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WD_396/ 2007
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Drawings 4 | | Medium: | oilstick on paper | | Size (inches): | 31.1 x 21.4 | | Size (mm): | 790 x 544 | | Catalog #: | WD_0396 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse.
Orson Welles's height is 6 ft 1 in (185 cm).
-www.celebheights.com/s/Orson-Welles-1912.html
Orson Welles - George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 — October 10, 1985) was an American radio broadcaster, theatre director, film director and actor. He gained international notoriety for his October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which panicked millions of listeners, but he is best known for his 1941 film classic Citizen Kane, often chosen in polls of film critics as the greatest film ever made.
Welles in Hollywood (1939 to 1948)
After the War of the Worlds broadcast, RKO Pictures president George Schaefer offered what is considered to have been the greatest contract ever offered: a two-picture deal with total artistic control, including script, cast, final cut, and crew. With this offer in hand, Welles (and the entire Mercury Theatre) moved to Hollywood. Soon The Campbell Playhouse shows originated from Los Angeles, rather than New York City.
At first, Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO, settling briefly on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. He planned to film the action with a subjective camera from the protagonist's point of view. But when a budget was drawn up, RKO's enthusiasm began to cool. RKO also declined to approve Welles' project The Smiler with the Knife, according to Welles because RKO had no faith in Lucille Ball as a leading lady.
In a sign of things to come, Welles left The Campbell Playhouse in 1940, due to continuing creative differences with the sponsor. The show continued without him, produced by John Houseman.
Realizing that he had to come up with something or else lose his film contract, Welles finally found a suitable project in an idea co-conceived with screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz (who was writing radio plays for The Campbell Playhouse.) Initially called American, it would eventually become Welles' first feature film, Citizen Kane (1941).
Mankiewicz' idea was based mainly on the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom Mankiewicz knew socially, being great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. The character was also loosely based on Robert McCormick and Joseph Pulitzer. Welles' idea was to show the same character, even the same scenes, from several points of view, to illustrate how differently the character would appear to the different people in his life. At Welles' urging, Mankiewicz wrote the screenplay, assisted by John Houseman, who wrote the opening narration in a pastiche of The March of Time newsreels. Welles then took the Mankiewicz draft, drastically condensed and rearranged it, and added at least three scenes of his own. While there is no question that the character of Charles Foster Kane is based on Hearst, there are also allusions to Welles himself, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood.
Once the script was completed, Welles proceeded to hire the best technicians he could, including Gregg Toland, considered one of the best cinematographers of the time. The apocryphal story is that Toland simply walked into Welles' office and announced he wanted to work on the picture. For the cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. Welles knew films were a collaboration and invited suggestions from everyone.
There was little concern or controversy at the time that Welles completed production on the film. However, in an act that can only be considered self-sabotage, Mankiewicz gave a copy of the final shooting script to his friend Charles Lederer, the husband of Welles' ex-wife Virginia Nicholson and nephew of Hearst's mistress Marion Davies. In this way, Hearst found out about the existence of the movie and sent his gossip columnist, Louella Parsons, to a screening of the picture. Parsons, realizing immediately that the film was based on Hearst's life, reported back to him. Thus began the controversy over Citizen Kane.
Hearst's media empire boycotted the film and exerted an enormous amount of pressure on the Hollywood film community, even threatening to expose all the studio bosses as being Jewish. At one point, the heads of all the studios jointly offered RKO the cost of the film in exchange for the negative and all existing prints, for the express purpose of burning it. RKO declined, and eventually the film was released. However, Hearst had successfully threatened every theatre chain, by stating that if they showed Citizen Kane he would not allow any advertising for any of their films in any of his papers, so aside from the theaters RKO owned, there weren't many movie houses that actually played it. The film was critically well-received. It garnered nine Academy Award nominations, though it only won for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. But the picture fared poorly at the box-office, and lost RKO most of its $800,000 investment.
Welles was offered a new radio series by CBS. Called The Orson Welles Show and sponsored by Lady Esther Cosmetics, it was a half-hour variety show of short stories, comedy skits, poetry and musical numbers. Joining the original Mercury Theatre cast was Jiminy Cricket, "on loan from Walt Disney." According to the Ward Wheelock Agency, the variety format was unpopular with the listeners, and Welles was soon forced into full half-hour stories instead.
