Orson Bean dies in a traffic accident: Ubiquitous 1960s TV comedian, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Desperate Housewives alum was 91

The New York Times

Bean was walking in the Venice area of Los Angeles Friday night when he was clipped by a car, causing him to fall in the street. Another car hit and killed him. "Early in his career, in the 1950s and ’60s, Mr. Bean, a subtle comic who looked like a naïve farm boy, was ubiquitous on TV," Robert D. McFadden writes in Bean's New York Times obituary. "He popped up on all the networks as an ad-libbing game-show panelist (a mainstay on To Tell the Truth), a frequent guest of Jack Paar and Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, a regular on drama anthology shows and, in 1954, the host of his own CBS variety show, The Blue Angel." In fact, Bean made 91 appearances on The Tonight Show between 1967 and 1991. In the 1990s, Bean starred in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as general store owner Loren Bray. He went on to appear in 23 episodes of Desperate Housewives as Roy Bender, the husband of Kathryn Joosten's Mrs. McCluskey. Bean's final TV appearance was just last month on Grace and Frankie.