Orson Welles

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) is considered not only one of the greatest directors of film but also that of the theatre, as well as a fine actor, screenwriter, broadcaster and producer. His first feature film, Citizen Kane (1941) and last Hollywood film Touch of Evil (1958) are both universally acknowledged as important steps in the history of cinema and widely cited by critics as among the best films ever made, while his various productions with the Mercury were considered revolutionary in the theatrical world.

Early career

Welles was born in 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He had an unusual childhood, being somewhat of a prodigy, and his personal relationships suffered as a result. His mother died when he was nine, and his father, Richard Head Welles, receded into the past, a drunkard.

Welles made his first plays while at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois and was brought under the guidance of the principal, Roger Hill, who became a surrogate father to Welles. The sometimes seen work Hearts of Age was made there while he was a student and also stars his first wife, Virginia Nicholson. He later made his stage debut at the famous Gate Theatre in Dublin, Ireland in 1931 when he talked himself onto the stage and appeared in small supporting roles, and by 1934 was a radio director/actor in the United States, working with some of the cast that later became the Mercury Theatre. In that year, he married the actress and socialite Virginia Nicholson. Welles drew a great deal of attention in 1937 with a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar set in Fascist Italy and a voodoo-themed version of Macbeth featuring a primarily African American cast. Shortly afterward, he and producer John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre company after they worked together on The Cradle Will Rock.

Welles began playing The Shadow in late 1937; his deep voice suited the role well. In the summer of 1938, Welles and the Mercury Theatre began weekly broadcasts of short radio plays based on classic or popular literary works. Their October 30 broadcast of that year was an adaptation of The War of the Worlds. This brought Welles his first public notoriety on a national level—the program created panic among some listeners who found it completely convincing. Welles's adaptation of H. G. Wells's classic novel simulated a news broadcast, cutting into a routine dance music program to describe the landing of Martian spacecraft in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. The innovative broadcast was realistic enough to frighten many in the audience into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. Recordings of the broadcast are still available (see old-time radio and also the UK Region 2 DVD of Citizen Kane). The publicity that resulted from this led to the offer of a three-picture Hollywood contract from RKO.

Welles in Hollywood

Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO, settling briefly on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness before ultimately rejecting it. RKOs budget projections made it impractical. In a display of his avant garde sensibility, Welles planned to film the action entirely from the protagonist's point of view. With his initial ideas bearing no fruit, Welles finally found a suitable project in an idea suggested by screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. Initially called American, it would eventually become Welles' first feature film, Citizen Kane (1941).

Welles was once again the centre of controversy with Citizen Kane. The gossip writer Louella Parsons convinced the yellow-press magnate, William Randolph Hearst, that he was the basis for Kane, with the result that Hearst's media empire boycotted the film. On its release, this event overshadowed the film's radical formal innovations. Welles is said to have sardonically remarked, concerning Hearst's attitude, that if he were to do a movie about the journalism magnate, the fact would be more grand and shockingly unbelievable than the fiction. This possibly apocryphal quote is uttered by Liev Schreiber (as Welles) in the 1999 TV movie RKO 281.

Welles' second film for RKO was the more traditional The Magnificent Ambersons, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington, and on which RKO executives hoped to make back the money lost by Citizen Kane's relative commercial failure.

Simultaneously, Welles worked with his Mercury Theatre fellows on a spy thriller, Journey Into Fear, which he co-wrote with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was also a producer. Direction was credited solely to Norman Foster, but the film contains several expressionistic sequences indicating input by Welles. Welles denied having directed the film, but the visual style is very similar to his credited works. Whatever the case, Welles played a major role in its production, but he expressed disappointment at the finished product.

During the production of Ambersons, Welles was asked to make a documentary film about South America on behalf of the U. S. Government. Welles left the United States to begin shooting this documentary after putting together the first rough cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, on the understanding that further editing decisions would be carried out via telegram. At this point RKO, in a perilous financial situation and fearing another commercial failure, wrested control of the film from Welles' Mercury Productions staff, cut over fifty minutes of footage, and added a reshot, upbeat ending: the cut footage, including Welles's original ending to the film, has been lost, apparently permanently. This event marked the beginning of a recurring pattern in Welles' Hollywood career of damaging executive interference. Ironically, Welles' South American documentary, entitled It's All True, never saw completion in Welles' lifetime. The surviving footage was released in 1993.

In 1946, International Pictures released The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young as well as Welles himself. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which gave Welles an opportunity to salvage—briefly—his reputation in Hollywood. A noir-ish suspense film about the hunt for a Nazi war criminal, The Stranger was Welles' only commercial success as a director. Welles supposedly made the film to prove that he could make a conventional picture within time and budget constraints. He followed The Stranger with another noir drama for Columbia Pictures, The Lady from Shanghai. Welles played the protagonist, while his second wife, Rita Hayworth, played one of the villains. Hayworth said of Orson Welles, "...a most brilliant auteur and lover. I just wish he hadn't become so fat. It affected his performance in movies and the bedroom." Like The Magnificent Ambersons, The Lady from Shanghai suffered heavy editing by its studio, with approximately an hour removed from Welles' final cut. The excised portions are believed to be lost permanently. Welles' notes for the film suggest that these portions would have aided audiences' comprehension of the story. Despite the editing, the theatrical cut still contains many examples of Welles' Expressionist film-making. Once released, the film was savaged by critics for its convoluted plot, and audiences disliked Hayworth as a villain. Welles' marriage to Hayworth—already troubled during filming—ended shortly after the production wrapped.

Welles changed studios once again, moving to Republic Pictures, a studio with a reputation for making B movies. The move marked a return to Shakespeare for Welles—he chose to direct and star in an idiosyncratic production of Macbeth. Working with a very limited budget, Welles fashioned a Macbeth that emphasized the darkness of the play's themes and characters. Unfortunately for Welles, the finished film once again proved unpalatable to the movie-going public.

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