Early career (1931–1935) , traveling by donkey cart (1931). After his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe using a portion of his inheritance. Welles said that while on a walking and painting trip through Ireland, he strode into the
Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of the Gate,
Hilton Edwards, later said he had not believed Welles but was impressed by his brashness and an impassioned audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate Theatre on October 13, 1931, appearing in
Ashley Dukes's adaptation of
Jud Süß as Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg. He performed supporting roles in Gate productions, and produced and designed productions of his own. In March 1932, Welles performed in
W. Somerset Maugham's
The Circle at Dublin's
Abbey Theatre and traveled to London to find work in the theatre. Unable to obtain a work permit, he returned to the U.S. for the first three volumes, and subsequently,
The Mercury Shakespeare. In spring 1933, Welles traveled via the
SS Exermont, a tramp steamer, writing the introduction for the books while onboard. After landing at Morocco, he stayed as the guest of
Thami El Glaoui, in the Atlas Mountains surrounding
Tangier, while working on thousands of illustrations for the ''Everybody's Shakespeare'' series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades. portable typewriter used by Welles in the 1930s and 1940s, displayed at the
National Museum of American History 's
1933–1934 transcontinental repertory tour, Welles's professional debut on the American stage In 1933, Hortense and Roger Hill invited Welles to a party in Chicago, where Welles met
Thornton Wilder. Wilder arranged for Welles to meet
Alexander Woollcott in New York so he could be introduced to
Katharine Cornell, who was assembling a
theatre company for a
seven-month transcontinental repertory tour. Cornell's husband, director
Guthrie McClintic, immediately put Welles under contract and cast him in three plays. in a civil ceremony in New York. To appease the Nicolsons, who were furious at the elopement, a formal ceremony took place December 23, 1934, at the New Jersey mansion of the bride's godmother. Welles wore a
cutaway borrowed from his friend
George Macready. The Broadway production brought the 19-year-old Welles to the notice of
John Houseman, a theatrical producer who was casting the lead in the debut production of one of
Archibald MacLeish's verse plays,
Panic. On March 22, 1935, Welles made his debut on the
CBS Radio series
The March of Time, performing a scene from
Panic for a news report on the stage production.
Theatre and radio stardom (1936–1940) File:Voodoo-Macbeth-Poster.jpg|
Macbeth (1936) File:Horse Eats Hat by Edwin Denby after Eugène Labiche.jpg|
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Faustus (1937) File:The Cradle Will Rock.jpg|
The Cradle Will Rock (1937) Part of the
Works Progress Administration, the
Federal Theatre Project (1935–39) was a
New Deal program to fund theatre and other live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the US during the
Great Depression. It was created as a
relief measure to employ artists, writers, directors and theatre workers. Under national director
Hallie Flanagan it was shaped into a national theatre that created relevant art, encouraged experimentation and innovation, and made it possible for millions of Americans to see live theatre for the first time. , left) with the Murderers in
Macbeth (1936)
John Houseman, director of the
Negro Theatre Unit in New York, invited Welles to join the Federal Theatre Project in 1935. Far from unemployed—"I was so employed I forgot how to sleep"—Welles put a large share of his $1,500-a-week radio earnings into his stage productions, bypassing administrative red tape and mounting the projects more quickly and professionally. "
Roosevelt once said that I was the only operator in history who ever illegally siphoned money
into a Washington project," Welles said. The company for the first production, an adaptation of Shakespeare's
Macbeth with an African-American cast, numbered 150. The production became known as the
Voodoo Macbeth because Welles changed the setting to a mythical island suggesting the Haitian court of King
Henri Christophe, with
Haitian vodou fulfilling the role of Scottish
witchcraft. The play opened April 14, 1936, at the
Lafayette Theatre in Harlem and was received rapturously. At 20, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. The production then made a 4,000-mile national tour that included two weeks at the
Texas Centennial Exposition that defied segregation laws. Simultaneously with his work in the theatre, Welles worked extensively in radio as an actor, writer, director, and producer, often without credit.'' (1936) Next mounted was the farce
Horse Eats Hat, an adaptation by Welles and
Edwin Denby of
The Italian Straw Hat, an 1851 five-act
farce by
Eugène Marin Labiche and
Marc-Michel. The play was presented September 26 – December 5, 1936, at
Maxine Elliott's Theatre, New York, It was followed by an adaptation of
Dr. Faustus that used light as a prime unifying scenic element in a nearly black stage, presented January 8 – May 9, 1937, at Maxine Elliott's Theatre. Outside the scope of the Federal Theatre Project, It was originally scheduled to open June 16, 1937, in its first public preview. Because of cutbacks in the WPA projects, the premiere at the
Maxine Elliott Theatre was canceled. The theater was locked, and guarded, to prevent any government-purchased materials from being used for a commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to
the Venice, 20 blocks away. Some cast, crew and audience, walked on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the Federal Theatre Project, and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking participation of the union members,
The Cradle Will Rock began with Blitzstein introducing it and playing the piano accompaniment on stage, with some cast members performing from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received. Breaking with the
