Bean, Adelaide

Adelaide Bean was an actress, a journalist, and a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).

Bean grew up in Connecticut, in a small town between Hartford and New Britain. Her mother was a musician and her father was a business executive. She studied music and voice at the Oxford School in Hartford and graduated in 1928. At 16, she took on her first theatrical role playing piano for the traveling Jitney Players. By 18, she taught music at a private school in Sarasota, Florida. After two years of teaching, she decided to move to New York to focus on acting.

Adelaide Bean's first marriage was in 1934 to Richard Summey, who she later divorced. She had two children, Kate and Jan.

Bean's first big acting break in New York was a role in the original Broadway production of The Late Christopher Bean. She also described this show as the beginning of her political consciousness. The next year she acted in Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness and worked as Herman Shumlin's assistant on the original Broadway production of The Children's Hour. Shortly after, Bean produced the original Broadway production of Let Freedom Ring by Albert Barne, which depicted textile strikes in the South.

In 1935-1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Bean produced a play about Spain titled Who Fights This Battle with Joseph Losey as director and Kenneth White as writer. It was written and produced in ten days with 60 actors, at least 50 of which were earning a living through the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project. There were only three performances. She described the play as one of her first political memories.

From Who Fights This Battle came the Theatre Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, which eventually turned into the Theater Arts Committee (TAC). Adelaide Bean was TAC's executive secretary, and she produced the TAC Cabaret in 1938, which featured political works such as Joe Hill, Peat Bog Soldiers, and Strange Fruit. Performances took place at the Firehouse Theater, and proceeds of the Cabaret helped war relief in Spain. The TAC Cabaret was also influential in the creation of the Actors Front to Win the War, spurred on by Charlie Chaplin.

Bean joined the Communist Party in March of 1936, after her and many of her colleagues became involved in the rank and file movement of the Actors' Equity Association.

In 1943, Adelaide Bean married Robert Caille-Reed. Robert was also an actor and Communist Party member, and he was the organizer of the Cultural Section of the Party, which consisted of workers in music, theater, radio, and film.

During World War II, Bean was involved in Russian War Relief, which sent money, clothing, food, and medical supplies to the Soviet Union. She was also active in civic campaigns such as the Musicians Emergency Fund Relief and Stop Censorship.

After World War II ended, Adelaide Bean attended the General Electric strike in Schenectady with Robert and their children. Robert was the organizer of the strike. Actor Zero Mostel also attended the strike, where he announced that he would refuse the airing of a General Electric commercial that he was in.

Bean described feeling optimistic that the world may emerge victorious against fascism after WWII. Living in New York, she continued working on Stop Censorship, and on a petition to the United Nations to end genocide. She and Robert were also involved in the struggle and aftermath of the riots at Paul Robeson's Peekskill concert.

In the early 1950s, Adelaide's theater and television acting career was in full swing. She performed in many New York theaters, including the Pulitzer Prize Playhouse, Celanese Theater, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Firehouse Theater, and others. She portrayed Widda Machree in the world premiere of Sean O'Casey's Time to Go.

In 1953, Bean was blacklisted from the television industry. Another actor had cleared himself by saying that she tried to recruit him to the Communist Party. She moved to Chicago and worked odd jobs to make a living, including working at a small electrical parts shop, conducting interviews for market research, giving private music lessons, and acting in educational films for Encyclopedia Brittanica. During this time, she worked with Barrie Stavis on his play Joe Hill. She was also an acting member of the Resident Company of the Cherry County Playhouse in Traverse City, Michigan during the 1957 summer season.

In the early 1960s, Adelaide Bean wrote and produced Bless the Child, which premiered at Karamu Theatre in 1963. It was co-authored by Bernice Blohm and directed by Reuben Silver, with music by Irma Jurist. The play centers a group of women workers at a Chicago electrical parts factory.

Bean stayed in Chicago for 20 years, and it was there that her career in journalism began. She was co-editor of Labor Today from 1971-1974. Some of her volunteer work from this era includes her role as co-chair of the Midwest Artists for Peace Drama Committee, as well as her work on the Artists United Paul Robeson committee in the late 1960s.

In 1974, Communist Party chairman Gus Hall asked Bean to be the arts editor for the Communist Party's newspaper, The People's Daily World. She accepted his invitation and moved back to New York City, where she wrote for the World into the late 1980s and remained active in labor organizing and the Communist Party. Adelaide Bean passed away in 1999.