Quotes from Orson Bean

I paid a price for being on game shows and that was not being taken seriously. But so what? I did what I did and I was glad. But it's a strange form of immortality.

What is it with me? I seem to be an incorrigible black-listee.

My father was an odd stick. He was a member of MENSA and he was a uniformed yard cop for the Harvard police.

I was blacklisted and overnight my TV appearances dried up. Ed Sullivan called to cancel my appearance and said he'd help me when he could, and a year later he did. Only a few wackos wanted the blacklist. It was a protection racket.

In New Jersey, judges have ruled that a same-sex couple or a single person applying to adopt must be given the same place in line as a married man and woman. I think that's bad for kids. This makes me homophobic? I'm in show business. Half the people in my life are gay.

Young actors ask me for advice. They say, 'Should I get an agent?' I tell them, 'Don't worry about that. Act, act, act. Get into that production of 'The Three Sisters' in a church basement. Consider every audition a chance to act, even if it's just for three minutes. Just do it whenever and wherever you can.'

It's wrong to make a living off the theater. Theater should be supported, like redwood trees. You should make your living - whether you're a writer or an actor or a director - in movies or commercials. But you do theater out of love.

TV and film are always slipping in political messages, not ones designed to bring us together but to divide us.

You know when I was a kid, I hated every day I was in school, from the kindergarten right through to my last day of high school.

One night in a club in Boston, I tried the name Roger Duck. No laughs. The next night, I tried Orson Bean, putting together a pompous first name and a silly second name. I got laughs, so I decided to keep it.

I think it was a miracle that Trump got elected.

Miracles aren't necessarily good for everyone. The parting of the Red Sea, great for the Jews, not so hot for the Egyptian soldiers.

The nineteen fifties was a time of tumultuous change.

I think America was a miracle. I think God loves this country.

I love Spike Jonze. He's brilliant.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have an empty spot at the center of him, which must be filled in order to be really happy. That spot, like it or not, is reserved for God.

I grew up on Harvard Square and I watched 50-year old men walking around with green book bags slung over their shoulders going for their fourth PhD, never having left the world of academia to alleged reality.

Left-wingers and right-wingers come together when they become extreme enough. The Nazi Party was called National Socialism, very similar to Stalin's Communism, with the addition of 'the Fatherland.'

A lot of people didn't know I was doing Broadway. They thought I was one of those guys who was famous for being famous. I was the one who sat next to Charles Nelson Reilly and said funny things.

My grandfather lived in New England all his life and was a Vermonter.

I'm greedy for experience. I keep finding new things.

Whatever else it was about, the feminist movement had no interest in exploding the myth of the mysterious and wonderful world of business; it simply wanted in on it.

What do women want? A guy they can't drive crazy. There aren't many around. But they try. They can't help it, it's their nature.

God is being siphoned out of the public arena. People don't even say God bless you when you sneeze anymore. I want to be able to lay a Merry Christmas on someone without its feeling like a political statement.