title: Tsar Bomba

text: The bomb, weighing , was so large ( long by in diameter) that the Tu-95V had to have its bomb bay doors and fuselage fuel tanks removed. The bomb was attached to an , parachute, which gave the release and observer planes time to fly about away from ground zero, giving them a 50 percent chance of survival. The bomb was released two hours after takeoff from a height of on a test target within Sukhoy Nos. The Tsar Bomba detonated at 11:32 (or 11:33) Moscow Time on October 30, 1961, over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range (Sukhoy Nos Zone C), at a height of ASL ( above the target) (some sources suggest ASL and above target, or ). By this time the Tu-95V had already escaped to away, and the Tu-16 away. When detonation occurred, the shock wave caught up with the Tu-95V at a distance of and the Tu-16 at . The Tu-95V dropped in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and land safely. According to initial data, the Tsar Bomba had a nuclear yield of (significantly exceeding what the design itself would suggest) and was overestimated at values all the way up to .


title: Tsar Bomba

text: Although simplistic fireball calculations predicted it would be large enough to hit the ground, the bomb's own shock wave bounced back and prevented this. The fireball reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane and was visible at almost away. The mushroom cloud was about high (nearly eight times the height of Mount Everest), which meant that the cloud was above the stratosphere and well inside the mesosphere when it peaked. The cap of the mushroom cloud had a peak width of and its base was wide.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: A Soviet cameraman said: The clouds beneath the aircraft and in the distance were lit up by the powerful flash. The sea of light spread under the hatch and even clouds began to glow and became transparent. At that moment, our aircraft emerged from between two cloud layers and down below in the gap a huge bright orange ball was emerging. The ball was powerful and arrogant like Jupiter. Slowly and silently it crept upwards ... Having broken through the thick layer of clouds it kept growing. It seemed to suck the whole Earth into it. The spectacle was fantastic, unreal, supernatural."


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The explosion of Tsar Bomba, according to the classification of nuclear explosions, was an ultra-high-power low-air nuclear explosion.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: All buildings in the village of Severny, both wooden and brick, located from ground zero within the Sukhoy Nos test range, were destroyed. In districts hundreds of kilometres from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed; stone ones lost their roofs, windows, and doors; and radio communications were interrupted for almost one hour. One participant in the test saw a bright flash through dark goggles and felt the effects of a thermal pulse even at a distance of . The heat from the explosion could have caused third-degree burns away from ground zero. A shock wave was observed in the air at Dikson settlement away; windowpanes were partially broken for distances up to . Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage at even greater distances, breaking windows in Norway and Finland. Despite being detonated above ground, its seismic body wave magnitude was estimated at 5.0–5.25.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: Immediately after the test, several US Senators condemned the Soviet Union. Prime Minister of Sweden Tage Erlander saw the blast as the Soviets' answer to a personal appeal to halt nuclear testing that he had sent the Soviet leader in the week prior to the blast. The British Foreign Office, Prime Minister of Norway Einar Gerhardsen, Prime Minister of Denmark Viggo Kampmann and others also released statements condemning the blast. Soviet and Chinese radio stations mentioned the US underground nuclear test of a much smaller bomb (possibly the "Mink" test) carried out the day prior, without mentioning the Tsar Bomba test.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The creation and testing of a superbomb were of great political importance; the Soviet Union demonstrated its potential in creating a nuclear arsenal of great power (at that time, the most powerful thermonuclear charge tested by the United States was 15 Mt (Castle Bravo)). After the Tsar Bomba test, the United States did not increase the power of its own thermonuclear tests and, in 1963 in Moscow, the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, Outer Space and Under Water was signed.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The scientific result of the test was the experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of multistage thermonuclear charges. It was experimentally proven that there is no fundamental limitation on increasing the power of a thermonuclear charge. However, as early as October 30, 1949, three years before the Ivy Mike test which utilized the Teller-Ulam design, in the Supplement to the official report of the General Advisory Committee of the US Atomic Energy Commission, nuclear physicists Enrico Fermi and Isidor Isaac Rabi observed that thermonuclear weapons have "unlimited destructive power". In the tested specimen of the bomb, to raise the explosion power by another 50 Mt, it was enough to replace the lead sheath with uranium-238, as was normally expected. The replacement of the cladding material and the decrease in the explosion power were motivated by the desire to reduce the amount of radioactive fallout to an acceptable level, and not by the desire to reduce the weight of the bomb, as is sometimes believed. The weight of Tsar Bomba did decrease from this, but insignificantly. The uranium cladding was supposed to weigh about , the lead sheath of the same volume – based on the lower density of lead – is about . The resulting relief of just over one ton is weakly noticeable with a total mass of Tsar Bomba of at least 24 tons and did not affect the state of affairs with its transportation.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The explosion is one of the cleanest in the history of atmospheric nuclear tests per unit of power. The first stage of the bomb was a uranium charge with a capacity of 1.5 Mt, which in itself provided a large amount of radioactive fallout; nevertheless, it can be assumed that Tsar Bomba was really relatively clean – more than 97% of the explosion power was provided by a thermonuclear fusion reaction, which practically does not create radioactive contamination.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: A distant consequence was the increased radioactivity accumulated in the glaciers of Novaya Zemlya. According to the 2015 expedition, due to nuclear tests, the glaciers of Novaya Zemlya are 65–130 times more radioactive than the background in neighboring areas, including contamination from the tests of the Kuzka's Mother.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: Sakharov was against nuclear proliferation, and played a key role in signing the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Sakharov became an advocate of civil liberties and reforms in the Soviet Union. These efforts earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth, the most powerful nuclear bomb tested and the largest man-made explosion in history. For comparison, the largest weapon ever produced by the US, the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of . The largest nuclear device ever tested by the US (Castle Bravo) yielded because of an unexpectedly-high involvement of lithium-7 in the fusion reaction; the preliminary prediction for the yield was from . The largest weapons deployed by the Soviet Union were also around (e.g., the SS-18 Mod. 3 warhead).