Welles' second film for RKO was 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. Ambersons had already been adapted for The Campbell Playhouse, and Welles wrote the screen adaption himself, purportedly while on King Vidor's yacht. Toland was not available, so Stanley Cortez was named cinematographer. Cortez was very slow in realizing Welles' intentions, and the film lagged behind schedule and over budget.
Simultaneously (and at RKO's request), Welles worked on an adaption of Eric Ambler's 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 Welles later stated that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was whoever was closest to the camera.
During the production of Ambersons and Journey into Fear, Welles was asked by John Rockefeller and Jock Whitney to make a documentary film about South America on behalf of the government's Good Neighbour Policy (a wartime propaganda effort designed to prevent Latin America from allying with the Axis Powers.) Expected to film the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Welles was in a horrendous rush to finish the editing on Ambersons and his acting scenes in Journey into Fear. He ended his CBS radio show, put together a rough cut of Ambersons with Robert Wise (who had edited Citizen Kane,) and left the United States. He completed his final cut via phone call, telegram, and shortwave radio, and that version was previewed in Pomona to a disastrous audience reaction (in particular to the main character played by Tim Holt.) Since Welles' original contract granting him complete control was no longer in effect, the studio took control of the film, formed a committee which included George Schaefer, Joseph Cotten, Robert Wise, and Welles' business manager Jack Moss, and proceeded to remove fifty minutes of Welles' footage, re-shooting sequences which had a bad audience reaction, rearranging the scene order, and tacking on a happy ending. Schaefer was then replaced by new RKO president Charles Koerner, who released the shortened film on the bottom of a double-bill with the Lupe Velez comedy Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost. Ambersons was an expensive flop for RKO, though Agnes Moorehead did receive a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.
Welles' South American documentary, titled It's All True, was budgeted at one million dollars, with half of the budget to be paid by the US Government upon completion of the film. However, RKO was appalled by the rushes they saw of interracial revellers at Carnival (not commercial fare for 1942.) Welles was recreating the journey of the jangadeiros, four poor fisherman who had made a 1500 mile journey on their open raft to petition Brazillian president Vargas about their working conditions. The four had become national folk heroes, and Welles first read of their journey in Time Magazine. After their leader, Jacare, died during a filming mishap, Koerner closed the film and fired Welles and his entire company. Welles begged to be able to finish the film and was given a limited amount of black-and-white stock and a silent camera. He completed the sequence, but RKO refused to let him complete the film. Some of the surviving footage was released in 1993.
Though a European version of Journey into Fear had already been released, Welles was able to do some post-production for the US version, which involved some re-editing, recording Joseph Cotten's narration and filming a new ending. This version was released in 1943.
Unable to find work as a film director after the twin disasters of The Magnificent Ambersons and It's All True, Welles did find work directing in 1942 on radio. CBS offered him two weekly series, Hello Americans, which was based on the research he'd done in Brazil, and Ceiling Unlimited, sponsored by Lockheed/Vega and which was a wartime salute to advances in aviation. Both featured several members of his original Mercury Theatre. Within a few months Hello Americans was cancelled and Welles was replaced as host of Ceiling Unlimited by Joseph Cotten. Welles guest-starred on a great variety of shows, notably guest-hosting Jack Benny's show for a month in 1943.
Around this time, Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had a child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced in 1948. Welles also found work as an actor in other directors' films. He starred in the 1943 film adaption of Jane Eyre, trading an 'associate producer' credit for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute Follow the Boys, in which he performed his Mercury Wonder Show magic act and sawed Marlene Dietrich in half; Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to release Hayworth for the project.
In 1944 Welles was offered a new radio show to direct, though it was broadcast only in California, not nationally. Orson Welles' Almanac was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. But after the success of The Jack Benny Show, the focus was primarily on comedy. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts. When Welles started his Mercury Wonder Show a few months later, travelling to Armed Forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took a decidedly wartime flavour. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead was left. The series was cancelled by year's end due to poor ratings.
In 1945 Welles starred in the tear-jerker Tomorrow Is Forever with Claudette Colbert. While his suitability as a film director remained in question, Welles' popularity as an actor continued. Pabst Blue Ribbon gave Welles their radio series This Is My Best to direct, but after one month he was fired for creative differences. He started writing a political column for the New York Post, again called Orson Welles Almanac. While requested by the paper to write about Hollywood, Welles wanted to explore political issues, and the column became a confused blending of both. If Welles had clear political views, he was not yet skilled at conveying them. The column failed in syndication and was soon dropped by the Post.