Federal Theatre Project in 1937, Welles and Houseman founded a repertory company, called the Mercury Theatre. The name was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine
The American Mercury. Welles was executive producer, and the original company included such actors as
Joseph Cotten,
George Coulouris,
Geraldine Fitzgerald,
Arlene Francis,
Martin Gabel,
John Hoyt,
Norman Lloyd,
Vincent Price,
Stefan Schnabel and
Hiram Sherman. "I think he was the greatest directorial talent we've ever had in the [American] theater", Lloyd said of Welles in 2014. "When you saw a Welles production, you saw the text had been affected, the staging was remarkable, the sets were unusual, music, sound, lighting, a totality of everything. We had not had such a man in our theater. He was the first and remains the greatest." The Mercury Theatre opened November 11, 1937, with
Caesar, Welles's modern-dress adaptation of Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar—streamlined into an
anti-fascist tour de force that Joseph Cotten later described as "so vigorous, so contemporary that it set Broadway on its ear". "He staged it like a political melodrama that happened the night before," said Lloyd. He invented the use of narration in radio. Beginning January 1, 1938,
Caesar was performed in repertory with ''
The Shoemaker's Holiday; both productions moved to the larger National Theatre. They were followed by Heartbreak House (April 29, 1938) and Danton's Death'' (November 5, 1938). After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre,
CBS Radio invited Welles to create a summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938, with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Panic was reportedly spread among listeners who believed the fictional news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by
Adolf Hitler in a speech. Welles's growing fame drew
Hollywood offers, lures that the independent-minded Welles resisted at first.
The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which had been a sustaining show (without sponsorship), was picked up by
Campbell Soup and renamed
The Campbell Playhouse.
The Mercury Theatre on the Air made its last broadcast on December 4, 1938, and
The Campbell Playhouse began five days later. Welles began commuting from California to New York for the Sunday broadcasts of
The Campbell Playhouse after signing a film contract with
RKO Pictures in August 1939. In November, production of the show moved to Los Angeles. Welles conceived the project with screenwriter
Herman J. Mankiewicz, who was writing radio plays for
The Campbell Playhouse. Mankiewicz based the original outline of the film script on the life of
William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew and came to hate after being exiled from Hearst's circle. After agreeing on the storyline and character, Welles supplied Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes and put him under contract to write the first-draft screenplay under the supervision of
John Houseman. Welles wrote his own draft, Toland explained their use of deep (or pan) focus: Through its use, it is possible to photograph action from a range of eighteen inches from the camera lens to over two hundred feet away, with extreme foreground and background figures and action both recorded in sharp relief. Hitherto, the camera had to be focused either for a close or a distant shot, all efforts to encompass both at the same time resulting in one or the other being out of focus. This handicap necessitated the breaking up of a scene into long and short angles, with much consequent loss of realism. With pan-focus, the camera, like the human eye, sees an entire panorama at once, with everything clear and lifelike. Welles called Toland "the greatest gift any director—young or old—could ever, ever have. And he never tried to impress on us that he was performing miracles. He just went ahead and performed them. I was calling on him to do things only a beginner could be ignorant enough to think anybody could ever do, and there he was,
doing them." When asked why he and Toland used deep focus, Welles explained: "Well, in life you see everything in focus at the same time, so why not in the movies?" Filming
Citizen Kane took ten weeks.
Variety reported that block voting by extras deprived
Citizen Kane of Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor (Welles), and similar prejudices were likely to have been responsible for the film receiving no technical awards.
Cecelia Ager, in
PM Magazine, wrote: "Before
Citizen Kane, it's as if the motion picture were a slumbering monster, a mighty force stupidly sleeping, lying there...awaiting a fierce young man to come kick it to life, to rouse it, shake it, awaken it to its potentialities ... Seeing it, it's as if you never really saw a movie before." The delay in the film's release and uneven distribution contributed to mediocre results at the box office. After it ran its course theatrically,
Citizen Kane was retired to the vault in 1942. In France, however, its reputation grew after it was seen there for the first time in 1946.
Citizen Kane is now widely hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. From 1962 to 2012, it topped the decennial
Sight and Sound poll of the Greatest Films of All Time.
The Magnificent Ambersons '' (1942) "The fate of
The Magnificent Ambersons is one of film history's great tragedies," wrote film historian Robert L. Carringer. It was Welles's second film for RKO, adapted by Welles from
Booth Tarkington's
Pulitzer Prize-winning
1918 novel about the declining fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family and the
social changes brought by the automobile age. Toland was unavailable, so
Stanley Cortez was named cinematographer. The meticulous Cortez worked slowly and the film lagged behind schedule and over budget. In contract renegotiations with RKO over a film he was obliged to direct, Welles had conceded final cut.
