Roy Bean was born in Melbourne and educated at Melbourne Grammar School, from which he matriculated in 1937. After graduation and residency at the Launceston General Hospital, he then entered rural general practice and in 1948, was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Mildura Base Hospital. In 1950, he was employed as a Medical Officer at the Repatriation General Hospital in Concord, Sydney, and about this time moved to the Repatriation General Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria. He was appointed as a Specialist Physician in medicine at Heidelberg in 1951.

Roy was greatly influenced and encouraged by the eminent haematologist John Bolton. Consequently, he became one of the earliest practitioners of oncology and chemotherapy. He was the oncologist at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, having successfully instigated the specialist Oncology Unit there. He retired from hospital practice in 1981, and continued to practice oncology and pursue his research from his clinic in Dandenong until his death in 1991.

Roy had 29 publications, most of which were in the area of the chemotherapy of tumours. His views were both unconventional, and in some circumstances, ahead of his time. Roy was an indefatigable counter and recorder of data. He kept detailed and meticulous patient records, and was an early and avid student of computer technology. Analysis of this data led him to conclude in the 1970s, that the patient's immune response was critical to tumour progression. Similarly, he was much ahead of his time in recognising familial genetic influences in common tumours. This was the result of the meticulous recording and analysis of family histories on all his patients. These, and other views were documented in a book entitled 'The Nature And Management Of Cancer' published by his daughter, Nicky, in 1995.

Commencing in the early 1950s, Roy served in the Citizens Military Forces as an officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps, sometime second in command of 4 Field Ambulance. Roy lived and farmed at Wattle Glen. He also had property on Flinders Island and often navigated his small motorboat across Bass Straight to Flinders Island, single-handed and without modern navigation aids. Needless to say, he was a very keen fisherman. Roy was a unique individual who was capable of pursuing scientific truth in the face of concerted opposition from powerful individuals who were constrained by conventional thinking. He was a technocrat who was able to understand and harness new technology. This was best exemplified by his early mastery of computer programming when many clinicians had never seen a mini-computer. Although in many ways both eccentric and idiosyncratic, he was a loyal colleague, an original thinker and a genuine bon vivant.

Roy Bean was a short solidly built man, who from middle age had a shock of white hair which contrasted with his ruddy complexion. He had a most animated appearance. His wife Norni and children Kate, Jane, Nicky, Alison and Andrew survived him.