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The weight and size of the Tsar Bomba limited the range and speed of the specially-modified bomber carrying it. Delivery by an intercontinental ballistic missile would have required a much stronger missile (the Proton started its development as that delivery system). It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 26% of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons. It was decided that a full 100 Mt detonation would create a nuclear fallout that was unacceptable in terms of pollution from a single test, as well as a near-certainty that the release plane and crew would be destroyed before it could escape the blast radius.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: The Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapons designed by the Soviet Union and the United States during the 1950s (e.g., the Mark 17 and B41 nuclear bombs).


title: Tsar Bomba

text: Tsar Bomba was never a practical weapon; it was a single product, the design of which allowed reaching a power of 100 Mt TE. The test of a 50-Mt bomb was, among other things, a test of the performance of the product design for 100 Mt. The bomb was intended exclusively to exert psychological pressure on the United States.


title: Tsar Bomba

text: Experts began to develop military missiles for warheads (150 Mt and more) that have been redirected for space use:


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian billionaire businessman. He is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), a Fortune Global 500 company and India's most valuable company by market value. According to "Forbes" and "Bloomberg Billionaires Index", Ambani's net worth is estimated at US$93.8 billion as of 29 November 2022, making him the second richest person in Asia after Gautam Adani and the 8th richest in the world.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani was born on 19 April 1957 in the British Crown colony of Aden (present-day Yemen) into a Gujarati Hindu family to Dhirubhai Ambani and Kokilaben Ambani. He has a younger brother Anil Ambani and two sisters, Nina Bhadrashyam Kothari and Dipti Dattaraj Salgaonkar.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani lived only briefly in Yemen because his father decided to move back to India in 1958 to start a trading business that focused on spices and textiles. The latter was originally named "Vimal" but later changed to "Only Vimal". His family lived in a modest two-bedroom apartment in Bhuleshwar, Mumbai until the 1970s. The family's financial status slightly improved when they moved to India but Ambani still lived in a communal society, used public transportation, and never received an allowance. Dhirubhai later purchased a 14-floor apartment block called 'Sea Wind' in Colaba, where, until recently, Ambani and his brother lived with their families on different floors.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani attended the Hill Grange High School at Peddar Road, Mumbai, along with his brother and Anand Jain, who later became his close associate. After his secondary schooling, he studied at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He then received a BE degree in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani later enrolled for an MBA at Stanford University but withdrew in 1980 to help his father build Reliance, which at the time was still a small but fast-growing enterprise. His father felt that real-life skills were harnessed through experiences and not by sitting in a classroom, so he called his son back to India from Stanford to take command of a yarn manufacturing project in his company.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani has been quoted as saying that he was influenced by his teachers William F. Sharpe and Man Mohan Sharma because they are "the kind of professors who made you think out of the box."