The Magnificent Ambersons was in production October 28, 1941, to January 22, 1942, with a cast including Cotten, Collins, Moorehead,
Dolores Costello,
Anne Baxter and
Tim Holt. February 2, flew to Washington, D.C., for a briefing, and then lashed together a rough cut of
Ambersons in Miami with editor
Robert Wise. Even in its released form,
The Magnificent Ambersons is considered one of the best films of all time. The film was nominated for four
Academy Awards, including
Best Picture, and added to the
National Film Registry in 1991.
Journey into Fear At RKO's request, Welles worked on an adaptation of
Eric Ambler's spy thriller
Journey into Fear, co-written with Cotten. In addition to acting in it, Welles was the producer. Direction was credited to
Norman Foster. Welles later said they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was determined by whoever was closest to the camera.
''It's All True'' , Brazil, while filming the "Jangadeiros" section of the unfinished film ''
It's All True'' , Rio de Janeiro, in early 1942 In July 1941, Welles conceived ''
It's All True as an omnibus film mixing documentary and docufiction in a project that emphasized the dignity of labor and celebrated the cultural and ethnic diversity of North America. It was to have been his third film for RKO, following Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942).
Duke Ellington was put under contract to score a segment with the working title, "The Story of Jazz", drawn from
Louis Armstrong's 1936 autobiography,
Swing That Music. Armstrong was cast to play himself in the dramatization of the history of jazz performance, from its roots to its place in American culture. In South America, Welles requested resources to finish ''It's All True''. Given a limited amount of black-and-white film stock and a silent camera, he was able to finish shooting the episode about the
jangadeiros, but RKO refused to support further production. "So I was fired from RKO," Welles recalled. "And they made a great publicity point of the fact that I had gone to South America without a script and thrown all this money away. I never recovered from that attack." Later in 1942, when RKO Pictures began promoting its new corporate motto, "Showmanship In Place of Genius: A New Deal at RKO", Welles understood it as a reference to him. he produced and emceed the first two hours of a seven-hour coast-to-coast
War Bond drive broadcast titled
I Pledge America. Airing August 29, 1942, on the
Blue Network, the program was presented in cooperation with the
United States Department of the Treasury,
Western Union and the
American Women's Voluntary Services. Featuring 21 dance bands and a score of stage and screen and radio stars, the broadcast raised more than $10 million—more than $146 million today—for the war effort. On October 12, 1942,
Cavalcade of America presented Welles's radio play,
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, an entertaining and factual look at the legend of
Christopher Columbus. "It belongs to a period when hemispheric unity was a crucial matter and many programs were being devoted to the common heritage of the Americas," wrote broadcasting historian
Erik Barnouw. "Many such programs were being translated into Spanish and Portuguese and broadcast to Latin America, to counteract many years of successful Axis propaganda to that area. The Axis, trying to stir Latin America against Anglo-America, had constantly emphasized the differences between the two. It became the job of American radio to emphasize their common experience and essential unity."
Admiral of the Ocean Sea, also known as
Columbus Day, begins with the words, "Hello Americans"—the title Welles would choose for his own series five weeks later. The series was produced concurrently with Welles's other CBS series,
Ceiling Unlimited (November 9, 1942 – February 1, 1943), sponsored by the
Lockheed-
Vega Corporation. The program was conceived to glorify the aviation industry and dramatize its role in World War II. Welles's shows were regarded as significant contributions to the war effort. and invested $40,000 in an extravaganza he co-produced with his friend Cotten:
The Mercury Wonder Show for Service Men. Members of the armed forces were admitted free of charge, while the public had to pay. He had been publicly hounded about his patriotism since
Citizen Kane, when the Hearst press began persistent inquiries about why Welles had not been drafted. took a lunch-hour break from the set of
Cover Girl to marry Welles, with best man Cotten (September 7, 1943). located at 900
Cahuenga Boulevard, in the heart of Hollywood. At intermission on September 7, 1943,
KMPC radio interviewed audience and cast members of
The Mercury Wonder Show—including Welles and
Rita Hayworth, who were married earlier that day. Welles remarked that
The Mercury Wonder Show had been performed for 48,000 members of the armed forces. A half-hour variety show broadcast January 26 – July 19, 1944, on the Columbia Pacific Network,
The Orson Welles Almanac presented sketch comedy, magic, mindreading, music and readings from classic works. Many of the shows originated on U.S. military camps, where Welles and his repertory company and guests entertained the troops with a reduced version of
The Mercury Wonder Show. The performances of the
all-star jazz group Welles brought together for the show were so popular that the band became a regular feature and was an important force in reviving interest in
