Alley Mills has opened up about the night her husband, veteran actor Orson Bean, died in a 2020 traffic collision, saying she remained beside him at the scene for four hours while authorities completed their work.
Mills, best known for playing Norma Arnold on The Wonder Years, shared the account during the August 21 episode of The Mark Joseph Show. She said authorities erected a tent around her and Bean because news helicopters were circling overhead, allowing her to stay with him after the collision.
Mills also recalled trying to revive Bean before later learning that he had died instantly. A doctor who performed his autopsy subsequently contacted her and assured her that her husband had not suffered, information she said relieved “an enormous amount of pain.”
Bean was 91 when he died on February 7, 2020. More than six years later, Mills said she has had to adjust to what she calls “a new life” without the person she considered her best friend and closest companion.
Mills Says She Held Bean at the Scene for Four Hours
Mills said she was volunteering as an usher at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, on the night Bean died. She recalled that he had gone across the street while she was at the theater and that she heard tires screech before running outside.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Bean was crossing Venice Boulevard near the theater at about 7:30 p.m. when a Honda Civic clipped him and knocked him down. A Toyota Prius then struck him in what police described as the fatal second collision.
Both drivers remained at the scene. Police said Bean had been crossing outside a marked crosswalk, and authorities treated his death as an accident. Mills had been ushering that night’s scheduled performance of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, which the theater canceled after the collision.
Mills recalled reaching Bean and initially believing she could still feel signs of life. She attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before realizing he could not be revived. “They put a tent over me because there were a lot of helicopters overhead and everything, and they let me hold him for four hours,” Mills said.
The Autopsy Gave Mills an Answer She Desperately Needed
What Mills saw that night initially left her uncertain about whether Bean had suffered before his death. She said the doctor who performed Bean’s autopsy later contacted her specifically to address that fear.
According to Mills, the doctor told her Bean “was totally killed on impact” and “did not suffer at all.” “He had a great life, and he died instantly,” Mills said. “It was just brutal to see, but it wasn’t brutal for him. And that’s what really mattered to me.”
Mills could not erase what she had witnessed, but knowing that Bean had not consciously experienced the injuries gave her some relief. “It relieved an enormous amount of pain for me to know that he hadn’t suffered,” she said.
Bean Spoke to Her About a ‘Guardian Angel’ That Morning
Mills also connected that reassurance to an unusual conversation she said she and Bean had on the morning of his death. She recalled Bean waking her at about 6 a.m., bringing her coffee in bed and insisting that she listen to something important. For more than a year, she said, Bean had talked about feeling as though he had a guardian angel.
That morning, however, Mills said he turned the idea toward her. “You have a guardian angel, too,” she remembered him telling her. She said someone later reminded her of the conversation while she was sitting with Bean at the scene. Mills said she felt as though she had watched Bean “almost transition” in front of her eyes and that remembering his words helped soften some of what followed.
Mills and Bean Had Been Married for Nearly 27 Years
Mills met Bean through her Wonder Years husband Dan Lauria, who played Jack Arnold opposite her Norma Arnold. The Los Angeles Times obituary reported that the two actors met during an evening of play readings organized for new writers. Mills and Bean married in April 1993 and remained together until his death nearly 27 years later.
Their relationship extended into their professional lives. Both became important members of Venice’s small-theater community and were closely associated with Pacific Resident Theatre, where they served on the board and appeared in productions.
Bean’s career stretched back to the 1950s. He became a familiar television personality through game shows including To Tell the Truth, appeared frequently on The Tonight Show and built an extensive acting career that included Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Being John Malkovich, Desperate Housewives and Modern Family.
Life Without Bean Has Not Felt Like ‘Recovery’
When Mark Joseph asked Mills about recovering from Bean’s death, she pushed back on the idea that recovery was the right way to describe what happened afterward. “It’s a new life,” she said.
Bean had encouraged her not to spend their marriage imagining what she would eventually do without him, Mills recalled. Because he was 23 years older, his death was a possibility they could have spent years anticipating, but she said he specifically did not want her to live that way.
Mills followed his advice. The consequence was that when his death came suddenly, she had never constructed a version of her future without him. “It was such a shock that suddenly he just wasn’t here,” she said. “You know, my best friend, my intimate partner that I talked about everything with.”
Six years later, one of the absences she still notices most is having no one with whom she can discuss the things happening around her. “The world right now is so crazy,” Mills said, “and I don’t have him to talk about it with.”
Returning to Acting Became Part of Building That New Life
Mills did not immediately throw herself back into acting after Bean’s death. She later said that the first job she found herself able to accept was an Off-Broadway production of Paul Osborn’s Morning’s at Seven. Dan Lauria called after another actress left the production, forcing Mills to travel quickly from Los Angeles to New York and step into the role with very little preparation.
Mills told Soap Hub in 2022 that he had performed several plays in the same theater and that returning to New York made her feel as though he was encouraging her back into the world. “I felt like Orson was with me,” she said. “It was as if he was urging me to do it.”
She later joined General Hospital as Heather Webber, another role she said instinctively felt right after turning down other opportunities. The performance earned Mills the 2023 Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Guest Performance in a Drama Series.