, we don't have to you know, it was
real communists, So I just shut up and did some
of my jokes I've done, and that'd sullivant there, you
know I was. And the reason that they picked me
out is that I ran for office in the local
NewYork local of after because the the Blacklist was so
(01:34):
divisive among the performers that when you went to a
union meeting you sat on the left or the right
hand side to show your proclivities. If you didn't give
a shit, they assumed from where you sat that those
were your proclivities, so you had no choice.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So a group of us tried to get together.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
There was Charles calling with the newscaster Tony Randall people
like that, and said we've got to We've got to
form a slate that would be again, it's the Blacklist,
but not be aligned with these real communists that were there.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
So Orson became part of a team that ran to
lead ASTRA, a labor union that represented television and radio talent.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So we ran a slate of people and we won.
I was elected first vice president. Charles Cullingwood was elected president,
and the New York Times published a great article is wonderful, And.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
The next thing you know, I get a call from
Ed Sullivan himself.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I was a regular on the Sullivan Show, and he said,
I'm afraid the booking next Sunday is out.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
And have you seen I don't know if it was
Aware or counterattack.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
That was the weekly or bi weekly or bi monthly
newsletter that Red Channels put out, he says, And they
listed that I was at this meeting of the Emergency
cyvill the Bus Committee, and what kind of a you know,
how can I say I'm not a communist if they
wanted this communist meeting by that.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
They used his performance of jokes at some of these
protest meetings to brand Orson being a communist. The pilot
that CBS had filmed of his potential variety show was shelved,
and all of a.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Sudden the pilot disappeared.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It was never shown, and they Plastic Van Dyke me
with Dick Van Dyke.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It was a scary moment for Orson. By nineteen fifty five,
everyone witnessed those who were being blacklisted. They were publicly humiliated.
Their lives and careers were being destroyed. Orson could have
easily cowered in a corner, crippled with fear by what
he'd seen happen to others. Or he just could have
given up and found work wherever he could find it,
but the hustle of his youth took over. He jumped
(03:47):
on the phone, searching for opportunities. Orson was smart enough
to look in an area that was not controlled by
the blacklisters. Advertisers did not have the grip on Broadway
that they had on radio and television, because the major
revenue driver for the theater was ticket sales.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Odd was looking after me long before I believed in him,
and I got a Broadway show and it ran the
whole year.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
The show starred Orson in a major Hollywood sex symbol
of the time, Jane Mansfield the scarlett Johansson every day.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And after a year, Ed Sullivan called back, as promised
he had said, I'll help you when I can, and
he called back in Sullivan. He said, I think the
heat is off enough. I can help you now, and
he booked me one more time. Ed was really People
make fun of Ed Sullivan, but he was quite a guy. Yeah,
he was a good man and was never given credit
(04:36):
for it. And he helped me. He didn't have to.
He didn't give a shit about me, but he did
because he said he would call back and book me again.
So then suddenly the Blacklist was over, thanks in part
to our victory in the Union, and thanks in part
to the fact that the network was finally fed up
with paying this protection racket.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
With the Ed Sullivan Show appearance giving the industry the
all clear sign, Orson's film and TV career began to
take off again. He landed roles on the big screen,
including Anatomy of a Murder starring Jimmy Stewart. He was
cast in the TV classic The Twilight Zone. His private
life was also developing. Orson married actress Jacqueline Decibor in
(05:16):
nineteen fifty six. They had a daughter. It didn't slow
his career. He secured more roles on Broadway, but the
space that Orson really took off was on TV, where
he blossomed as a sharp witted comedian on talk shows
and game shows. Orson became a regular guest on The
Jack Parr Tonight Show. Orson's appearances were so frequent that
he became a regular guest host when Parr was on vacation.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
For those of you who have just joined us, I
have and ask to make the following announcement. The American
Peeping Tom Society will hold its annual meeting next Saturday
outside the Brooklyn YMCA why WC.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
When he hosted, he was able to pick his own
guests and pushed for the show to book the program's
first black stand up comic, Nipsey Russell. They agreed. He
also booked a nineteen year old unknown singer that he'd
seen perform at a local nightclub.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
This girl is a young girl that I saw down
at a nightclub called the Boncois when she was there
a couple of months ago. She's never been, to the
best of my knowledge, on network television before. She has
the most charming manner and the most charming voice. She's
flown in from Detroit to be with us for the night,
and she's working out there at a club called the
Caucaus Club. Lies in Caucus room. And her name is
(06:31):
Barbara Streisand. And Barbara is going to sing when a
bee lies sleeping in the palm of your hand. Barbara
Streisand welcomer.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
When a Bee Liice sleeping orson was looking like he'd
be the heir apparent when Jack Parr retired. He'd appeared
and guests hosted over a dozen times. But then one night,
on February eleventh, nineteen sixty, a major scandal hit the
Tonight Show. Back then, like today, the show was recorded
earlier in the day and then broadcasted across America at night.