traditional New Orleans jazz. Welles was placed on the U.S. Treasury payroll on May 15, 1944, as an expert consultant for the duration of the war, with a retainer of $1 a year. On the recommendation of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretary of the Treasury
Henry Morgenthau asked Welles to lead the Fifth War Loan Drive, which opened June 12 with a radio show on all four networks, broadcast from Texarkana, Texas. Including a statement by the President, the program defined the causes of the war and encouraged Americans to buy $16 billion in
bonds to finance the
Normandy landings. Welles produced additional war loan drive broadcasts on June 14 from the
Hollywood Bowl, and June 16 from
Soldier Field, Chicago. at a
Madison Square Garden rally advocating a fourth term for President Franklin D. Roosevelt (September 21, 1944). Welles campaigned for the Roosevelt–Truman ticket almost full-time in the fall of 1944, traveling to nearly every state and took part in a historic election-eve campaign broadcast November 6 on all four radio networks. On November 21, 1944, Welles began his association with
This Is My Best, a CBS radio series he would produce, direct, write and host (March 13 – April 24, 1945). He wrote a political column called ''Orson Welles' Almanac
(later titled Orson Welles Today
) for The New York Post'' January–November 1945, and advocated the continuation of FDR's New Deal policies and international vision, particularly the establishment of the UN and world peace. Welles spoke at 10:10 p.m., Eastern War Time, from Hollywood, and stressed the importance of continuing FDR's work: "He has no need for homage and we who loved him have no time for tears ... Our fighting sons and brothers cannot pause tonight to mark the death of him whose name will be given to the age we live in." Welles presented another special broadcast on the evening following Roosevelt's death: "We must move on beyond mere death to that free world which was the hope and labor of his life."
The Stranger '' (October 1945) In the fall of 1945 Welles began work on
The Stranger (1946), a
film noir drama about a war crimes investigator who tracks a high-ranking Nazi fugitive to an idyllic
New England town.
Edward G. Robinson,
Loretta Young and Welles star. Producer
Sam Spiegel initially planned to hire director
John Huston, who had rewritten the screenplay by
Anthony Veiller. When Huston entered the military, Welles was given the chance to direct and prove himself able to make a film on schedule and under budget He worked on the general rewrite of the script and wrote scenes at the beginning of the picture shot, but cut by producers. Welles had seen the footage in early May 1945 as a correspondent and discussion moderator at the UN Conference on International Organization. Within weeks of the completion of the film, International Pictures backed out of its promised four-picture deal with Welles. No reason was given, but the impression was left that
The Stranger would not make money. Inspired by magician and cinema pioneer
Georges Méliès, the show required 55 stagehands and used films to bridge scenes. Welles said it was his favorite of his stage productions. Regarding its extravagance, critic Robert Garland said it had "everything but the kitchen sink." The next night, Welles brought out a kitchen sink.
Third return to radio In 1946, Welles began two new radio series—
The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air for CBS, and
Orson Welles Commentaries for ABC. While
Mercury Summer Theatre featured half-hour adaptations of some classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his
Around the World stage play, and is the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play.
Commentaries was a political vehicle, continuing the themes from his
New York Post column. Again, Welles lacked a clear focus, until the
NAACP brought to his attention the case of
Isaac Woodard. Welles brought significant attention to Woodard's cause. The last broadcast of
Orson Welles Commentaries on October 6, 1946, marked the end of Welles's own radio shows.
Macbeth in
Macbeth Prior to 1948, Welles convinced
Republic Pictures to let him direct a
low-budget version of
Macbeth, featuring highly stylized sets and costumes, and a cast of actors lip-syncing to a pre-recorded soundtrack, one of many innovative cost-cutting techniques Welles deployed in an attempt to make an epic film from
B-movie resources. The script, adapted by Welles, is a violent reworking of Shakespeare's original, freely cutting and pasting lines into new contexts via a
collage technique and recasting
Macbeth as a clash of pagan and proto-Christian ideologies. Some voodoo trappings of the famous
Welles/Houseman Negro Theatre stage adaptation are visible, especially in the film's characterization of the
Weird Sisters, who create an effigy of Macbeth as a charm to enchant him. Of all Welles's post-
Kane Hollywood productions,
Macbeth is stylistically closest to
Kane in its long takes and deep focus photography. Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents and held up general release for a year after early negative press reaction, including
Lifes comment that Welles's film "doth foully slaughter Shakespeare." Welles left for Europe, while co-producer and lifelong supporter
Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles returned and cut 20 minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover gaps. The film was decried as a disaster.
