Character actor Beans Morocco, another “oh, him!” familiar face, died on May 29. He was 91. Born Daniel Ernest Barrows, he got his start with The Committee, the famed San Francisco improv group. With his quirky looks (kind of like Wallace Shawn and Clint Howard had a baby), Morocco turned in wonderful (though usually small) character bits from 1971 through last year. His more memorable vehicles included Eating Raoul, Billy Jack, The Candidate, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Used Cars, Laverne & Shirley, The Fall Guy, Once Bitten, Growing Pains, Designing Women, Star Trek: Voyager, Scrubs, and the 1991 TV-movie What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (I taped that one, so I could run the scene of Lynn Redgrave kicking her sister Vanessa down the stairs, over and over again). “Beans was a shining example of maintaining youthful enthusiasm and spirit, regardless of age,” his friend Ronan Chris Murphy posted. “When a giant tree crushed my house in California, he was so excited about an idea he had to create a theatrical skit where he played the tree falling over on my house. I begged him not to. He did it anyway.”