(07:11):
But on this particular night, word had hit the news
desks that Jack Parr was going to shock the audience
with a protest. People tuned into the show in record numbers.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
As you will see shortly during the taping of the
Jack Parr Program earlier this evening, Jack Parr walked off
the show in protest against the deletion of one of
his stories from last night's show. In the exercise of
its proper responsibility to the public, NBC deleted this material
last night because it considered it to be in bad taste.
It is NBC's hoped that Jack par will reconsider his
(07:48):
action and return to the program.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
The night before, a story part told during the recording
was censored by the time the show aired in the evening,
a sign of how much the times have changed. The
network censored the words water closet, a phrase used at
the time for the bathroom. The censorship upset the host
so much that he felt he needed to take a stand.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
All right, are you ready? Last night on this.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
Program, if you would read some of the newspapers, you'd
think that I had committed a terrible obscenatory. Last night,
I told a little story that I thought was about
as funny as anything I had ever been given.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
It was a story. I'm not going to go into
it because they'll cut me off again.
Speaker 7 (08:38):
But it is not at all, in any sense of
the word an obscene story.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
True of the story perhaps should not be told at.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
Like an eight o'clock on Sunday night, but at this
hour it certainly could be told.
Speaker 6 (08:52):
It was very adult and very funny.
Speaker 7 (08:54):
Three hundred people in this audience laughed like they haven't
laughed perhaps in some time.
Speaker 6 (09:00):
Of course, that's no excuses it. But then I said,
was that all right? I've you know?
Speaker 7 (09:04):
Did anyone was anyone offended? Wasn't one voice? And frequently
there are voices that are surprised. This was cut out
of the show last night, and I cannot understand why
cutting it out is the right of NBC to do,
but not so in some way telling you the content
(09:24):
of it leaves the terrible impressions of impression in your mind.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
Now I've made a decision about what.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
I'm gonna do, and uh, only one person knows about this.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
It's you. Downs. My wife doesn't know it, but I'll
be home in time and I'll.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
Tell her I'm leaving the Tonight Show. There must be
a better way of uh.
Speaker 6 (09:56):
Making a living in this. There's a way of entertaining people.
Speaker 7 (10:01):
Without being constantly involved in some form of controversy, which
is on me all the time.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
It's rough for my wife and child, and I don't
need it. I like the National Broadcasting Company.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
They've been swell to me, and I've been pretty wonderful
to them.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
I took over a show with sixty stations. There's now
one hundred and fifty eight. This show is sold out.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
It's the highest I think money producer for this network.
And I believe I was let down by this network
at a time when I could have used their help.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
You have been.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Peachy to me always, Jack, you know what I said.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But even after Parr's departure, The show went on with
its scheduled guests, including one stand up comic from Boston.
Speaker 8 (11:00):
I like to join you for the first thing, Hyev,
and I would like them to call out two friends
of this show, two friends of Jack who happened to
be on tonight. They were booked a long time ago
and they are here, and I'd like to bring them
both out together, if that's not a disservice to them.
They're wonderful guys and they've both been a great credit
to this program. And I'll just intone their names because
(11:23):
they don't need any big build up. They're good guys.
Orson Bean and Shelley Berman.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Orson, having already faced censorship in the cold Hearted Blacklisting
just a few years earlier, spoke his mind about the
transpiring events.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Something to say.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I'm very moved by it.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I'm very touched. I'm very upset, and I don't know
exactly what I feel. But it becomes rarer and rarer
in this day and age, particularly in this business, to
find somebody who is capable of feeling anything.
