Orson Welles - Actors and Actresses





Nationality: American. Born: George Orson Welles in Kenosha, Wisconsin, 6 May 1915. Education: Attended Todd School for Boys, Woodstock, Illinois, 1926–31. Family: Married 1) Virginia Nicholson, 1934 (divorced 1939), daughter: Christopher; 2) the actress Rita Hayworth, 1943 (divorced 1947), daughter: Rebecca; 3) the actress Paola Mori, 1955, daughter: Beatrice. Career: 1931—professional acting debut at the Gate Theatre in Dublin; 1934—Broadway debut with Katherine Cornell, performed in his own film short, played McGafferty at the Phoenix Theatre, and began his radio career, e.g., as "The Shadow"; 1937—played title role in Mercury Production of Julius Caesar ; 1938—broadcast "The War of the Worlds"; 1939—RKO contract to act in and produce The Green Goddess for the RKO

Orson Welles
Orson Welles
Vaudeville Circuit; 1941—played title role in and directed Citizen Kane ; 1940s—returned to radio and theater, toured military bases with his magic show, "Mercury Wonder Show," continued to star in his own productions, and began appearing in films directed by others; 1949—moved to Europe; 1955—two series for BBC TV, The Orson Welles Sketchbook and The World with Orson Welles ; 1950s and 1960s—starred in his own films, appeared in films directed by others, appeared on TV and in the theater; 1970—moved back to America; 1970s and 1980s—appeared in films, on TV, and in commercials, including role as narrator for TV mini-series Shogun , 1980, and occasional role as voice of Robin Masters in TV series Magnum P.I. , 1981–85. Awards: Academy Award, Best Screenplay, for Citizen Kane , 1941; 20th Anniversary Tribute, Cannes Film Festival, 1966; Honorary Oscar, for "superlative and distinguished service in the making of motion pictures," 1970; inducted into the French Legion of Honor, 1972; Life Achievement Award, American Film Institute, 1975; Los Angeles Film Critics Career Achievement Award, 1978; inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, 1979; Fellowship of the British Film Institute, 1983; D. W. Griffith Award, Directors Guild of America, 1984. Died: Of heart attack, in Hollywood, 10 October 1985.


Films as Actor:

1943

Jane Eyre (Stevenson) (as Edward Rochester)

1944

Follow the Boys (Sutherland) (revue appearance)

1945

Tomorrow Is Forever (Pichel) (as John McDonald)

1949

The Third Man (Reed) (as Harry Lime); Black Magic (Ratoff) (as Cagliostro); Prince of Foxes (Henry King) (as Cesare Borgia)

1950

The Black Rose (Hathaway) (as General Bayan)

1951

Return to Glennascaul (Edwards) (as himself)

1953

Trent's Last Case (Wilcox) (as Sigsbee Manderson); Si Versailles m'était conté ( Affairs in Versailles ; Royal Affairs in Versailles ) (Guitry) (as Benjamin Franklin); L'Uomo la Bestia e la Virtù ( Man Beast and Virtue ) (Vanzina) (as the beast); King Lear (Brook—for TV) (title role)

1954

Napoleon (Guitry) (as Gen. Hudson Lowe); Trouble in the Glen (Wilcox) (as Samin Cejador y Mengues)

1955

"Lord Mountdrago" ep. of Three Cases of Murder (O'Ferrall) (as Lord Mountdrago)

1956

Moby Dick (Huston) (as Father Mapple)

1957

Man in the Shadow ( Pay the Devil ) (Arnold) (as Virgil Renckler)

1958

The Long Hot Summer (Ritt) (as Will Varner); The Roots of Heaven (Huston) (as Cy Sedgwick)

1959

David e Golia ( David and Goliath ) (Pottier and Baldi) (as King Saul); Compulsion (Fleischer) (as Jonathan Wilk); Ferry to Hong Kong (Lewis Gilbert) (as Captain Hart)

1960

Austerlitz ( Battle of Austerlitz ) (Gance) (as Robert Fulton); Crack in the Mirror (Fleischer) (as Hagolin/Lamorciere); I Tartari ( The Tartars ) (Thorpe) (as Barundai)