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In 1981 he started to help his father Dhirubhai Ambani run their family business, Reliance Industries Limited. By this time, it had already expanded so that it also dealt in refining and petrochemicals. The business also included products and services in the retail and telecommunications industries. Reliance Retail Ltd., another subsidiary, is also the largest retailer in India. Reliance's Jio has earned a top-five spot in the country's telecommunication services since its public launch on 5 September 2016.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: As of 2016, Ambani was ranked as the 36th richest person in the world, and has consistently held the title of India's richest person on Forbes magazine's list for the past ten years. He is the only Indian businessman on "Forbes"' list of the world's most powerful people. As of October 2020, Mukesh Ambani was ranked by Forbes as the 6th-wealthiest person in the world. He surpassed Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, to become Asia's richest person with a net worth of $44.3 billion in July 2018. He is also the wealthiest person in the world outside North America and Europe. As of 2015, Ambani ranked fifth among India's philanthropists, according to China's Hurun Research Institute. He was appointed as a Director of Bank of America and became the first non-American to be on its board.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Through Reliance, he also owns the Indian Premier League franchise Mumbai Indians and is the founder of the Indian Super League, a football league in India. In 2012, "Forbes" named him one of the richest sports owners in the world. He resides at the Antilia Building, one of the world's most expensive private residences with its value reaching $1 billion.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In 1980, the Indian government under Indira Gandhi opened PFY (polyester filament yarn) manufacturing to the private sector. Dhirubhai Ambani applied for a license to set up a PFY manufacturing plant. Obtaining the license was a long-drawn-out process requiring a strong connection within the bureaucracy system because the government, at the time, was restricting large-scale manufacturing, making the importation of yarn for the textiles impossible. In spite of stiff competition from Tatas, Birlas and 43 others, Dhirubhai was awarded the license, more commonly addressed as License Raj. To help him build the PFY plant, Dhirubhai pulled his eldest son out of Stanford, where he was studying for his MBA, to work with him in the company. Ambani did not return to his university program, leading Reliance's backward integration, where companies own their suppliers to generate more revenue and improve efficiency, in 1981 from textiles into polyester fibers and further into petrochemicals, which the yarns were made from. After joining the company, he reported daily to Rasikbhai Meswani, then executive director. The company was being built from scratch with the principle of everybody contributing to the business and not heavily depend on selected individuals. Dhirubhai treated him as a business partner allowing him the freedom to contribute even with little experience. This principle came into play after Rasikbhai's death in 1985 along with Dhirubhai suffering a stroke in 1986 when all the responsibility shifted to Ambani and his brother. Mukesh Ambani set up Reliance Infocomm Limited (now Reliance Communications Limited), which was focused on information and communications technology initiatives. At the age of 24, Ambani was given charge of the construction of Patalganga petrochemical plant when the company was heavily investing in oil refinery and petrochemicals.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: On 6 July 2002, Mukesh's father died after suffering a second stroke, which elevated tensions between the brothers as Dhirubhai had not left a will for the distribution of the empire in 2004. Their mother intervened to stop the feud, splitting the company into two, Ambani receiving control of Reliance Industries Limited and Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited, which was later approved by the Bombay High Court in December 2005.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani directed and led the creation of the world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, India, which had the capacity to produce 660,000 barrels per day (33 million tonnes per year) in 2010, integrated with petrochemicals, power generation, port, and related infrastructure. In December 2013 Ambani announced, at the Progressive Punjab Summit in Mohali, the possibility of a "collaborative venture" with Bharti Airtel in setting up digital infrastructure for the 4G network in India. On 18 June 2014, Mukesh Ambani, while addressing the 40th AGM of Reliance Industries, said he will invest Rs 1.8 trillion (short scale) across businesses in the next three years and launch 4G broadband services in 2015.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for engineering and business leadership in oil refineries, petrochemical products, and related industries. In February 2016, Ambani-led Jio launched its own 4G smartphone brand named LYF. In June 2016, it was India's third-largest-selling mobile phone brand. The release of the service Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, commonly known as Jio, in September 2016 was a success, and Reliance's shares increased. During the 40th annual general meeting of RIL, he announced bonus shares in the ratio of 1:1 which is the country's largest bonus issue in India, and announced the Jio Phone at an effective price of ₹0. As of February 2018, Bloomberg's "Robin Hood Index" estimated that Ambani's personal wealth was enough to fund the operations of the Indian federal government for 20 days.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In February 2014, a First Information Report (FIR) alleging criminal offenses was filed against Mukesh Ambani for alleged irregularities in the pricing of natural gas from the KG basin. Arvind Kejriwal, who had a short stint as Delhi's chief minister and had ordered the FIR, has accused various political parties of being silent on the gas price issue. Kejriwal has asked both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi to clear their stand on the gas pricing issue. Kejriwal has alleged that the Centre allowed the price of gas to be inflated to eight dollars a unit though Mukesh Ambani's company spends only one dollar to produce a unit, which meant a loss of Rs. 540 billion to the country annually.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In August 2022, Ambani announced a $25bn plan for launching 5G mobile internet services in the next two months. High-speed internet will be launched in major cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai and then in the rest of the country by the end of 2023.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: He married Nita Ambani in 1985 and they have two sons, Akash and Anant, and a daughter, Isha, who is Akash's twin. They met after his father attended a dance performance which Nita took part in and thought of the idea of arranging a marriage between the two.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: They live in Antilia, a private 27-storey building in Mumbai, which was valued at US$1 billion and was the most expensive private residence in the world at the time it was built. The building requires a staff of 600 for maintenance, and it includes three helipads, a 160-car garage, private movie theater, swimming pool, and fitness center.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In 2007, Ambani gifted his wife a $60 million Airbus A319 for her 44th birthday. The Airbus, which has a capacity of 180 passengers, has been custom-fitted to include a living room, bedroom, satellite television, WiFi, sky bar, Jacuzzi, and an office.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: Ambani was titled "The World's Richest Sports Team Owner" after his purchase of the IPL cricket team Mumbai Indians for $111.9 million in 2008.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: During the fiscal year ending 31 March 2012, he reportedly decided to forgo nearly ₹240 million from his annual pay as chief of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). He elected to do this even as RIL's total remuneration packages to its top management personnel increased during that fiscal year. Mukesh Ambani holds a 50.4% stake in the company. This move kept his salary capped at ₹150 million for the fourth year in a row.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In early 2019, a court in Mumbai held his younger brother, Anil Ambani, in criminal contempt for non-payment of personally guaranteed debt Reliance Communications owed to Swedish gearmaker Ericsson. Instead of jail time, the court gave Anil a month to come up with the funds. At the end of the month, Mukesh bailed out his younger brother, paying the debt.


title: Mukesh Ambani

text: In 2021, he was the subject of a bomb scare when a green Mahindra Scorpio SUV packed with explosives was found near a Mumbai skyscraper housing Ambani.


title: Orson Welles

text: George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.


title: Orson Welles

text: While in his 20s, Welles directed high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project, including an adaptation of "Macbeth" with an entirely African-American cast and the political musical "The Cradle Will Rock". In 1937, he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941, including "Caesar" (1937), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar".


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1938, his radio anthology series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" gave Welles the platform to find international fame as the director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel "The War of the Worlds", which caused some listeners to believe that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was in fact occurring. Although reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed 23-year-old Welles to notoriety.


title: Orson Welles

text: His first film was "Citizen Kane" (1941), which is consistently ranked as one of the greatest films ever made and which he co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in as the title character, Charles Foster Kane. Welles released twelve other features, the most acclaimed of which include "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942), "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947), "Touch of Evil" (1958), "The Trial" (1962), "Chimes at Midnight" (1966) and "F for Fake" (1973). His distinctive directorial style featured layered and nonlinear narrative forms, uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unusual camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots and long takes. He has been praised as "the ultimate auteur".