Macbeth had influential fans in Europe, especially the French poet and filmmaker
Jean Cocteau, who hailed the film's "crude, irreverent power" and careful shot design, and described the characters as haunting "the corridors of some dreamlike subway, an abandoned coal mine, and ruined cellars oozing with water."
Early work in Europe (1948–1956) In Italy he starred as
Cagliostro in the 1949 film
Black Magic. His co-star,
Akim Tamiroff, impressed Welles so much that Tamiroff would appear in four of Welles's productions during the 1950s and 60s. The following year, Welles starred as Harry Lime in
Carol Reed's
The Third Man, alongside Cotten, his friend and co-star from
Citizen Kane, with a script by
Graham Greene and a memorable score by
Anton Karas. In it, Welles makes what
Roger Ebert called "the most famous entrance in the movies, and one of the most famous speeches." Greene credited the speech to Welles. Radio producer
Harry Alan Towers would resurrect Lime in the radio series
The Adventures of Harry Lime. Welles appeared as
Cesare Borgia in the 1949 Italian film
Prince of Foxes, with
Tyrone Power and Mercury Theatre alumnus
Everett Sloane, and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in the 1950 film version of the novel
The Black Rose.
Othello in
Othello (1951) During this time, Welles was channeling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's
Othello. From 1949 to 1951, Welles worked on
Othello, filming on location in Italy and Morocco. The film featured Welles's friends
Micheál Mac Liammóir as
Iago and
Hilton Edwards as
Desdemona's father
Brabantio.
Suzanne Cloutier starred as Desdemona and
Campbell Playhouse alumnus
Robert Coote appeared as Iago's associate Roderigo. Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left for acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's memoir
Put Money in Thy Purse. The American release prints had a technically flawed soundtrack, suffering from a dropout of sound at every quiet moment. Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith, restored
Othello in 1992 for a re-release. The restoration included reconstructing
Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original score, which was originally inaudible, and adding ambient stereo sound effects, which were not in the original. The restoration went on a successful theatrical run in America.
David Thomson writes of Welles's
Othello, "the poetry hangs in the air, like sea mist or incense."
Anthony Lane writes that "Some of the action was shot in Venice, and I occasionally wonder what crept into the camera casing; the movie looks blackened and silvery, like an aged mirror, or as if the emulsion of the print were already poised to decay. You can't tell what is or isn't Shakespeare, where his influence begins and ends." The movie premiered at the
Cannes Film Festival, where it won the
Grand Prix (precursor of the
Palme d'Or). In 1952, Welles continued finding work in England after the success of the
Harry Lime radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series,
The Black Museum, which ran a year with Welles as host and narrator. Director Herbert Wilcox offered Welles the part of the victim in ''
Trent's Last Case'', based on
Edmund Clerihew Bentley's
novel. In 1953, the
BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from
Walt Whitman's
Song of Myself. Towers hired Welles again, to play
Professor Moriarty in the radio series
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring
John Gielgud and
Ralph Richardson. Welles briefly returned to America to make his first appearance on television, starring in the
Omnibus presentation of
King Lear, broadcast live on
CBS October 18, 1953. Directed by
Peter Brook, the production costarred
Natasha Parry,
Beatrice Straight and
Arnold Moss. In 1954, director George More O'Ferrall offered Welles the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of
Three Cases of Murder, co-starring
Alan Badel.
Herbert Wilcox cast Welles as the antagonist in
Trouble in the Glen opposite
Margaret Lockwood,
Forrest Tucker and
Victor McLaglen. Old friend
John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in his
1956 film adaptation of
Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick, starring
Gregory Peck.
Mr. Arkadin Welles's next turn as director was
Mr. Arkadin (1955), which was produced by his political mentor from the 1940s,
Louis Dolivet. It was filmed in France, Germany, Spain and Italy on a limited budget. Based loosely on episodes of the Harry Lime radio show, it stars Welles as a billionaire who hires a man to delve into the secrets of his past. The film stars
Robert Arden, who had worked on the Lime series; Welles's third wife,
Paola Mori, whose voice was dubbed by actress
Billie Whitelaw; and guest stars
Akim Tamiroff,
Michael Redgrave,
Katina Paxinou and
Mischa Auer. Frustrated by his slow progress in the editing room, producer Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished it without him. Eventually, five different versions of the film would be released, two in Spanish and three in English. The version that Dolivet completed was retitled
Confidential Report. In 2005 Stefan Droessler of the
Munich Film Museum oversaw a reconstruction of the surviving film elements.