1961

Lafayette (Dreville) (as Benjamin Franklin); Desordre (short)

1963

The V.I.P.s (Asquith) (as Max Buda); "La Ricotta" ep. of Rogopag ( Laviamoci il Cervello ; Let's Have a Brainwash ) (Pasolini) (as the film director)

1964

La Fabuleuse Aventure de Marco Polo ( Marco the Magnificent ) (de la Patelliere and Noel Howard) (as Ackermann)

1965

The Island of Treasure (Franco)

1966

A Man for All Seasons (Zinnemann) (as Cardinal Wolsey); Paris brûle-t-il? ( Is Paris Burning? ) (Clément)

1967

Casino Royale (McGrath and Huston) (as Le Chiffre); The Sailor from Gibraltor (Richardson) (as Louis Mozambique); I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name (Winner) (as Jonathan Lute); Oedipus the King (Saville) (as Tiresias)

1968

House of Cards (Guillermin) (as Claude Leschenhaut); Kampf um Rom ( Fight for Rome ) (Siodmak) (as Emperor Justinian)

1969

Michael the Brave (Nicolaescu); L'Etoile de Sud ( The Southern Star ) (Hayers) (as Plankett); Tepepa (Petroni); Twelve Plus One (Gessner) (as Markau); Mihai Viteazu (Nicolaescu); Kampf um Rom II ( Fight for Rome II ); Una su 13

1970

Catch-22 (Mike Nichols) (as General Dreedle); The Battle of Neretva (Bulajic) (as Senator); Waterloo (Bondarchuk) (as King Louis XVIII); Upon This Rock (Rasky); The Kremlin Letter (Huston) (as Aleksei Bresnavitch)

1971

A Safe Place (Jaglom) (as the Magician); The Toy Factory (Gordon); I Racconti di Canterbury ( The Canterbury Tales ) (Pasolini); To Kill a Stranger (Collinson)

1972

Get to Know Your Rabbit (De Palma) (as Mr. Delasandro); La Décade prodigieuse ( Ten Days' Wonder ) (Chabrol) (as Theo Van Horn); Sutjeska (Delic); Malpertuis (Kumel) (as Cassavius); Treasure Island (Hough and Bianchi) (as Long John Silver, + sc); Necromancy ( The Witching ) (Gordon) (as Mr. Cato); The Man Who Came to Dinner (Kilik) (as Sheridan Whiteside—for TV)

1975

And Then There Were None (Collinson) (as voice of himself)

1976

Voyage of the Damned (Rosenberg) (as Estedes)

1977

It Happened One Christmas (Thomas—for TV)

1978

Hot Tomorrows (Brest) (as voice of Parklawn Mortuary)

1979

Never Trust an Honest Thief (McCowan); Tajna Nikole Tesle ( The Secret of Nicola Tesla ; Tesla ) (Papic) (as J. P. Morgan); The Muppet Movie (Frawley) (as Lord Lew)

1982

Butterfly (Cimber) (as Judge Rauch); The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz)

1983

Where Is Parsifal? (Helman) (as Klingsor); In Our Hands (Richer and Warnow)

1984

Slapstick of Another Kind (Paul) (as voice of Alien Father)

1986

The Transformers: The Movie (Shin and Morishita) (as voice of Planet Unicron)

1987

Someone to Love (Jaglom) (as Danny's friend)



Films as Narrator:

1937

The Spanish Earth (Ivens—doc)

1940

Swiss Family Robinson (Ludwig)

1946

Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)

1955

Out of Darkness (doc)

1958

Les Seigneurs de la ForĂŞt ( Masters of the Congo Jungle ) (Sielman and Brandt); The Vikings (Fleischer)

1959

High Journey (Baylis); South Sea Adventure (Dudley)

1961

King of Kings (Nicholas Ray)

1962

Der grosse Atlantik (doc)

1964

The Finest Hours (Baylis—doc)

1967

A King's Story (Booth—doc)

1969

Barbed Water (doc)