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles was an outsider to the studio system and struggled for creative control on his projects early on with the major film studios in Hollywood and later in life with a variety of independent financiers across Europe, where he spent most of his career. Many of his films were either heavily edited or remained unreleased. Some, like "Touch of Evil", have been painstakingly re-edited from his notes. With a development spanning almost 50 years, Welles's final film, "The Other Side of the Wind", was posthumously released in 2018.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles had three marriages, including one with Rita Hayworth, and three children. Known for his baritone voice, Welles performed extensively across theatre, radio, and film. He was a lifelong magician, noted for presenting troop variety shows in the war years. He was a lifelong member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and the Society of American Magicians. In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two British Film Institute polls among directors and critics. In 2018, he was included in the list of the 50 greatest Hollywood actors of all time by "The Daily Telegraph".


title: Orson Welles

text: George Orson Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a son of Richard Head Welles (1872–1930) and Beatrice Ives Welles ("née" Beatrice Lucy Ives; 1883–1924). He was named after one of his great-grandfathers, influential Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head, and his brother George Head. An alternative story of the source of his first and middle names was told by George Ade, who met Welles's parents on a West Indies cruise toward the end of 1914. Ade was traveling with a friend, Orson Wells (no relation), and the two of them sat at the same table as Mr. and Mrs. Richard Welles. Mrs. Welles was pregnant at the time, and when they said goodbye, she told them that she had enjoyed their company so much that if the child were a boy, she intended to name him after them: George Orson.


title: Orson Welles

text: Despite his family's affluence, Welles encountered hardship in childhood. His parents separated and moved approximately 55 miles south to Chicago in 1919. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother, a pianist, played during lectures by Dudley Crafts Watson at the Art Institute of Chicago to support her son and herself; the oldest Welles boy, "Dickie", was institutionalized at an early age because he had learning difficulties. Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital on May 10, 1924, just after Welles's ninth birthday. The Gordon String Quartet, a predecessor to the Berkshire String Quartet, which had made its first appearance at her home in 1921, played at Beatrice's funeral.


title: Orson Welles

text: After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing music. It was decided that he would spend the summer with the Watson family at a private art colony established by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward in the village of Wyoming in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. There, he played and became friends with the children of the Aga Khan, including the 12-year-old Prince Aly Khan (years later, they successively married Rita Hayworth). Then, in what Welles later described as "a hectic period" in his life, he lived in a Chicago apartment with both his father and Maurice Bernstein, a Chicago physician who had been a close friend of both his parents. Welles briefly attended public school before his alcoholic father left business altogether and took him along on his travels to Jamaica and the Far East. When they returned, they settled in a hotel in Grand Detour, Illinois, that was owned by his father. When the hotel burned down, Welles and his father took to the road again.


title: Orson Welles

text: "During the three years that Orson lived with his father, some observers wondered who took care of whom," wrote biographer Frank Brady.


title: Orson Welles

text: "In some ways, he was never really a young boy, you know," said Roger Hill, who became Welles's teacher and lifelong friend.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles briefly attended public school in Madison, Wisconsin, enrolled in the fourth grade. On September 15, 1926, he entered the Todd Seminary for Boys, an expensive independent school in Woodstock, Illinois, that his older brother, Richard Ives Welles, had attended ten years before until he was expelled for misbehavior. At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who was later Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an "ad hoc" educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged theatrical experiments and productions there.


title: Orson Welles

text: "Todd provided Welles with many valuable experiences," wrote critic Richard France. "He was able to explore and experiment in an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement. In addition to a theatre, the school's own radio station was at his disposal." Welles's first radio experience was on the Todd station, where he performed an adaptation of "Sherlock Holmes" that was written by him.


title: Orson Welles

text: On December 28, 1930, when Welles was 15, his father died of heart and kidney failure at the age of 58, alone in a hotel in Chicago. Shortly before this, Welles had announced to his father that he would stop seeing him, believing it would prompt his father to refrain from drinking. As a result, Orson felt guilty because he believed his father had drunk himself to death because of him. His father's will left it to Orson to name his guardian. When Roger Hill declined, Welles chose Maurice Bernstein.


title: Orson Welles

text: Following graduation from Todd in May 1931, Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard College, while his mentor Roger Hill advocated he attend Cornell College in Iowa. Rather than enrolling, he chose travel. He studied for a few weeks at the Art Institute of Chicago with Boris Anisfeld, who encouraged him to pursue painting.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles occasionally returned to Woodstock, the place he eventually named when he was asked in a 1960 interview, "Where is home?" Welles replied, "I suppose it's Woodstock, Illinois, if it's anywhere. I went to school there for four years. If I try to think of a home, it's that."


