2-10-20<\/p>\n
Orson Bean died this weekend, killed in a \u201cpedestrian accident\u201d in Venice CA, hit by one car and run over by another. A ubiquitous presence on TV game shows and talk shows since the 1950s, he was, I remember, my grandmother\u2019s favorite comedian \u2013 and mine, and millions of others.<\/p>\n
He was 91, so he had a long career, but of the most unconventional arc: stand-up comedy; live theater; motion pictures; TV series; community playhouses. He was a polymath \u2013 serious actor, too; author; raconteur. His movies included Anatomy of a Murder<\/em> and Being John Malkovich<\/em>. Stage: Never Too Late<\/em> and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter<\/em>? TV: hundreds of appearances on The Tonight Show<\/em> (a hundred as guest host for Johnny Carson), I\u2019ve Got a Secret<\/em>, What\u2019s My Line<\/em>, and To Tell The Truth<\/em>, also The Twilight Zone<\/em>, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman<\/em>, Desperate Housewives<\/em>, Two and a Half Men<\/em>, Modern Family<\/em>, and How I Met Your Mother<\/em>. Recordings: Charlie Brown in You\u2019re a Good Man, Charlie Brown<\/em> and Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in the 1977 and 1980 animated adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em>. Books: M@il for Mikey<\/em>. My contact came through his role as a founder of Sons of the Desert, the Laurel and Hardy appreciation society, whose other founders were friends.<\/p>\n He met his third wife, Wonder Years<\/em> actress Alley Mills, who played his love interest on Dr. Quinn<\/em>. Mills, 23 years his junior, and a former Buddhist and devout Christian, married him in 1993.<\/p>\n Orson\u2019s was an exceptional talent, taking him, and his fans, along a wildly unorthodox career. A Communist girlfriend got him blacklisted for a while. And when he turned conservative, he then was blacklisted by Hollywood leftists. The comparisons with his noted son-in-law Andrew Breitbart, the gonzo conservative, are eerie: both converts to conservatism, both died on streets \u2013 Andrew while walking his dog, it was reported, one night in 2012. Orson once said, \u201cIt\u2019s harder now to be an open conservative on a Hollywood set than it was back then to be a Communist.\u201d<\/p>\n But Orson Bean had another conversion. From a blacklisted actor to a familiar face; from obsessions with sex, alcohol, and drugs to being \u201cclean\u201d; from a trendy skeptic to a born-again Christian. His is a great story, one he recounted in the extremely engaging book, M@il for Mikey<\/em>.<\/p>\n Even his Christian-conversion story was not \u201cnormal.\u201d We hear many converts say that they developed an \u201cemptiness within,\u201d or created a \u201cvoid\u201d in their souls by their bad choices. Orson had a very different, and very unique, variation. Blue-ribbon theology, really, from this vaunted wit. From a column he wrote called \u201cAn Emptiness Only the Holy Spirit Can Fill\u201d (for one of the Breitbart sites!) he posited:<\/p>\n [When people have used up the temporary highs of sex and drugs and booze and fame and wealth,<\/em>] they\u2019re still left with a hole in the middle of them that the Creator stuck there, knowing that eventually they\u2019d feel the urge to fill it and do what they had to do to seek Him out<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, God PUTS this void, this longing, this emptiness, in us all\u2026 so that we will seek Him.<\/p>\n One of Orson Bean\u2019s revelations came through reading C S Lewis\u2019 Mere Christianity<\/em>. Another astounding exegetical book of the 20th century is John Stott\u2019s Basic Christianity<\/em>, a similar book of intellectual blessing, where he wrote, Every Christian should be both conservative and radical; conservative in preserving the faith, and radical in applying it<\/em>.<\/p>\n So was Jesus. Conservative and radical. And passionate enough to stick it to evil and sin and death, virtually climbing up on the dirty cross and die for us. Orson Bean was careful to specify Jesus Himself, as the answer to the \u201chole in the middle of us all.\u201d Not works or mystical gods or \u201cbeing spiritual,\u201d but Jesus. Oh, this rotten world: Jesus became such an important part of Orson Bean \u2013 a \u201chole\u201d that was filled in his life \u2013 yet very few newspaper stories about his death mentioned that.<\/p>\n Orson Bean\u2019s life should be an inspiration about self-awareness and using God\u2019s gifts. Among those gifts \u2013 or tools; weapons \u2013 can be humor. It’s “funny,” when all is said and done, how we can deliver, and embody, “serious” truths. Being a follower of Christ, and passionate about every serious part of salvation, does not preclude humor as a mode, or a way of life.<\/p>\n Being a follower of Jesus is supposed to be fun, after all; and it is fun. We will smile every minute of eternity when we enter Heaven\u2019s portals. And I hope Orson Bean will be one of the first smiling faces I see there.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n