Speaker 9 (11:55):
And I think that the.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Reason for Part's success talent can be discussed from that
will Doomsday. He is able to feel as a human being,
and it's fascinating. And here he has come at loggerheads
with a mass institution which is no better and no
worse than the other multi million dollar institutions. They are
(12:16):
all dehumanized. NBC is just as dehumanized as any of them.
They have no loyalty. Well, I don't know if they're
going to run this or not. They probably won't because
(12:43):
they don't have any loyalty. And on top of that,
they don't have any guts.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Well its probably.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Jet Parr eventually returned, and Orson would go on to
guest host of Tonight's show many times in his absence.
In fact, he'd do so over one hundred times throughout
the years. But it was a full throated defensive Parr
that Orson believed quietly ended his prospects for eventually inheriting
the show. When Jack Parr finally retired two years later,
(13:11):
an afternoon quiz show host named Johnny Carson was selected
by the network as Parr's successor. Who knows what would
have happened if Orson wasn't already booked on that fateful
night in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 10 (13:22):
Nevertheless, Orson's quick wit an undeniable comedic talent made him
a hot commodity on the TV game show circuit, where
he became ubiquitous. Welcome back to red Pilled America. Orson's
quick wit and undeniable comedic talent made him a hot
commodity on the TV game show circuit, where he became ubiquitous.
Speaker 9 (13:41):
This is the brilliant Broadway musical comedy star and regular
panelist on To Tell the Truth Orson.
Speaker 11 (13:46):
Bean, Hello, this is my partner Betty buck now, a
gentleman who will be rejoining the CBS nighttime lineup beginning
December twelfth at ten o'clock with To Tell the Truth.
Speaker 6 (13:58):
Mister Orson, b Hardy pros.
Speaker 9 (14:03):
Awston.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
It's great to have you with us.
Speaker 8 (14:05):
I must say, I hope you won't mind if I
say there's good reason for you to be celebrating.
Speaker 9 (14:10):
What was it? Thirteen October thirteenth last became the father
of a young man.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I didn't right.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
His name is Max Max Beans.
Speaker 9 (14:19):
Well you tell Max.
Speaker 12 (14:21):
I'd like to ask your questions about Auston when.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
He was little.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
This Burrow's number three. Was he always this vile and
low down, miserable and mean as he is to just
very that no, he wasn't.
Speaker 10 (14:39):
He was a regular celebrity personality on popular game shows
like What's My Line Password? And To Tell the Truth
and became one of the first personalities that was famous
for being famous. But unlike the reality show figures of today,
it was Orson's humor that kept him alive and thriving
in the business. In nineteen sixty two, his personal life
(15:08):
took a bit of a hit when his wife, Jacqueline
left him for another man, leaving their daughter Michelle with Orson.
But just a few years later he'd fall in love
again with fashion designer Carolyn Maxwell, and the two married
in nineteen sixty five. By nineteen seventy, Orson and his
wife had been building a family together in New York City.
He was constantly working in film, TV and commercials, making
(15:30):
more money than he ever knew what to do with,
so he opened and funded a small progressive school, But
the growing political tensions of the time troubled Orson.
Speaker 9 (15:39):
A federal grand jury in Detroit Today charged the thirteen
top leaders of the Weathermen with plotting to bomb public
buildings in Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Berkeley, California. A
Weathermen are the militant faction of the Students for a
Democratic Society. Only one of the thirteen is now in.
Speaker 10 (15:57):
Custody, a concern that reached a tipping point when members
of the far left Weatherman Underground missed Stakenley set off
a bomb in his neighborhood. The blast was close enough
to shake his home.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Police are centering their search in Chicago for the young
woman who escaped the townhouse during the explosions.
Speaker 10 (16:14):
Orson had had enough. He'd been burning the candle at
both ends for twenty years and was now looking for
a way out of the spreading madness. So Orson took
a gig in a play that was opening out of
the country. To get away from the turmoil. He packed
up the family and moved to Australia. His self imposed
American exile ended after a year and a half. Orson
came back to the States, where he promoted his new book,
(16:36):
Me and the Oregon, a book about his sexual awakening.
On his return, he was still a hot commodity on TV.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Is Here to Night.
Speaker 13 (16:43):
He's a raconteur, actor, comedian, paper tearer, magician, and I
don't know what he's doing lately outside of being with us.