title: Orson Welles

text: After his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe using a small 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 him but was impressed by his brashness and an impassioned audition he gave. 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 small supporting roles in subsequent Gate productions, and he produced and designed productions of his own in Dublin. In March 1932, Welles performed in W. Somerset Maugham's "The Circle" at Dublin's Abbey Theatre and traveled to London to find additional work in the theatre. Unable to obtain a work permit, he returned to the U.S.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles found his fame ephemeral and turned to a writing project at Todd School that became immensely successful, first entitled "Everybody's Shakespeare" and subsequently, "The Mercury Shakespeare". Welles traveled to North Africa while working on thousands of illustrations for the "Everybody's Shakespeare" series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1933, Roger and Hortense Hill invited Welles to a party in Chicago, where Welles met Thornton Wilder. Wilder arranged for Welles to meet Alexander Woollcott in New York in order that he be introduced to Katharine Cornell, who was assembling a repertory theatre company. Cornell's husband, director Guthrie McClintic, immediately put Welles under contract and cast him in three plays. "Romeo and Juliet", "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and "Candida" toured in repertory for 36 weeks beginning in November 1933, with the first of more than 200 performances taking place in Buffalo, New York.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1934, Welles got his first job on radio—with "The American School of the Air"—through actor-director Paul Stewart, who introduced him to director Knowles Entrikin. That summer, Welles staged a drama festival with the Todd School at the Opera House in Woodstock, Illinois, inviting Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear along with New York stage luminaries in productions including "Trilby", "Hamlet", "The Drunkard" and "Tsar Paul". At the old firehouse in Woodstock, he also shot his first film, an eight-minute short titled, "The Hearts of Age".


title: Orson Welles

text: On November 14, 1934, Welles married Chicago socialite and actress Virginia Nicolson (often misspelled "Nicholson") in a civil ceremony in New York. To appease the Nicolsons, who were furious at the couple's 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: A revised production of Katharine Cornell's "Romeo and Juliet" opened December 20, 1934, at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York. The Broadway production brought the 19-year-old Welles (now playing Tybalt) to the notice of John Houseman, a theatrical producer who was casting the lead role 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


title: Orson Welles

text: By 1935, Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theatre as a radio actor in Manhattan, working with many actors who later formed the core of his Mercury Theatre on programs including "America's Hour", "Cavalcade of America", "Columbia Workshop" and "The March of Time". "Within a year of his debut Welles could claim membership in that elite band of radio actors who commanded salaries second only to the highest paid movie stars," wrote critic Richard France.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 United States 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 truly 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: The Federal Theatre Project was the ideal environment in which Welles could develop his art. Its purpose was employment, so he was able to hire any number of artists, craftsmen and technicians, and he filled the stage with performers. The company for the first production, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" with an entirely 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 in Dallas.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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, and featured Joseph Cotten in his first starring role. 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Outside the scope of the Federal Theatre Project, American composer Aaron Copland chose Welles to direct "The Second Hurricane" (1937), an operetta with a libretto by Edwin Denby. Presented at the Henry Street Settlement Music School in New York for the benefit of high school students, the production opened April 21, 1937, and ran its scheduled three performances.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1937, Welles rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's political operetta, "The Cradle Will Rock". It was originally scheduled to open June 16, 1937, in its first public preview. Because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's 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 waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, 20 blocks away. Some cast, and some crew and audience, walked the distance 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 the participation of the union members, "The Cradle Will Rock" began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience.


title: Orson Welles

text: Breaking with the Federal Theatre Project in 1937, Welles and Houseman founded their own repertory company, which they 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: "I think he was the greatest directorial talent we've ever had in the [American] theater," Lloyd said of Welles in a 2014 interview. "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."


title: Orson Welles

text: The Mercury Theatre opened November 11, 1937, with "Caesar", Welles's modern-dress adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy "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." The set was completely open with no curtain, and the brick stage wall was painted dark red. Scene changes were achieved by lighting alone. On the stage was a series of risers; squares were cut into one at intervals and lights were set beneath it, pointing straight up to evoke the "cathedral of light" at the Nuremberg Rallies. "He staged it like a political melodrama that happened the night before," said Lloyd.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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). As well as being presented in a pared-down oratorio version at the Mercury Theatre on Sunday nights in December 1937, "The Cradle Will Rock" was at the Windsor Theatre for 13 weeks (January 4 – April 2, 1938). Such was the success of the Mercury Theatre that Welles appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine, in full makeup as Captain Shotover in "Heartbreak House", in the issue dated May 9, 1938—three days after his 23rd birthday.


title: Orson Welles

text: On April 6, 1938, during a production of "Caesar", Orson Welles accidentally stabbed Joseph Holland with a steel knife during Act 3 Scene 1 where Brutus betrays Caesar, a real knife being used for the way it dramatically caught light during the scene. Holland took a month to recover from the injury, and this incident permanently damaged relations between the two.


title: Orson Welles

text: Simultaneously with his work in the theatre, Welles worked extensively in radio as an actor, writer, director and producer, often without credit. Between 1935 and 1937 he was earning as much as $2,000 a week, shuttling between radio studios at such a pace that he would arrive barely in time for a quick scan of his lines before he was on the air. While he was directing the "Voodoo Macbeth" Welles was dashing between Harlem and midtown Manhattan three times a day to meet his radio commitments.


title: Orson Welles

text: In addition to continuing as a repertory player on "The March of Time", in the fall of 1936 Welles adapted and performed "Hamlet" in an early two-part episode of CBS Radio's "Columbia Workshop". His performance as the announcer in the series' April 1937 presentation of Archibald MacLeish's verse drama "The Fall of the City" was an important development in his radio career and made the 21-year-old Welles an overnight star.


title: Orson Welles

text: In July 1937, the Mutual Network gave Welles a seven-week series to adapt "Les Misérables". It was his first job as a writer-director for radio, the radio debut of the Mercury Theatre, and one of Welles's earliest and finest achievements. He invented the use of narration in radio.