Television projects In 1955, Welles directed two television series for the BBC. The first was ''
Orson Welles' Sketch Book, six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences including the filming of It's All True
and the Isaac Woodard case. The second was Around the World with Orson Welles'', six travelogues set in locations around Europe (such as
Vienna, the
Basque Country, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his observations (a technique he would continue to explore in later works). During Episode 3 of
Sketchbook, Welles attacks abuse of police powers around the world. The episode starts with him telling the story of
Isaac Woodard, an African-American veteran during World War II being falsely accused by a bus driver of being drunk and disorderly, who has a policeman remove the man from the bus. Woodard is not arrested right away, but beaten unconscious nearly to death and permanently blinded. Welles assures the audience that he saw to it that justice was served to the policeman though he does not mention what justice was delivered. Welles goes on to give other examples of police being given more power and authority than is necessary. The episode is titled "The Police". In 1956, Welles completed
Portrait of Gina. He left the only copy of it in his room at the
Hôtel Ritz in Paris. The film cans would remain in a lost-and-found locker at the hotel for decades, where they were discovered in 1986, after his death.
First return to Hollywood (1956–1959) '' (October 15, 1956) In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood. He began filming a projected pilot for
Desilu, owned by
Lucille Ball and her husband
Desi Arnaz, who had purchased the former RKO studios. The film was
The Fountain of Youth, based on a story by
John Collier. Originally deemed not viable as a pilot, the film was not aired until 1958—and won the
Peabody Award for excellence. Welles guest-starred on television shows including
I Love Lucy. On radio, he was narrator of
Tomorrow (October 17, 1956), a
nuclear holocaust drama produced and syndicated by ABC and the
Federal Civil Defense Administration. Welles's next feature role was in
Man in the Shadow for
Universal Pictures in 1957, starring
Jeff Chandler.
Touch of Evil ,
Joseph Calleia and
Charlton Heston in
Touch of Evil (1958) Welles stayed on at Universal to co-star with
Charlton Heston in
Touch of Evil, based on
Whit Masterson's novel
Badge of Evil. Originally hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by
Universal Studios at the insistence of Heston. The film reunited actors and technicians with whom Welles had worked in Hollywood in the 1940s, including cameraman
Russell Metty (
The Stranger), makeup artist Maurice Seiderman (
Citizen Kane), and actors Cotten,
Marlene Dietrich and
Akim Tamiroff. Filming proceeded smoothly, with Welles finishing on schedule and budget, and the studio bosses praising the daily rushes. Nevertheless, after production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. The movie was shown at the
1958 Brussels World's Fair, where it won the grand prize.
François Truffaut saw the film in Brussels, and it influenced his debut
The 400 Blows, one of the seminal films of the
French New Wave. In 1978, a longer preview version of the film was discovered and released. In 1998,
Walter Murch reedited the film according to Welles's specifications in his memo. Murch said "I'm just flabbergasted when I read his memos, thinking that he was writing these ideas forty years ago, because, if I was working on a film now and a director came up with ideas like these, I'd be amazed—pleased but amazed—to realize that someone was thinking that hard about sound—which is all too rare". The film was influential in its use of a handheld camera, notably in the scene in the elevator. Murch says that "I'm sure Godard and Truffaut, who were big fans of
Touch of Evil, learned from that scene how they could achieve exactly what they wanted—at once both a fresh sense of reality and ingenuity." As Universal reworked
Touch of Evil, Welles began filming his
adaptation of
Miguel de Cervantes's
Don Quixote in Mexico, starring
Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as
Sancho Panza.
First return to Europe (1959–1970) '' (1960) He continued shooting
Don Quixote in Spain and Italy, but replaced Mischa Auer with Francisco Reiguera, and resumed acting jobs. In Italy in 1959, Welles directed his scenes as
King Saul in Richard Pottier's film
David and Goliath. In Hong Kong, he co-starred with
Curt Jürgens in
Lewis Gilbert's film
Ferry to Hong Kong. In 1960, in Paris he co-starred in
Richard Fleischer's film
Crack in the Mirror. In
Yugoslavia he starred in
Richard Thorpe's film
The Tartars and
Veljko Bulajić's
Battle of Neretva. Throughout the 1960s, filming continued on
Quixote on-and-off, as Welles evolved the concept, tone and ending several times. Although he had a complete version shot and edited at least once, he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1980s; he never completed a version he was fully satisfied with and would junk existing footage and shoot new footage. In one case, he had a complete cut ready in which Quixote and Sancho Panza end up going to the Moon, but felt the ending was rendered obsolete by the 1969 Moon landings and burned 10 reels of this version. As the process went on, Welles gradually voiced all the characters and provided narration. In 1992, the director
Jesús Franco constructed a film out of the portions of
Quixote left by Welles. Some of the film stock had decayed badly. While the Welles footage was greeted with interest, the post-production by Franco was met with criticism. In 1961, Welles directed
In the Land of Don Quixote, eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network
RAI. Similar to
Around the World with Orson Welles, they presented travelogues of Spain and included Welles's wife, Paola, and their daughter, Beatrice. Though Welles was fluent in Italian, the network was not interested in him providing narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by when the network had added its own Italian narration. Ultimately, versions of the episodes were released with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.