Maybe he has nothing to plug at all. Well, welcome
orson bean. I wanted to start with a joke, all right,
the new year, with an out and out joke, no
pretense to There's.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
A book called Breaking It Up, the Best Root Teens
of the Stand Up Comics, and they send it to
me in the Advanced Thing the other day, and I'm
in there. I am the very first one because it
is chronological above the new wave of comic comics. And
they started way back in the fifties with me and
go up through Gabe Kaplan and the David Steinberg and
Robert Klein and the Nues. And they've got the first
(17:21):
joke that I ever told on your show there, so
it bears repeating. It's about the parrot. The guy who
has a parrot who is in a very bad way.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Joan.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
This parrot is, he writes to the Love Lord column.
He's desperate for a female parrot. He sits looking out
the window as a pigeons fly by. Anything people come
to the man's house and the parrots looking at them
with terrible, malevolent beady eyes, making obscene suggestions as they
walk past the cage. He's in a very lonesome pair
a lonesome part to put him away. The guy reaches
into the cage to change the paper or something. The
(17:51):
bird is on his arm. You know, it's terrible. Finally,
the guy takes the parrot to a vet. The vet
examines the parrot, says, well, he says, it's obvious what
your parent needs. He says, to the matter, I have
a sweet young female bird in the back that parrots
in his cage. Listening to the conversation, and a vet says,
for fifteen dollars, he says, your bird can go in
the cage with my bird. And the parrot's in there,
(18:12):
and guy says, Jesus, I don't know. He says fifteen
bucks in the pirate says, come on, come on, what
the hell. Finally the guy says, all right, He gives
the vet the fifteen. The vet takes a parrot, puts
him in the cage with the female bird. That close
the curtain. The two men go and sit down. There's
a moment of silence, and then suddenly feathers come flying
over the top of the curtain. The vet says, holy
(18:33):
gee runs over, opens the curtain. The male bird's got
the female bird down on the bottom of the cage
with one claw. With the other claw, he's pulling out
all the feathers the same for fifteen bucks. I want
your naked.
Speaker 10 (18:45):
But he came back from Australia a changed man. He
wanted to drop out of the limelight, work less, and
spend more time with his kids. Material things just didn't
mean anything to him anymore. Now in his mid forties,
Orson entered what he referred to at the time as
his hippie face. He gave away most of his possessions,
loaded the family in a van, and traveled the country,
(19:07):
enrolling his kids in school wherever they landed. But by
nineteen eighty the trauma of his childhood seemed to catch
up with him. His marriage was faltering, and a year
later he'd be divorced. At the time, Orson was living
in New York City, but when final notice of the
break became official, Orson believed he was receiving a message
from God. He listened to the message and moved to
(19:28):
Los Angeles to be closer to his kids, but the
move marked the beginning of a ten year long dark
phase in his life. He began to overdrink gigs, became
fewer and farther in between. Now living in the Venice Canals,
his decline became noticeable enough that a neighbor invited him
to an AA meeting, and it was at these meetings
(19:49):
that Orson began to exit the darkness.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I was in a twelve step program from drinking too much,
and I lasted in seven years and found out that
I guess I really wasn't an alcoholic. I was just
drinking too much for a while and then when that stopped.
But in the course of it, there was a guy
that was a speaker, and he was profound. He was
a criminal who had done a hard time in the pen.
But I spoke to him after a meeting and I said,
(20:15):
what should I do? I was new in the twelve
step program, and he said, get down on your knees
every morning and thank God for the night's sleep, and
do it again. I thank you for the day. I said, well,
I don't think I believe in God, it said, doesn't matter.
I said, well, why do I have to get on
my knees? He said he likes it. So I started
doing it, and I since all else had failed, I
(20:35):
decided I would follow the instructions and I did it
day after day, week after week, and it started feeling
less uncomfortable. Then it started feeling wonderful, and little by
little I began to feel as if I was really
being heard by whatever it was that had created me.
Speaker 10 (20:53):
He'd eventually find God, then Christianity, a journey he documented
in his book entitled Mail for Mikey. As these things
usually go. When we find God, life has a way
of falling into place. By the early nineties, his career
started to pick up again, as did his personal life.
