Some people connected to well-known public figures lead quietly accomplished lives just outside the spotlight. Carolyn Maxwell is one of them. She built her own career as an actress and custom fashion designer, married one of Broadway’s most recognizable entertainers, and raised three children who went on to carve out their own paths in entertainment and media.
This article covers who Carolyn Maxwell is, what she did professionally, her marriage to Orson Bean, and the family they built together.
Who Is Carolyn Maxwell?
Carolyn Maxwell is an American actress and fashion designer who was active primarily during the 1960s and 1970s. Based on available public records, she was born in 1945 in the United States. Beyond that, details such as her exact birth date, birthplace, parents, siblings, and early education are not part of the public record.
She is not a household name on her own. But she is a confirmed public figure with documented career credits and biographical records tied to her work and her marriage to Orson Bean. IMDb lists her as an actress under the alternate name “Carolyn Bean,” which reflects her married name during that period of her life.
One small note worth making: the name “Carolyn Maxwell” appears in several unrelated obituaries, genealogy databases, and professional profiles online. Those are different individuals. This article covers only the actress and fashion designer connected to Orson Bean.
Her Career as an Actress and Fashion Designer
Carolyn Maxwell is consistently described across sources as both an actress and a custom fashion designer. IMDb credits her as an actress, and a 1965 Time magazine milestone item publicly identified her as a “custom fashion designer” at the time of her marriage to Orson Bean. That contemporaneous mention is one of the clearest primary sources placing her career in a real historical moment.
The available public information leans more toward her fashion work than toward a detailed acting filmography. Specific film or television roles are not well documented in accessible sources, so it would not be accurate to describe her as a major Hollywood figure or to list credits that haven’t been confirmed.
What is clear is that she moved in creative circles during a period when Broadway, television, and New York fashion regularly overlapped. In the mid-1960s, it was not unusual for people working in theater and entertainment to also have connections to the fashion world. Carolyn Maxwell occupied that space — a working creative professional who was recognized publicly for her design work at the time she married one of New York’s more prominent entertainers.
Her Marriage to Orson Bean
Carolyn Maxwell was the second wife of Orson Bean, the American actor, comedian, writer, and game show personality. They married on October 3, 1965, in Manhattan. The marriage was noted in Time magazine’s “Milestones” column, which described her as a 24-year-old custom fashion designer and him as a “downbeat Broadway and TV funnyman.” She was 24 at the time; Bean was 36.
Their marriage lasted until 1981, when they divorced. Public sources do not offer details about the circumstances of the split, and this article won’t speculate about that.
A Little Background on Orson Bean
For readers who may not be familiar with him, Orson Bean was born Dallas Frederick Burrows on July 22, 1928, in Burlington, Vermont. He built a long and varied career across theater, television, and film. He was well known for his Broadway work, including productions like Never Too Late, and he became a familiar face on television game shows, most notably To Tell the Truth.
Bean was married three times in total. His first marriage was to actress Jacqueline de Sibour, also known as Rain Winslow, from 1956 to 1962. His second marriage was to Carolyn Maxwell, from 1965 to 1981. He later married actress Alley Mills in 1993, and they remained together until his death.
His first wife came from a notable background — she was the daughter of a French nobleman and granddaughter of British department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge — which gives some sense of the high-profile social world that surrounded this family during those years.
Their Children and Family Overview
Carolyn Maxwell and Orson Bean had three children together: Max Bean, Susannah Bean, and Ezekiel Bean, who goes by Zeke. This is confirmed across multiple sources including IMDb, NaijaNews, StarTwo, and the Mark Goodson Fandom wiki.
Orson Bean also had a fourth child, Michele Bean (later Michele Bean Atlan), from his first marriage to Jacqueline de Sibour. Michele is not Carolyn’s child, but she is sometimes listed alongside Carolyn’s three children in broader family summaries about Orson Bean.
Susannah Bean and Andrew Breitbart
One reason some readers search for Carolyn Maxwell is her connection — through family — to Andrew Breitbart, the conservative commentator and media figure who founded Breitbart News. Carolyn’s daughter Susannah Bean married Andrew Breitbart in 1997, making Carolyn his mother-in-law.
This is a familial connection, not a professional one. There is no public record suggesting Carolyn Maxwell had any involvement in Breitbart’s media work. But it does help explain why her name sometimes comes up in searches tied to political media or the Breitbart family.
The connection is a good example of how entertainment families can branch out in unexpected directions across generations. Orson Bean built his name on Broadway and television. His daughter married one of the more prominent figures in early 21st-century political media. Carolyn Maxwell sits at the center of that family branch as the mother who raised those children during her years with Bean.
Life After the Divorce
After Carolyn Maxwell and Orson Bean divorced in 1981, she largely stepped away from the public eye. Based on available records, she has not remarried publicly. Sources that cover her biography note that she has chosen to keep her personal life private, and there is no substantial public record of her activities in the decades since the divorce.
This kind of quiet life after a high-profile marriage is not unusual. Some people connected to famous figures prefer to stay out of the media, and Carolyn Maxwell appears to be one of them. What is documented — her career, her marriage, and her children — tells a reasonably complete story even without a constant public presence.
For readers interested in learning more about the broader world of celebrity families and the people who shape them behind the scenes, Firstbusinesspoint covers a range of topics on public figures and family histories.
A Quick Note on Identifying the Right Carolyn Maxwell
Because “Carolyn Maxwell” is a fairly common name, it appears in a number of unrelated online records. There is a Carolyn Maxwell in a Maine obituary, another in Texas genealogy databases, and a professional genealogist in Houston with the same name. None of these are the same person as the actress and fashion designer discussed here.
If you’re researching the Carolyn Maxwell connected to Orson Bean, the key identifiers are her birth year of approximately 1945, her marriage to Orson Bean on October 3, 1965, and her listing on IMDb under the alternate name “Carolyn Bean.”
Summary
Carolyn Maxwell is an American actress and custom fashion designer who was publicly active during the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known in public records as the second wife of Orson Bean, the actor and entertainer, whom she married in 1965 and divorced in 1981. Together they had three children: Max, Susannah, and Ezekiel Bean.
Her daughter Susannah’s marriage to Andrew Breitbart in 1997 extended the family’s reach into political media, though Carolyn’s own connection to that world is purely personal. Since her divorce, she has maintained a private life, and detailed public information about her later years is not available.
She may not be a household name, but Carolyn Maxwell is a real and documented figure — a working creative professional who played a meaningful role in the life of one of American entertainment’s more colorful personalities, and in the lives of the children they raised together.
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