The Trial In 1962, Welles directed his adaptation of
The Trial, based on
the novel by
Franz Kafka and produced by Michael and
Alexander Salkind. The cast included
Jeanne Moreau,
Romy Schneider,
Paola Mori,
Akim Tamiroff and
Anthony Perkins as Josef K. While filming exteriors in
Zagreb, Welles was informed that the Salkinds had run out of money, meaning there could be no set construction. No stranger to shooting on found locations, Welles soon filmed the interiors in the
Gare d'Orsay, then an abandoned station in Paris. Welles thought the location possessed a "
Jules Verne modernism" and a melancholy sense of "waiting", both suitable for Kafka. To remain in the spirit of Kafka, Welles set up the cutting room with the editor, Frederick Muller (as Fritz Muller), in the old unused, cold, depressing, station master office. The film failed at the box-office.
Peter Bogdanovich observed that Welles found it riotously funny. Welles told a BBC interviewer that it was his best film. While filming
The Trial Welles met
Oja Kodar, who became his partner and collaborator for the last 20 years of his life. In 1966, Welles directed a film for French television, an adaptation of
The Immortal Story, by
Karen Blixen. Released in 1968, it stars Jeanne Moreau,
Roger Coggio and
Norman Eshley. The film had a successful run in French theaters. At this time Welles met Oja Kodar again, and gave her a letter he had written to her and been keeping for four years; they would not be parted again. They immediately began a collaboration both personal and professional. The first of these was an adaptation of Blixen's
The Heroine, meant to be a companion piece to
The Immortal Story and starring Kodar. Unfortunately, funding disappeared after one day's shooting. After completing this film, he appeared in a cameo as
Cardinal Wolsey in
Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of
A Man for All Seasons—a role for which he won acclaim. and Welles at the
Battle of Neretva premiere in
Sarajevo (November 1969) In 1967, Welles began directing
The Deep, based on the novel
Dead Calm by
Charles Williams and filmed off the shore of
Yugoslavia. The cast included Moreau, Kodar and
Laurence Harvey. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1968 Welles began filming a TV special for CBS under the title ''Orson's Bag'', combining travelogue, comedy skits and a condensation of Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice with Welles as
Shylock. In 1969 Welles asked editor Frederick Muller to work with him re-editing the material and they set up cutting rooms at the Safa Palatino Studios in Rome. Funding for the show sent by CBS to Welles in Switzerland was seized by the IRS. Without funding, the show was not completed. The surviving
film clips portions were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1969, Welles authorized the use of his name for a cinema in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. The
Orson Welles Cinema remained in operation until 1986, with Welles making a personal appearance there in 1977. Also in 1969, he played a supporting role in
John Huston's
The Kremlin Letter. Drawn by the offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles abandoned the editing of
Don Quixote and moved back to America in 1970.
Final return to Hollywood and later career (1970–1985) Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles found himself in demand on talk shows. In 1967, he played
Le Chiffre in the
James Bond spoof
Casino Royale. Due to a feud between Welles and co-star
Peter Sellers, the two refused to be on set with each other, meaning their scenes had to be shot separately with body stand-ins. Welles made appearances for
Dick Cavett,
Johnny Carson,
Dean Martin,
Jackie Gleason and
Merv Griffin. Welles's focus during his final years was
The Other Side of the Wind, a project that was filmed intermittently between 1970–76. Co-written by Welles and Oja Kodar, it is the story of an aging film director (
John Huston) looking for funds to complete his final film. The cast includes
Peter Bogdanovich,
Susan Strasberg,
Norman Foster,
Edmond O'Brien,
Cameron Mitchell and
Dennis Hopper. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership fell into a legal quagmire after the
Shah of Iran was deposed. The legal disputes kept the film in its unfinished state until 2017 and it was finally released in 2018.