During a reading for a play in Los Angeles, he
(21:14):
met his future wife, Ali Mills. They married in nineteen
ninety three, and that same year he landed his longest
running TV gig as Lauren Bray on CBS's Doctor Quinn
Medicine Woman, starring Jane Seymour.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I tell you I ain't interested in the wicked Little Wives.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't even like John, he ask me. I'd rather
raised piglets.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
That's plainer, less noise, and if they're grown, you can
eat them now.
Speaker 10 (21:42):
With God and his soul and Ali in his heart,
Orson's career was actually accelerating in his mid sixties. At
around this time, someone entered his life, a young man
named Andrew Breitbart began courting Orson's daughter, Susie.
Speaker 14 (21:55):
I was waiting tables down in Venice on Abba Kinney,
which is sort of the hippie dippy avant guard area,
and I remember seeing Orson Being.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
He would he would sit.
Speaker 14 (22:07):
There at this restaurant on Sundays doing the New York
Times crossword puzzle, which is sort of a caricature of
what you would think Worson Being did with his weekends.
And then I started dating his daughter. I went over
to their house on the Bend on the canals, and
as you're nervous about to meet your father in law
or the guy the father of the person that you're dating,
(22:28):
I started going through his library and I saw that
he wrote a book called Me in the Oregone, and
so I started thumbing through this book and it starts
talking about basically the path towards enlightenment is having the
most amount of sex you possibly can't. And I thought
to myself, I think I've hit the jackpot here.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
He also found a book by rush Limbaugh next to it.
Speaker 9 (22:53):
In rush Limbook, you.
Speaker 14 (22:54):
Know it's you know, it's interesting about that.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
At that time, I.
Speaker 14 (22:59):
Considered myself a bit of a literal. This was nineteen
ninety one, and I remember not being angry at Orson
at the time. I just couldn't understand how a guy
who lived in Venice, who was a comedian, a guy
who had been blacklisted. It made no sense to me
how he could like Rush Limbaugh. And I had never
(23:19):
listened to Rush Limbaugh, but I knew instinctively that he
was an evil guy. And Orson said, are you sure
that you've listened to him? Because he's not evil, He's
actually a very lighthearted, funny and informed guy.
Speaker 7 (23:31):
And I had never.
Speaker 14 (23:32):
Again, I had never heard the guy, and I was
absolutely convinced that Orson was wrong.
Speaker 10 (23:38):
Curious, Andrew, who considered himself a default liberal at the time,
began listening to Rush Limbaugh, which paved the way for
Andrew's eventual transition to right wing politics. In other words,
Orson Bean helped create one of the most revered conservative
media figures in history. Andrew married Orson's daughter, Suzi in
nineteen ninety seven and would become a part of the
(24:00):
Bean family. Orson's career continued on the upswing with his
nineteen ninety nine role in the cult classic being John Malkovich.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Flores, get Guinness on the phone.
Speaker 15 (24:11):
Yes, sir, gigas congapound, Fine.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Damn fine, woman Flores. I don't know how she puts
up with a speech impediment of mind.
Speaker 8 (24:18):
You don't have a speech impediment doctor Lester.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Flattery, We'll get you everywhere, my boy. I'm afraid I
have to trust Floris on that one. You see, she's
got her doctorate in speech impedimentology from Case Western. I
apologize if you can't understand the word I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (24:36):
No, I understand perfectly.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's very kind of it a lie, you see, I've
been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech.
Speaker 10 (24:47):
But as the early two thousands arrived, the atmosphere and
Hollywood began to alter m With the foreign box office
now on the rise, the industry was no longer reliant
on the domestic box office to be profitable. As a result,
the left leaning political proclivities of Hollywood became unconstrained. Celebrities
(25:11):
were now free to speak their mind about politics, and
were even encouraged by entertainment media to do so. A
new Hollywood blacklist descended on the industry, looking to purge
right wingers in Tinseltown. In response, the secret conservative Hollywood club,
the Friends of Abe was born. Orson, who was once
branded a Kamie, didn't feel his politics had changed, but
(25:33):
nonetheless now found his beliefs outside of those dominating Tinseltown. Again,
he was faced with the prospect of being blacklisted by
the industry. To deal with it, Orson took an approach
few and Hollywood are able to pull off. He refused
to be disliked. Do you find that because of your
conservative views that it is very difficult being an actor
(25:55):
and a producer in Hollywood?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
You know, I think you have to agree to be
hated in order to be hated.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I sho won't be.