In 1946, International Pictures released Welles' film The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in America. While only Anthony Veiller was credited with the screenplay, it had been rewritten by Welles and John Huston. Seeking to avoid the expense and controversy of Welles' earlier films, Spiegel kept tight control of the project, and the result was comparatively unimaginative work from Welles. Welles resolved not to have a career as a cog in a Hollywood studio and resumed looking for the creative control which had brought him to Hollywood originally.
In the summer of 1946 Welles directed a musical stage version of Around the World in Eighty Days, with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd (who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven.) When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles supported the finances himself. When he ran out of money at one point, he convinced Columbia president Harry Cohn to send him enough to continue the show, and in exchange Welles promised to write, produce, direct and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show would soon fail due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. He wound up owing the IRS several hundred thousand dollars, and in a few years time Welles would seek tax-shelter in Europe.
At the same time in 1946 he began two new radio series, The Mercury Summer Theatre for CBS and Orson Welles Commentaries for ABC. While Summer Theatre featured half-hour adaptions of some of the classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his Around the World stage play, and remains the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. It was only scheduled for the summer months, and Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play. Commentaries was a political soap-box, 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 Woodward. Welles devoted the rest of the run of the series to Woodward's cause, was the first broadcaster to bring it to national attention, and caused shockwaves across the nation. Soon Welles was being burned in effigy in the South and The Stranger was banned in several southern states. ABC was unable to find a sponsor for the radio show and soon cancelled it. Welles never had a regular radio show in America again and would never direct another anywhere.
The film for Cohn wound up being The Lady from Shanghai, filmed in 1947 for Columbia Pictures. Intended to be a modest thriller, the budget skyrocketed after Cohn suggested that Welles then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth costar. Cohn was enraged by Welles' rough-cut, in particular the confusing plot and lack of close-ups, and ordered extensive editing and reshoots. After heavy editing by the studio, approximately one hour of Welles' first cut had been removed. While expressing dismay at the cuts, Welles was particularly appalled by the soundtrack, objecting to the musical score he thought more suitable for a Disney cartoon and the lack of the ambient soundscape he had designed. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release. Welles recalled people refusing to speak to him about it to save him embarrassment. Not long after release, Welles and Hayworth finalised their divorce. Though the film was acclaimed in Europe, it was not embraced in the US for several decades.
Unable to find work as a director at any of the major studios, in 1948 Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of Macbeth, which featured paper-mache sets, cardboard crowns and a cast of actors lip-synching to a prerecorded soundtrack. Republic did not care for the Scottish accents on the soundtrack and held up release for almost a year. Welles left for Europe, while his co-producer and life-long supporter Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles ultimately returned and cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover the gaps. The film was decried as another disaster. In the late 1970s it was restored to Welles' original version.
-www.popstarsplus.com/
directorsproducers_orsonwelles.htm
CITIZEN KANE (1941) - Trivia and Other Fun Stuff
Famous Quotes from CITIZEN KANE
Charles Foster Kane: As Charles Foster Kane who owns eighty-two thousand, six hundred and thirty-four shares of public transit - you see, I do have a general idea of my holdings - I sympathize with you. Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel. His paper should be run out of town. A committee should be formed to boycott him. You may, if you can form such a committee, put me down for a contribution of one thousand dollars.
Susan: Forty-nine acres of nothing but scenery and statues. I'm lonesome.
Thompson: Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted, and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost. Anyway, I don't think it would have explained everything. I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece.
Charles Foster Kane: You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man.
Thatcher: Don't you think you are?
Charles Foster Kane: I think I did pretty well under the circumstances.
Thatcher: What would you like to have been?
Charles Foster Kane: Everything you hate.
Charles Foster Kane: Hello Jedediah.
Leland: Hello, Charlie. I didn't know we were speaking...
Charles Foster Kane: Sure, we're speaking, Jedediah - you're fired.
Emily: Really Charles, people will think-...
Charles Foster Kane: ---what I tell them to think.
Bernstein: President's niece, huh? Before Mr. Kane's through with her, she'll be a president's wife.
Emily: He happens to be the President, Charles, not you.
Charles Foster Kane: That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days.
Bernstein: There's a lot of statues in Europe you haven't bought yet.
Charles Foster Kane: You can't blame me. They've been making statues for some two thousand years, and I've only been collecting for five.
Charles Foster Kane: You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years.
Compiled by Scott McGee & Jeff Stafford
TM & © 2008 Turner Classic Movies, A Time Warner Company.
-www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=71646&rss=mrqe
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