(1973), an award-winning NASA documentary short film by Robert Drew about the likelihood of life on other planets Welles portrayed King Louis XVIII in the 1970 film Waterloo, and narrated the beginning and ending scenes of the historical comedy Start the Revolution Without Me'' (1970). In 1971, Welles directed a short adaptation of
Moby-Dick, a one-man performance on a bare stage, reminiscent of his 1955 stage production
Moby Dick – Rehearsed. Never completed, it was released by the Filmmuseum München. He appeared in ''
Ten Days' Wonder'', co-starring with
Anthony Perkins and directed by
Claude Chabrol, based on a detective novel by
Ellery Queen. That same year, the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an
Academy Honorary Award "for superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures." Welles pretended to be out of town and sent Huston to claim it, thanking the Academy on film. In his speech, Huston criticized the Academy for presenting the award while refusing to support Welles's projects. In 1972, Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the documentary version of
Alvin Toffler's 1970 book
Future Shock. Working again for a British producer, Welles played
Long John Silver in director
John Hough's
Treasure Island (1972), an adaptation of
Robert Louis Stevenson's
novel, which had been the second story broadcast by
The Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938. This was the last time he played the lead role in a major film. Welles contributed to the script, although his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O. W. Jeeves'. In some versions of the film Welles's original recorded dialog was redubbed by
Robert Rietty. '' (1974), a
film essay and the last film he completed In 1973, Welles completed
F for Fake, a personal essay film about art forger
Elmyr de Hory and biographer
Clifford Irving. Based on an existing documentary by
François Reichenbach, it included new material with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten,
Paul Stewart and
William Alland. An excerpt of Welles's 1930s
War of the Worlds broadcast was recreated for this film; however, none of the dialogue heard in the film actually matches what was originally broadcast. Welles filmed a five-minute trailer, rejected in the U.S., that featured shots of a topless Kodar. Welles hosted a British syndicated anthology series,
Orson Welles Great Mysteries, during the 1973–74 television season. His introductions to the 26 half-hour episodes were shot in July 1973 by Gary Graver. Welles had once wanted to make a series of Nero Wolfe movies, but author
Rex Stout—who was leery of Hollywood adaptations after two disappointing 1930s films—turned him down. In 1980 the
Associated Press reported "the distinct possibility" that Welles would star in a
Nero Wolfe TV series for
NBC television. Again, Welles left the project due to creative differences with Paramount.
William Conrad was cast in the role. In 1979, Welles completed his documentary
Filming Othello, featuring Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. Welles completed his self-produced pilot for
The Orson Welles Show, featuring interviews with
Burt Reynolds,
Jim Henson and
Frank Oz and guest-starring
the Muppets and
Angie Dickinson. Unable to find network interest, the pilot was never broadcast. Welles appeared in the biopic
The Secret of Nikola Tesla, and made a cameo in
The Muppet Movie. Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television advertisements. For two years he was on-camera spokesman for the
Paul Masson Vineyards, and sales grew by one third during the time Welles intoned what became a popular catchphrase: "We will sell no wine before its time." Years later, the
commercials regained notoriety when a bootleg recording of out-takes was distributed, showing an apparently
inebriated Welles on set. He was the voice behind the long-running
Carlsberg "Probably the best lager in the world" campaign, promoted Domecq sherry on British television and provided narration on adverts for
Findus, though they have been overshadowed by a
blooper reel of voice recordings, known as the
Frozen Peas reel. He did commercials for the Preview Subscription Television Service seen on stations around the country. In 1981, Welles hosted the documentary
The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, about
Nostradamus. In 1982, the BBC broadcast
The Orson Welles Story in the
Arena series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in detail, and people from his professional past were interviewed. It was reissued in 1990 as
With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film. Welles provided narration for a 1982 documentary on American public television, the tracks "Defender" from
Manowar's 1987 album
Fighting the World and "Dark Avenger" on their 1982 album,
Battle Hymns. He recorded the concert introduction for the live performances of Manowar that says, "Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America, all hail Manowar." Manowar have used this introduction for all their concerts since. During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as
The Dreamers, based on two stories by
Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and ''
Orson Welles' Magic Show, which reused material from his failed TV pilot. Another project was Filming the Trial'', the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot, none was completed. All were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München. In the mid-1980s,
Henry Jaglom taped lunch conversations with Welles at Los Angeles's Ma Maison, and in New York. Recordings were edited by
Peter Biskind and published in the 2013 book
My Lunches With Orson. In 1984, Welles narrated the short-lived television series
Scene of the Crime. During the early years of
Magnum, P.I., Welles was the voice of the unseen character Robin Masters, a writer and
playboy. Welles's death forced this character to be written out of the series. In an oblique homage to Welles, the
Magnum, P.I. producers ambiguously concluded that story arc by having a character accuse another of having hired an actor to portray Robin Masters. He also released a music single, titled "I Know What It Is to Be Young (But You Don't Know What It Is to Be Old)", which he recorded under Italian label
Compagnia Generale del Disco. The song was performed with the
Nick Perito Orchestra and the
Ray Charles Singers and produced by
Jerry Abbott. The last film roles before Welles's death included voice work in the animated films
Enchanted Journey (1984) and
The Transformers: The Movie (1986), in which he provided the voice for the planet-eating supervillain
Unicron. His last film appearance was in
Henry Jaglom's 1987 independent film
Someone to Love, released two years after his death but produced before his voice-over in
Transformers: The Movie. His last television appearance was on
Moonlighting. He recorded an introduction to an episode entitled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which was partially filmed in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory. == Other ventures ==