Speaker 10 (26:03):
After the election of Barack Obama, the blacklisting of conservatives
went from a quiet effort to public practice. But just
like the Hollywood blacklisting of the nineteen fifties and the
censorship of his old colleague Jack Parr, Orson didn't let
the machine quiet him. He attended tea party rallies as
a public protest to Hollywood's changing tide, using his signature
(26:25):
wit to navigate the terrain.
Speaker 12 (26:27):
I'm so happy to be here at this's Tea Party
because it happens. I was at the original Boston Tea Party.
My friend Paul Rivera talk being a a good.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
When I was.
Speaker 12 (26:40):
When I was a kid growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts
and high school, I would go to the young Communist
meetings to.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Meet the hot rebellious babes.
Speaker 12 (26:49):
And now this is where you come to eat. They
mean the hot rebellious babe.
Speaker 10 (26:55):
Humor is the calming elixir that seems to disorient even
the most strident of political players. It served Orson well,
and in the heart of the Obama era, he landed
a role on the TV show Desperate Housewives Welcome Back
(27:20):
to Red Pilled America. In twenty fifteen, Orson returned to
his true love, the theater, staging a one man's show
adapted from his autobiography entitled Safe at Home. The entire
show staged that the Pacific Resident Theater is still live
on YouTube. Orson somehow weaves humor into some of the
most tragic moments in his life, hinting at the secret
(27:43):
to his longevity. For his phenomenal performance, Orson received a
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. Orson continued acting into
his nineties with an appearance in Denzel Washington's twenty eighteen
Equalizer IWI franchise.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Orson once joked that he wanted to still be working
at one hundred and thirty doing and in yogurt commercials,
but he fell short of that dream. On Friday February seventh,
twenty twenty, Orson was still doing what he loved to do.
He was crossing the street en route to the Pacific
Resident Theater, the same venue of his one man show, when,
(28:19):
at ninety one years of age, his days were cut short.
Speaker 13 (28:22):
Legendary comedian and actor Orson Bean was hitting killed crossing
a busy street in Venice.
Speaker 9 (28:28):
This is being called just an accident. Noah Rest made
in this.
Speaker 15 (28:31):
From the original Twilight Zone to dozens of TV sitcoms
and dramas. Bean was a working actor for almost seventy years,
and Dick Van Dyke knew him for the last sixty five.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Who were not going around New York together as young comedians.
Speaker 9 (28:45):
I was kind of the physical comedian.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
He was the intellectual comedian.
Speaker 15 (28:49):
But of course this is the face and the smile
that so many have grown to love, not only on
your television, but movie screens and of course the theater
as well.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Which leads us back to the question how does someone
make people love them? Well, Orson made one way clear.
You make them laugh.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Not in the business, because that was the class clown.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
I rot up on the chair when the teacher was
out of the room and tried to make people laugh.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
I wanted to make people love me. I didn't think
they loved me at home. I wanted them to love
me in the classroom.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Orson will go down in history as one of the
most beloved Americans of all time because he made people laugh.
He was a man that endured a childhood that would
have crippled most people, and he channeled that experience into
developing and mastering the gift of humor. And he shared
his gift with us for over seventy years.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Joke telling is an art form. The joke should be
short and always told in the present tense. An example,
an old guy picks up a hooker. He takes her
up finalely, he drops his pants. The hooka says, I
got to have the money first.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
He pays her. She runs away. He stands there. He says, well,
it shouldn't be a total loss. I'll take a shift.
Speaker 10 (30:19):
Red Pilled America's an iHeartRadio original podcast. It's produced by
Patrick Carrelchi and me Adriana Qortez for inform Ventures. Please
visit Redpilled America dot com to purchase one of our
Maiden America products. It really helps the show and you're
helping American manufacturing. Visit Redpilled America dot com and click
on the Maid in America button at the top of
the page to order yours today. Now, our entire archive
(30:42):
of episodes are only available to backstage subscribers. Subscribers get
access to our entire archive of episodes as well as
our behind the scenes podcast. To become a backstage subscriber,
please visit red Pilled America dot com and click the
support button in the topmenu. That's red Pilled America dot
com and click support in the topmenu. Thanks for listening,
(31:03):
but
Hosts And Creators
Adryana Cortez
Patrick Courrielche
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!