title: Orson Welles

text: "By making himself the center of the storytelling process, Welles fostered the impression of self-adulation that was to haunt his career to his dying day", wrote critic Andrew Sarris. "For the most part, however, Welles was singularly generous to the other members of his cast and inspired loyalty from them above and beyond the call of professionalism."


title: Orson Welles

text: That September, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, also known as "The Shadow". He performed the role anonymously through mid-September 1938.


title: Orson Welles

text: After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre, CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create a summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938, initially titled "First Person Singular", with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. Some months later the show was called "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". The weekly hour-long show presented radio plays based on classic literary works, with original music composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann.


title: Orson Welles

text: The Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells October 30, 1938, brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners was later reported to have created widespread confusion among listeners who failed to hear the introduction, although the extent of this confusion has come into question. 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 public speech.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles began commuting from California to New York for the two Sunday broadcasts of "The Campbell Playhouse" after signing a film contract with RKO Pictures in August 1939. In November 1939, production of the show moved from New York to Los Angeles.


title: Orson Welles

text: After 20 shows, Campbell began to exercise more creative control and had complete control over story selection. As his contract with Campbell came to an end, Welles chose not to sign on for another season. After the broadcast of March 31, 1940, Welles and Campbell parted amicably.


title: Orson Welles

text: RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered Welles what generally is considered the greatest contract offered to a filmmaker, much less to one who was untried. Engaging him to write, produce, direct and perform in two motion pictures, the contract subordinated the studio's financial interests to Welles's creative control, and broke all precedent by granting Welles the right of final cut. After signing a summary agreement with RKO on July 22, Welles signed a full-length 63-page contract August 21, 1939. The agreement was bitterly resented by the Hollywood studios and persistently mocked in the trade press.


title: Orson Welles

text: RKO rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, but agreed on the third offer—"Citizen Kane". Welles co-wrote, produced and directed the film, and he performed the lead role. 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 socially and came to hate after being exiled from Hearst's circle.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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, then drastically condensed and rearranged both versions and added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one making the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own."


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles's project attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland. For the cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. Filming "Citizen Kane" took ten weeks.


title: Orson Welles

text: Hearst's newspapers barred all reference to "Citizen Kane" and exerted enormous pressure on the Hollywood film community to force RKO to shelve the film. RKO chief George Schaefer received a cash offer from MGM's Louis B. Mayer and other major studio executives if he would destroy the negative and existing prints of the film.


title: Orson Welles

text: While waiting for "Citizen Kane" to be released, Welles produced and directed the original Broadway production of "Native Son", a drama written by Paul Green and Richard Wright based on Wright's novel. Starring Canada Lee, the show ran March 24 – June 28, 1941, at the St. James Theatre. The Mercury Production was the last time Welles and Houseman worked together.


title: Orson Welles

text: "Citizen Kane" was given a limited release and the film received overwhelming critical praise. It was voted the best picture of 1941 by the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle. The film garnered nine Academy Award nominations but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. "Variety" reported that block voting by screen 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 postwar France, however, the film's reputation grew after it was seen for the first time in 1946. In the United States, it began to be re-evaluated after it began to appear on television in 1956. That year it was also re-released theatrically, and film critic Andrew Sarris described it as "the great American film" and "the work that influenced the cinema more profoundly than any American film since "The Birth of a Nation"." "Citizen Kane" is now widely hailed as one of the greatest films ever made.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles's second film for RKO was "The Magnificent Ambersons", adapted by Welles from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. Toland was not available, so Stanley Cortez was named cinematographer. The meticulous Cortez worked slowly and the film lagged behind schedule and over budget. Prior to production, Welles's contract was renegotiated, revoking his right to control the final cut. "The Magnificent Ambersons" was in production October 28, 1941 – January 22, 1942.


title: Orson Welles

text: Throughout the shooting of the film Welles was also producing a weekly half-hour radio series, "The Orson Welles Show". Many of the "Ambersons" cast participated in the CBS Radio series, which ran from September 15, 1941, to February 2, 1942.


title: Orson Welles

text: At RKO's request, Welles worked on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller "Journey into Fear", co-written with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was the producer. Direction was credited to Norman Foster. Welles later said that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was determined by whoever was closest to the camera.


title: Orson Welles

text: In late November 1941, Welles was appointed as a goodwill ambassador to Latin America by Nelson Rockefeller, U.S. Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and a principal stockholder in RKO Radio Pictures. The mission of the OCIAA was cultural diplomacy, promoting hemispheric solidarity and countering the growing influence of the Axis powers in Latin America. John Hay Whitney, head of the agency's Motion Picture Division, was asked by the Brazilian government to produce a documentary of the annual Rio Carnival celebration taking place in early February 1942. In a telegram on December 20, 1941, Whitney wrote Welles, "Personally believe you would make great contribution to hemisphere solidarity with this project."


title: Orson Welles

text: The OCIAA sponsored cultural tours to Latin America and appointed goodwill ambassadors including George Balanchine and the American Ballet, Bing Crosby, Aaron Copland, Walt Disney, John Ford and Rita Hayworth. Welles was thoroughly briefed in Washington, D.C., immediately before his departure for Brazil, and film scholar Catherine L. Benamou, a specialist in Latin American affairs, finds it "not unlikely" that he was among the goodwill ambassadors who were asked to gather intelligence for the U.S. government in addition to their cultural duties. She concludes that Welles's acceptance of Whitney's request was "a logical and patently patriotic choice".


