Bean made frequent guest appearances on "The Tonight Show" (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson).
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. pg. 38. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
Blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.
Father-in-law of Andrew Breitbart. His wife is Susannah (Susie) Bean.
First cousin twice removed of Calvin Coolidge.
Founding member of 'Sons of the Desert,' a national organization dedicated to the memory and films of comedy team Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
He studied drama at HB Studios in Greenwich Village in New York City.
He was blacklisted in the 1950s.
His father George was the chief of the Harvard campus police.
His father made a surprise appearance on "To Tell the Truth" (1956).
In The Return of the King (1980) (TV), Bean voiced both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Sir 'Ian Holm' plays Bilbo, but has also played Frodo in the BBC radio version. So Bean and Holm have both played both parts.
On one "To Tell the Truth" (1956) episode in 1965, the panel was to try to guess which of three contestants was the police chief of Harvard University. The happily stunned Bean disqualified himself from the questioning as it was his own father.
Though blacklisted for his outspoken liberal views in the early 1950s, he had become an ardent supporter of Richard Nixon during the 1968 Presidential election year. Nixon had been a notorious "Red-Baiter" in the 1940s and '50s.
Was nominated for Broadway's 1962 Tony Award as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Musical) for "Subways Are for Sleeping."
Was the founder of the arts-oriented 15th Street School of New York.