Beans Morocco, ‘Used Cars' and ‘Eating Raoul' Actor, Dies at 90
Beans Morocco, the comic character actor who showed up in everything from Blazing Saddles, Used Cars and Eating Raoul to episodes of Mork & Mindy, The Bob Newhart Show and Growing Pains, has died. He was 90.
Morocco died May 29 in Bakersfield, California, his friend Ryan Wise told The Hollywood Reporter. For his final film, he starred as an ex-con on his own after decades in the Federal Witness Protection Program in Killing Cookie (2024), a comedy that Wise wrote and directed.
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'He was always performing — always entertaining — and he made everyone feel good,' Wise said.
Going by birth name Dan Barrows until he adopted his quirky stage name in the late 1980s, the pint-sized actor also appeared in such other noteworthy films as Clint Eastwood's Any Which Way You Can (1980), Howard Storm's Once Bitten (1985), Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) and Rob Reiner's The American President (1995).
After he played one of the Rock Ridge townsfolk in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles (1974), he was a guy named Stanley Dewoski, who's lured by Kurt Russell's Rudy Russo to a lot across a dangerously busy street by a 10-dollar bill on a fishing line in Robert Zemeckis' Used Cars (1980).
He then donned a kids' jumpsuit to portray a guy looking for kinky sex from Mary Woronov's character — 'I've been very bad, haven't I, Mommy? Are you going to teach me a good lesson?' — in Paul Bartel's classic Eating Raoul (1982).
Daniel Ernest Barrows was born in Cincinnati on June 8, 1934. After graduating from Walnut Hills High School, he attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, then served in the U.S. Navy, where he became a pilot. (He would fly private planes for many years.)
In San Francisco, he studied comedy acting under Del Close, who brought him into The Committee, where he performed alongside the likes of Howard Hesseman, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Bonerz and Alan Myerson.
Barrows made his onscreen debut in Tom Laughlin's Billy Jack (1971) in a cast that included Myerson and Hesseman, then appeared in Michael Ritchie's The Candidate (1972) and on a 1973 first-season episode of The Bob Newhart Show, where his character needs therapy to deal with people treating him like a 'pipsqueak.' (Bonerz, of course, played an orthodontist on the sitcom.)
Also in 1973, Barrows had a role in Myerson's feature directorial debut, the comedy crime film Steelyard Blues, working alongside Donald Sutherland, Jane Fonda and Peter Boyle.
He participated in the Ritchie-helmed mockumentary Smile (1975) and in parody skits for Tunnel Vision (1976) and Loose Shoes (1978), then reunited with Myerson for Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988) and with Bonerz, now directing, for Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989).
When he learned that his friend, cartoonist M.K. Brown, had created a character named Beans Morocco for National Lampoon magazine, he asked her if he could use it.
By either name, he appeared on two episodes of Mork & Mindy and six of Growing Pains, and his vast TV résumé included guest spots on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Harry O; Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman; Hesseman's WKRP in Cincinnati; Eight Is Enough; Soap; Laverne & Shirley; The Fall Guy; Matlock; Star Trek: Voyager; Murphy Brown; Clueless; and, as the world's slowest grocery bagger, Scrubs.
He lived in Pine Mountain Club, California, where he performed in plays, rode his horses in parades, dressed as Santa for the kids and was elected honorary mayor. 'Unfortunately, he was quickly impeached … and convinced everyone to storm the gazebo. That was the joke he used to tell,' Wise recalled.
Survivors include his wife of more than 50 years, Diane; his sister, Nancy; and his cousins, Gail and William. His son, Justin, died in March 2024 at age 37.
Enjoy his work in his acting reel here.
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