And I read that Orson Bean’s father (or another close relative) was a founder of the ACLU,
The last guy I would expect to have any political connections of any kind.
From WIKI:
Bean was born Dallas Frederick Burrows in Burlington, Vermont, the son of Marian Ainsworth (née Pollard) and George Frederick Burrows. His father was a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, a fund-raiser for the Scottsboro Boys’ defense, and a 20-year member of the campus police of Harvard College.[1] Bean graduated from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a first cousin twice removed of Calvin Coolidge, who was President of the United States at the time of Bean’s birth.[2]