title: Orson Welles

text: In addition to working on his ill-fated film project "It's All True", Welles was responsible for radio programs, lectures, interviews and informal talks as part of his OCIAA-sponsored cultural mission, which was regarded as a success. He spoke on topics ranging from Shakespeare to visual art at gatherings of Brazil's elite, and his two intercontinental radio broadcasts in April 1942 were particularly intended to tell U.S. audiences that President Vargas was a partner with the Allies. Welles's ambassadorial mission was extended to permit his travel to other nations including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. Welles worked for more than half a year with no compensation.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles's own expectations for the film were modest. ""It's All True" was not going to make any cinematic history, nor was it intended to," he later said. "It was intended to be a perfectly honorable execution of my job as a goodwill ambassador, bringing entertainment to the Northern Hemisphere that showed them something about the Southern one."


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 brief dramatization of the history of jazz performance, from its roots to its place in American culture in the 1940s. "The Story of Jazz" was to go into production in December 1941.


title: Orson Welles

text: Mercury Productions purchased the stories for two other segments—"My Friend Bonito" and "The Captain's Chair"—from documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty. Adapted by Norman Foster and John Fante, "My Friend Bonito" was the only segment of the original "It's All True" to go into production. Filming took place in Mexico September–December 1941, with Norman Foster directing under Welles's supervision.


title: Orson Welles

text: In December 1941, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs asked Welles to make a film in Brazil that would showcase the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro. With filming of "My Friend Bonito" about two-thirds complete, Welles decided he could shift the geography of "It's All True" and incorporate Flaherty's story into an omnibus film about Latin America—supporting the Roosevelt administration's Good Neighbor policy, which Welles strongly advocated. In this revised concept, "The Story of Jazz" was replaced by the story of samba, a musical form with a comparable history and one that came to fascinate Welles. He also decided to do a ripped-from-the-headlines episode about the epic voyage of four poor Brazilian fishermen, the jangadeiros, who had become national heroes. Welles later said this was the most valuable story.


title: Orson Welles

text: Required to film the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro in early February 1942, Welles rushed to edit "The Magnificent Ambersons" and finish his acting scenes in "Journey into Fear". He ended his lucrative CBS radio show 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. Welles recorded the film's narration the night before he left for South America: "I went to the projection room at about four in the morning, did the whole thing, and then got on the plane and off to Rio—and the end of civilization as we know it."


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles left for Brazil on February 4 and began filming in Rio on February 8, 1942. At the time it did not seem that Welles's other film projects would be disrupted, but as film historian Catherine L. Benamou wrote, "the ambassadorial appointment would be the first in a series of turning points leading—in 'zigs' and 'zags,' rather than in a straight line—to Welles's loss of complete directorial control over both "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "It's All True", the cancellation of his contract at RKO Radio Studio, the expulsion of his company Mercury Productions from the RKO lot, and, ultimately, the total suspension of "It's All True".


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1942 RKO Pictures underwent major changes under new management. Nelson Rockefeller, the primary backer of the Brazil project, left its board of directors, and Welles's principal sponsor at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. RKO took control of "Ambersons" and edited the film into what the studio considered a commercial format. Welles's attempts to protect his version ultimately failed. 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 on the film.


title: Orson Welles

text: "So I was fired from RKO," Welles later 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles returned to the United States August 22, 1942, after more than six months in South America. A week after his return 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 (which wired bond subscriptions free of charge) 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: "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."


title: Orson Welles

text: "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.


title: Orson Welles

text: "Hello Americans", a CBS Radio series broadcast November 15, 1942 – January 31, 1943, was produced, directed and hosted by Welles under the auspices of the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs. The 30-minute weekly program promoted inter-American understanding and friendship, drawing upon the research amassed for the ill-fated film, "It's All True". 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Throughout the war Welles worked on patriotic radio programs including "Command Performance", "G.I. Journal", "Mail Call", "Nazi Eyes on Canada", "Stage Door Canteen" and "Treasury Star Parade".


title: Orson Welles

text: In early 1943, the two concurrent radio series ("Ceiling Unlimited", "Hello Americans") that Orson Welles created for CBS to support the war effort had ended. Filming also had wrapped on the 1943 film adaptation of "Jane Eyre" and that fee, in addition to the income from his regular guest-star roles in radio, made it possible for Welles to fulfill a lifelong dream. He approached the War Assistance League of Southern California and proposed a show that evolved into a big-top spectacle, part circus and part magic show. He offered his services as magician and director, and invested some $40,000 of his own money in an extravaganza he co-produced with his friend Joseph Cotten: "The Mercury Wonder Show for Service Men". Members of the U.S. armed forces were admitted free of charge, while the general public had to pay. The show entertained more than 1,000 service members each night, and proceeds went to the War Assistance League, a charity for military service personnel.


title: Orson Welles

text: The development of the show coincided with the resolution of Welles's oft-changing draft status in May 1943, when he was finally declared 4-F—unfit for military service—for a variety of medical reasons. "I felt guilty about the war," Welles told biographer Barbara Leaming. "I was guilt-ridden about my civilian status." 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: "The Mercury Wonder Show" ran August 3 – September 9, 1943, in an 80-by-120-foot tent located at 900 Cahuenga Boulevard, in the heart of Hollywood.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 approximately 48,000 members of the U.S. armed forces.