1970

To Build a Fire (Cobham); A Horse Called Nijinsky ; Start the Revolution without Me (Yorkin)

1971

Directed by John Ford (Bogdanovich—doc); Sentinels of Silence (Amram—doc); Happiness in Twenty Years

1972

The Crucifixion (Guenette)

1975

Bugs Bunny Superstar (Larry E. Jackson)

1976

Challenge of Greatness ( The Challenge ) (Kline)

1978

A Woman Called Moses (Wendkos—for TV)

1979

The Late Great Planet Earth (Amram—doc); The Double McGuffin (Camp)

1981

Genocide (Schwartzman); The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (Guenette)

1982

History of the World, Part One (Mel Brooks)

1983

Almonds and Raisins (Karel)



Films as Director:

1934

The Hearts of Age (16mm short) (co-d with Vance, + ro)

1938

Too Much Johnson (16mm short) (+ sc, co-pr) (unreleased)

1941

Citizen Kane (+ ro as Charles Foster Kane, pr, co-sc)

1942

The Magnificent Ambersons (+ ro as narrator, pr, sc); It's All True (semi—doc) (co-d with Norman Foster, + co-sc, pr) (not completed—released in 1993 with added footage)

1943

Journey into Fear (co-d [uncredited] with Norman Foster, + ro as Colonel Haki, pr, co-sc)

1946

The Stranger (+ ro as Franz Kindler/Professor Charles Rankin, co-sc [uncredited])

1948

The Lady from Shanghai (+ ro as Michael O'Hara, sc); Macbeth (+ title role, pr, sc)

1952

Othello (+ title role, pr, sc)

1955

Mr. Arkadin ( Confidential Report ) (+ ro as Gregory Arkadin, story, sc, art d, cost); Don Quixote (+ ro as himself, co-pr, sc) (not completed)

1956

Fountain of Youth (TV pilot) (+ ro as the host)

1958

Touch of Evil (+ ro as Hank Quinlan, sc)

1962

Le Procès ( The Trial ) (+ ro as Advocate Hastler, sc)

1966

Campanadas a Medianoche ( Chimes at Midnight ; Falstaff ) (+ ro as Sir John Falstaff, sc, cost)

1968

Une Histoire immortelle ( The Immortal Story ) (for TV) (+ ro as Mr. Clay, sc)

1969

The Deep (+ ro as Russ Brewer, sc) (unreleased)

1970

The Other Side of the Wind (+ sc) (not completed)

1975

F for Fake ( Vérités et mengsonges ; About Fakes ; Nothing but the Truth ) (+ ro as himself, sc) (add'l footage by Reichenbach)



Publications


By WELLES: books—

Everybody's Shakespeare , New York, 1933; revised as The Mercury Shakespeare , 1939.

The Trial (script), New York, 1970.

This Is Orson Welles , with Peter Bogdanovich, New York, 1972.

Touch of Evil , edited by Terry Comito, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1985.

Chimes at Midnight , New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1988.


By WELLES: articles—

The Director in the Theatre Today , Theatre Education League, 1939.

Interview with Francis Koval, in Sight and Sound (London), December 1950.

"The Third Audience," in Sight and Sound (London), January/March 1954.

Interviews with Andre Bazin and Charles Bitsch, in Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), June and September 1958.

"Conversation at Oxford," with Derrick Griggs, in Sight and Sound (London), Spring 1960.

Interview with Everett Sloane, in Film (London), no. 37, 1965.

"A Trip to Don Quixoteland: Conversations with Orson Welles," with Juan Cobos and others, in Cahiers du Cinema in English (New York), June 1966.

"Welles and Falstaff," interview with Juan Cobos and others, in Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1966.

"Welles on Falstaff," Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris), Summer 1967.

"Heart of Darkness," in Film Comment (New York), December 1972.


On WELLES: books—

Fowler, Roy, Orson Welles: A First Biography , London, 1946.

MacLiammoir, Micheal, Put Money in Thy Purse , London, 1952.

Noble, Peter, The Fabulous Orson Welles , London, 1956.

