Rowan Atkinson may have more than 50 acting credits on his resume,
but to most of the world he’ll always be best known as the ridiculously
rubber-faced Mr. Bean. today we are going to uncovered 10 things you might not know about Mr. Bean.
1. MR. BEAN BEGAN LIFE ON THE STAGE.
Though it was on January 1, 1990 that Mr. Bean
made his
television debut on England’s ITV, Rowan Atkinson began developing the
character more than a decade earlier, while he was pursuing his master’s
degree in electrical engineering. “I was asked in my first term at
Oxford to do a sketch in this one-night show at the Oxford Playhouse,
and I’d never written anything,” Atkinson recalls in
The Story of Mr. Bean, a feature on
The Whole Bean
DVD. “I’m not really naturally a writer, so I just had to invent sort
of 5 minutes of something at 48 hours’ notice. I just stood in front of
the mirror and started to mess about with my face. And this strange,
surreal, sort of non-speaking character evolved.
2. Mr. beaan has a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s College, Oxford.
After he received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering,
Atkinson continued studying for a master’s of science in the same field
at Queen’s College, Oxford in 1975. His course of study was the same as
his father who graduated from there in 1935. He was also made an
Honorary Fellow in 2006
3. Though in the beginning of his career Bean appeared
in several films and shows, he first rose to fame in the BBC comedy show
Not the Nine O’Clock News.
Not the Nine O’Clock News was a satirical sketch and show about
current news stories, pop culture, comedy sketches, and also contained
parody songs, re-edited videos, and spoof television formats. It made
use a lot of use of library clips, usually of politicians, royalty, and
celebrities. It was aired on BBC2 as a comic alternative to BBC’s Nine O’Clock News.
The show also featured and helped launch the careers of three other
comedians apart from Atkinson: Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith, and Griff
Rhys Jones.
4. ONLY 14 EPISODES WERE EVER PRODUCED.
Even the most dedicated fans have trouble reconciling the fact that only 14 Episodes of the live-action series ever produced. It did, of course, spawn two movies, an animated series ( which returned to british television), a video game and some books, including mr. bean's definitive and extremely marvelous guide to france.
5. ATKINSON WAS INSPIRED BY JACQUES TATI.
ver the years, Atkinson has repeatedly cited French comedian Jacques
Tati as one of the great influences on Mr. Bean. “My interest in
physical comedy was from discovering a film by Jacques Tati called Mr. Hulot’s Holiday,” Atkinson says in The Story of Bean. “It
just struck a chord with me. I so admired it, because it was an
uncompromising comic attitude and setting that I really admired.
6.mr. bean crashed his McLaren F1 twice and claimed £910,000 insurance for its repair, the highest ever recorded in Britain.
Atkinson bought his McLaren F1 in 1997 for around £540,000. After
crashing the car into a hedge in Oxfordshire in 2011, he
claimed £910,000 insurance for it. Unlike cars that have seen much use and damage, Atkinson’s McLaren F1
had seen a continued increase in its price after he put it up for sale
for £8 million. According to specialist car dealer company, Taylor and Crawley, the car
was sold for an undisclosed amount to a “British buyer who willdrive it like rowan did.
7. HE COULD HAVE BEEN NAMED AFTER ANOTHER VEGETABLE.
It wasn’t until shortly before Mr. Bean hit the airwaves (and after production had already begun) that the character actually got his name. originally, he was going to be called Mr. white. then the show's creators began throwing around some vegetable names, and considered Mr. cauliflower before deciding on Mr. Bean
8. During his prolific acting career, Atkinson earned a
significant amount of money. His current net worth is about £85 million
(approximately $130 million).
Atkinson’s net worth proves how successful an actor he is, considering he doesn’t have a very long list of filmography.
Mr. Bean and
Johnny English
are his highest earning works with a total gross income of $618 million
at the box office. In the recent years, he received $16 million from
his company Hindmeck. He also received more income in the form of his
McLaren F1’s sale at a market value of $12 million. He also owns several
properties in London and other countries
9. MR. BEAN’S CREATORS COULD NOT HAVE PREDICTED ITS SUCCESS.
When asked about Mr. Bean’s enduring appeal during a BBC World
Service radio interview earlier this year, executive producer Peter
Bennett-Jones said, “I don’t think anyone could have anticipated quite
how successful and long-lived it would be. Coming up to 25 years is an
extraordinary thought since we first went on air on January 1, 1990. Mr.
Bean’s been very good to us all, so we love Mr. Bean.
10 In 2013, he celebrated the 25th anniversary of Mr. Bean by riding his iconic mini around the Buckingham Palace in London.
The 25th anniversary sketch is similar to one of his previous episodes called
Do-It-Yourself Mr Bean.
In a similar fashion, as he did in that episode, Atkinson, sixty years
old by then, went to enjoy the sights around the Buckingham Palace as
Mr. Bean on his iconic car, a 1976 British Leyland Mini 1000. All of Mr.
Bean’s possessions were packed into the car and his chair tied to the
roof. He was accompanied by his favorite precious Teddy and posed with a
celebratory cake for the fans who had gathered around
Comments
Post a Comment