Orson Bean, 91, father in law of Andrew Breitbart

FPI / February 9, 2020

Actor-comedian Orson Bean died Friday in a traffic accident. He was 91-years-old.

Bean was the father of Susie Breitbart, the wife of the late Andrew Breitbart.

“The actor took it upon himself to become an intellectual mentor to his son-in-law, as well as a kindred spirit. Bean introduced Andrew Breitbart to conservative ideas and the two shared an irreverent sense of humor,” David Ng wrote for Breitbart on Feb. 8.

During an appearance on Sirius XM’s Patriot Forum last July Fourth weekend, Bean described how “God, America, and a Hollywood that once embraced both” saved his life and helped him find meaning in it, Breitbart’s Tony Lee noted.

Bean commented that the Hollywood of yesterday embraced patriotism and was never ashamed of it, and “without it he would have been forlorn and lost,” Lee wrote. “And without God, Bean may never have found happiness even with all of his professional and personal successes.”

The Hollywood movies of his youth gave him “a sense of America” and “what good guys were,” Bean said. They gave him hope, and the movies he loved showed him that “right was right and wrong was wrong” and that “right prevailed.”

“It saved my life,” Bean said. He credited “the Jews who came from Russia and formed Hollywood” for loving America “and the opportunity they were presented with” in this country, which was “reflected in their movies.”

As he succeeded in show business from New York to Hollywood, Bean recalled having made a vow that, “I will be happy some day.” He said he had plenty of highs due to great sex, drugs, rock and roll, fame, and even some politics. “It all worked for awhile” to make him happy, Bean said, but then “it just stopped working and became nothing.”

When he asked an acquaintance “what should I do?”, Bean said the man told him to thank God every morning and evening on his knees, and that could help him find happiness.

Bean said he got down on his knees in the evening and said, “if there’s anybody up there, thank you for the day.” He did that again the next morning.

“Little by little it stopped feeling foolish. I began to feel if my prayer was being heard… that whatever or whoever loved me,” Bean said. “And my life has gotten better and better,” Bean said. “That little prayer was what did it for me.”

On a previous edition of Breitbart News Sunday, Bean spoke about his experiences guest-hosting The Tonight Show “over a hundred times as a substitute for Jack Paar and Johnny Carson” while also being a guest on the program 96 times.

He recalled “a time when Americans were united by a common popular culture because everyone watched the same programs on the same three networks” while the late-night hosts “booked ‘raconteurs who told tales and were interesting’ and guests weren’t just ‘plugging the latest movies.' ”

Bean said that even religious and culturally conservative films that are not very good do well financially, and he emphasized that Hollywood and America would be better off if Hollywood were more capitalistic instead of hell-bent on pushing a liberal agenda that gleefully mocks conservatives and people of faith.

A supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, Bean said he became more conservative over the years even in Hollywood because the Democratic party he knew was leaving him.

“I don’t think I changed,” Bean said. “I think everything changed around me.”

Lee noted that Andrew Breitbart “knew perhaps better than anyone how much culture was upstream from politics. He spent his life fighting for a culture that embraced America and patriotism, which used to be bipartisan. Today, 60 percent of so-called ‘Solid Liberals,’ 69 percent of whom are white and 41% of whom are under the age of 40, are not proud to be Americans, according to a comprehensive Pew Research survey.”

Lee added the Breitbart, “who once was a fierce liberal, may never have been a conservative or built the foundation for his media empire had he not seen a Rush Limbaugh book in Bean’s library.”

“Take it home and read it, Andrew,” Bean recalled telling his son-in-law.

The rest is history.

Free Press International