Houseman, John, Run-Through: A Memoir , New York, 1972.

France, Richard, The Theater of Orson Welles , Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 1977.

McBride, Joseph, Orson Welles, Actor and Director , New York, 1977.

Bazin, Andre, Orson Welles: A Critical View , translated by Jonathan Rosenbaum, New York, 1978.

Naremore, James, The Magic World of Orson Welles , New York, 1979; rev. ed., Dallas, Texas, 1989.

Carringer, Robert, The Making of Citizen Kane , Los Angeles, 1985.

Leaming, Barbara, Orson Welles: A Biography , New York, 1985.

Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles , New York, 1989.

France, Richard, editor, Orson Welles: On Shakespeare , New York, 1990.

Wood, Bret, Orson Welles: A Bio-Bibliography , Westport, Connecticut, 1990.

Howard, James, The Complete Films of Orson Welles , Secaucus, New Jersey, 1991.

Beja, Morris, editor, Perspectives on Orson Welles , New York, 1995.

Callow, Simon, Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu , London, 1995.

Thomson, David, Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles , New York, 1996.

Thieme, Claudia, F for Fake: And the Growth in Complexity of Orson Welles' Documentary Form , New York, 1997.

Anderegg, Michael, Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture , New York, 1999.

Taylor, John Russell, Orson Welles , New York, 2000.


On WELLES: articles—

Lindley, D., "He Has the Stage," in Colliers (New York), 29 January 1938.

Maloney, Russell, "Orson Welles," in New Yorker , 5 October 1938.

Johnson, Alva, and Fred Smith, "How to Raise a Child," in Saturday Evening Post (New York), no. 212, 20 January 1940, 27 January 1940, and 3 February 1940.

"Orson at War," in Time (New York), 30 November 1942.

"Actor Turns Columnist," in Time (New York), 29 January 1945.

"Welles: Young Man of 1,000 Faces," in Cue , 29 June 1946.

Hamburger, P., "Television: Omnibus Presentation of King Lear ," in New Yorker , 31 October 1953.

MacLiammoir, Micheal, "Orson Welles," in Sight and Sound (London), July/September 1954.

Harvey, E., "TV Imports," in Colliers (New York), 14 October 1955.

"Orson Welles's Lear," in Newsweek (New York), 23 January 1956.

Lewis, T., "Theatre: Welles as King Lear," in America (New York), 28 January 1956.

Adams, Val, "News of TV and Radio," in New York Times , 15 December 1957.

Tynan, Kenneth, "Orson Welles," in Show (London), October 1961 and November 1961.

Current Biography 1965 , New York, 1965.

Archer, Eugene, "Orson Welles: Boy Genius Turns 50," in New York Times , 18 April 1965.

Morgenstern, J., and R. Sokolov, "Falstaff as Orson Welles," in Newsweek (New York), 27 March 1967.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan, "The Invisible World of Orson Welles: A First Inventory," in Sight and Sound (London), Summer 1968.

McBride, Joseph, "Welles' Chimes at Midnight ," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Fall 1969.

McBride, Joseph, "Welles before Kane ," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1970.

Wilson, Richard, "It's Not Quite True," in Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1970.

McBride, Joseph, "First Person Singular," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1970/71.

Wilson, Richard, "Reply to Higham's It's All True," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1970/71.

"The Cinema of Orson Welles," program by the National Film Theatre (London), 1972.

Smith, Cecil, "Orson Welles: The Perpetual Who Came to Dinner," in Los Angeles Times , 28 November 1972.

Gilling, Ted, interview with George Coulouris, in Sight and Sound (London), Summer 1973.

"Orson Welles," Life Award Ceremony Program, American Film Institute, 1975.

"Welles" issue of Positif (Paris), March 1975.

McBride, Joseph, "The Other Side of Orson Welles," in American Film (Washington, D.C.), July-August 1976.

Smith, Cecil, "Orson Welles on Early TV: Pilot Tried before Its Time," in Los Angeles Times , Calendar, 9 August 1981.

McLean, A. M., "Orson Welles and Shakespeare: History and Consciousness in Chimes at Midnight ," in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salisbury, Maryland), no. 3, 1983.

Leaming, Barbara, "The Genius Takes On Tinseltown," in Playboy , vol. 30, December 1983.

Pells, Richard, "The Radical Stage and the Hollywood Film in the 1930s," in Radical Visions and American Dreams , Middletown, Connecticut, 1984.

Belcher, Jerry, obituary in Los Angeles Times , 11 October 1985.

McCarthy, Todd, obituary in Daily Variety (New York), 11 October 1985.

Obituary in New York Times , 11 October 1985.

O'Brien, Geoffrey, "A Touch of Ego," in The Village Voice (New York), 15 October 1985.

"Orson Welles's Revolution Is Still in Progress," in New York Times , 20 October 1985.

Kauffman, Stanley, obituary in New Republic (New York), 11 November 1985.

Rodman, Howard, "The Last Days of Orson Welles," in American Film (Washington, D.C.), June 1987.

France, Richard, "Orson Welles' First Film," in Films in Review (New York), August/September 1987.

Perlmutter, Ruth, "Working with Welles: An Interview with Henry Jaglom," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1988.

Simon, William, editor, Special "Welles" issue of Persistence of Vision (New York), no. 7, 1989.

Naremore, James, "The Trial: The FBI vs. Orson Welles," in Film Comment (New York), January-February 1991.

McBride, Joseph, "The Lost Kingdom of Orson Welles," in New York Review of Books , 13 May 1993.

Charity, Tom, "All Very Welles," in Time Out (London), no. 1210, 27 October 1993.

Combs, Richard, "Burning Masterworks: From Kane to F for Fake ," in Film Comment (New York), vol. 30, no. 1, January-February 1994.

Garcia, Maria, "Re-inventing Orson Welles," in Films in Review (New York), vol. 45, no. 5–6, May-June 1994.

Hall, John W., "Touch of Psycho? : Hitchcock's Debt to Welles," in Bright Lights (Cincinnati), no. 14, 1995.

Hogan, David J., "Orson Welles' Ghost Story," in Filmfax (Evanston), no. 50, May-June 1995.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan, and Bill Krohn, "Orson Welles in the U.S.: An Exchange," in Persistence of Vision (Maspeth), no. 11, 1995.

Ross, Alex, "A Dark Genius Haunts the Hollywood He Taunted," in New York Times , 21 January 1996.

Callow, Simon, "Orson Welles," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), vol. 53, no. 4, April 1996.

Wiener, J., "Hoover, Hearst and Citizen Welles," in Nation , vol. 262, 27 May 1996.

Lyons, Donald, "Setting Terms for Orson," in Film Comment (New York), vol. 32, no. 5, September-October 1996.

Andrew, Geoff, "Awesome Orson," in Time Out (London), no. 1363, 2 October 1996.

Wollen, Peter, "Foreign Relations: Welles and Touch of Evil ," in Sight & Sound (London), vol. 6, no. 10, October 1996.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan, "The Battle Over Orson Welles," in Cineaste (New York), vol. 22, no. 3, December 1996.

"The Construction of Space and the Monstrous-feminine in the Welles-text," in Critical Survey , May 1998.

Rothwell, Kenneth S., "Orson Welles: Shakespeare for the Art Houses," in Cineaste (New York), Winter 1998.

Wollen, Peter, "The Vienna Project," in Sight & Sound (London), vol. 9, no. 7, July 1999.


On WELLES: films—

The Filming of Othello, documentary for television, 1978.

Orson Welles Ă  la Cinemateque (documentary, 1982.

Hollywood Mavericks , documentary, 1990.

The Battle over Citizen Kane , television documentary directed by Thomas Lennon and Michael Epstein, 1995.


* * *


Orson Welles's reputation as a director has overshadowed his work as an actor. When reviewers do consider Welles's film performances, their assessments are mixed. Some see Welles as a master of bravura performances. Others argue that his work consists of behavioristic clichés that pass for decent acting because of Welles's mellifluous voice and striking physical presence. Welles's performances are not always flawless, but what his critics miss is that often Welles does not aim for naturalism, but instead draws on melodramatic tradition that uses excess and theatricality to illustrate a film's ethical implications.

Welles's best work is in Citizen Kane , Jane Eyre , Touch of Evil , and Chimes at Midnight , along with The Third Man and Compulsion , where his performances dominant the films even though he appears in only a few scenes. Films such as Moby Dick and A Man for All Seasons reveal Welles's unique ability to convey the texts' ethical dilemmas, for with his naturally dramatic voice and imposing presence, his cameo performances become pivotal moments in the narrative.

A veteran of the Todd Troupers and weekly unofficial productions under his directorial control, Welles made his professional acting debut at age 16, and his Broadway debut at age 19. That same year, 1934, he directed and starred in his first film, played a Kane-like figure in a piece of agit-prop theater, and began starring in radio programs (e.g., The Shadow and First Person Singular ). In 1937, he played Brutus in his Mercury production of Julius Caesar ; the next year he broadcast the infamous "War of the Worlds."

In 1941, Welles played the title role in Citizen Kane . Welles's carefully designed performance does not aim for psychological realism, but instead conveys the different narrators' conflicting views of Charles Foster Kane. In Thatcher's sequence, Welles's quick-rhythmed speech and studied innocence express Thatcher's view that Kane is a young madman headed for a Faustian bargain. In the Bernstein sequence, Welles's exacting diction and flamboyant gestures convey Bernstein's fraternal image of Charlie-the-Great. In the next segment, Welles's performance reflects Leland's view that his friend becomes Kane-the-demagogue: Welles deepens his voice to deliver Kane's political speech, his stance echoes the image on the poster that hangs behind him, and as the segment ends, Welles's body is as immobile as a statue, his voice the booming voice of pitiless authority. In the concluding sequences, Welles's increasingly expressionistic performance shows us that Kane becomes the hollow shell of his ambition, literally puffed-up with self-importance, Kane is an untethered dirigible crashing about, then finally an orator reduced to a whisper. In the films that would follow, Welles revealed his abiding interest in stylized and highly codified characterizations: he consistently played strong characters with his left, three-quarter profile to camera, and weak characters, or strong characters in weak moments, right profile to camera.

Welles was active on stage, screen, and radio throughout the 1940s. Jane Eyre was Welles's first film acting assignment for another director, and his dramatic performance enhanced the mood of Brontë's gothic melodrama. In his own The Lady from Shanghai , Welles played O'Hara with a phony brogue that underscored the film's exploration of deceit, illusion, and artifice. In his last directorial assignment in Hollywood for a decade, Welles played the title role in his expressionistic Macbeth .

The conventional wisdom is that to secure financing for his own films, Welles spent the next three decades hamming-it-up in other people's bad pictures. Yet a review of his performances shows that is not quite the case. Welles gives a brilliant performance in The Third Man , his careful underplaying effectively conveying Harry Lime's sinister character. In the mid-fifties, Welles created notable performances for television; for example, in 1953, his performance in the title role of King Lear was a major success.

Some of Welles's best work was to come. His characterizations in The Long Hot Summer and Compulsion are the work of an accomplished actor. His performance in his own Touch of Evil is disturbing and masterful. Welles's performance as Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight is, quite arguably, the best performance of his career. Drawing on his lifelong study of Faustian figures, Welles gives us a Falstaff who is an endearing but detestable fool. And like his portrayals of other charming but flawed characters, Welles's performance is enriched by the conflicting aspects of his own image: egotist, visionary, wastrel, martyr.

An international celebrity from the time he was a young man, Welles continually subjected his public image to scrutiny: in the 1970s, he appeared regularly on late-night variety shows, in commercials, and in films such as Catch-22 that present us with caricatures of Welles's celebrity personae. F for Fake allowed Welles to reprise one of his signature roles: the entertaining charlatan. Someone to Love , Welles's final appearance on film, provided an apt conclusion to his unique acting career, for it ends with Welles's on-camera call to "cut."

—Cynthia Baron



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