title: Orson Welles

text: The idea of doing a radio variety show occurred to Welles after his success as substitute host of four consecutive episodes (March 14 – April 4, 1943) of "The Jack Benny Program", radio's most popular show, when Benny contracted pneumonia on a performance tour of military bases. 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 one-hour 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 and the most violent phase of World War II. Welles produced additional war loan drive broadcasts on June 14 from the Hollywood Bowl, and June 16 from Soldier Field, Chicago. Americans purchased $20.6 billion in War Bonds during the Fifth War Loan Drive, which ended on July 8, 1944.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles campaigned ardently for Roosevelt in 1944. A long-time supporter and campaign speaker for FDR, he occasionally sent the president ideas and phrases that were sometimes incorporated into what Welles characterized as "less important speeches". One of these ideas was the joke in what came to be called the Fala speech, Roosevelt's nationally broadcast September 23 address to the International Teamsters Union which opened the 1944 presidential campaign.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles campaigned for the Roosevelt–Truman ticket almost full-time in the fall of 1944, traveling to nearly every state to the detriment of his own health and at his own expense. In addition to his radio addresses he filled in for Roosevelt, opposite Republican presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, at "The New York Herald Tribune Forum" broadcast October 18 on the Blue Network. Welles accompanied FDR to his last campaign rally, speaking at an event November 4 at Boston's Fenway Park before 40,000 people, and took part in a historic election-eve campaign broadcast November 6 on all four radio networks.


title: Orson Welles

text: On November 21, 1944, Welles began his association with "This Is My Best", a CBS radio series he would briefly 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 his international vision, particularly the establishment of the United Nations and the cause of world peace.


title: Orson Welles

text: On April 12, 1945, the day Franklin D. Roosevelt died, the Blue-ABC network marshalled its entire executive staff and national leaders to pay homage to the late president. "Among the outstanding programs which attracted wide attention was a special tribute delivered by Orson Welles", reported "Broadcasting" magazine. 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."


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles presented another special broadcast on the death of Roosevelt the following evening: "We must move on beyond mere death to that free world which was the hope and labor of his life."


title: Orson Welles

text: He dedicated the April 17 episode of "This Is My Best" to Roosevelt and the future of America on the eve of the United Nations Conference on International Organization. Welles was an advisor and correspondent for the Blue-ABC radio network's coverage of the San Francisco conference that formed the UN, taking place April 24 – June 23, 1945. He presented a half-hour dramatic program written by Ben Hecht on the opening day of the conference, and on Sunday afternoons (April 29 – June 10) he led a weekly discussion from the San Francisco Civic Auditorium.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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—something he was so eager to do that he accepted a disadvantageous contract. One of its concessions was that he would defer to the studio in any creative dispute.


title: Orson Welles

text: "The Stranger" was Welles's first job as a film director in four years. He was told that if the film was successful he could sign a four-picture deal with International Pictures, making films of his own choosing. Welles was given some degree of creative control, and he endeavored to personalize the film and develop a nightmarish tone. He worked on the general rewrite of the script and wrote scenes at the beginning of the picture that were shot but subsequently cut by the producers. He filmed in long takes that largely thwarted the control given to editor Ernest J. Nims under the terms of the contract.


title: Orson Welles

text: "The Stranger" was the first commercial film to use documentary footage from the Nazi concentration camps. Welles had seen the footage in early May 1945 in San Francisco, as a correspondent and discussion moderator at the UN Conference on International Organization. He wrote of the Holocaust footage in his syndicated "New York Post" column May 7, 1945.


title: Orson Welles

text: Completed a day ahead of schedule and under budget, "The Stranger" was the only film made by Welles to have been a "bona fide" box office success upon its release. Its cost was $1.034 million; 15 months after its release it had grossed $3.216 million. 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: In the summer of 1946, Welles moved to New York to direct the Broadway musical "Around the World", a stage adaptation of the Jules Verne novel "Around the World in Eighty Days" with a book by Welles and music by Cole Porter. Producer Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful 1956 film adaptation, pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, leaving Welles to support the finances. When Welles ran out of money he convinced Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn to send enough money 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 soon failed due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 for him, 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: The last broadcast of "Orson Welles Commentaries" on October 6, 1946, marked the end of Welles's own radio shows.


title: Orson Welles

text: The film that Welles was obliged to make in exchange for Harry Cohn's help in financing the stage production "Around the World" was "The Lady from Shanghai", filmed in 1947 for Columbia Pictures. Intended as a modest thriller, the budget skyrocketed after Cohn suggested that Welles's then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-star.


title: Orson Welles

text: Cohn disliked Welles's rough cut, particularly the confusing plot and lack of close-ups, and was not in sympathy with Welles's Brechtian use of irony and black comedy, especially in a farcical courtroom scene. Cohn ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. After heavy editing by the studio, approximately one hour of Welles's first cut was removed, including much of a climactic confrontation scene in an amusement park funhouse. While expressing displeasure at the cuts, Welles was appalled particularly with the musical score. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release, though the closing shootout in a hall of mirrors (the use of mirrors being a recurrent motif of Welles's) has since become a touchstone of film noir. Not long after release, Welles and Hayworth finalized their divorce.


title: Orson Welles

text: Although "The Lady from Shanghai" was acclaimed in Europe, it was not embraced in the U.S. until decades later, where it is now often regarded as a classic of film noir. A similar difference in reception on opposite sides of the Atlantic, followed by greater American acceptance, befell the Welles-inspired Chaplin film "Monsieur Verdoux", originally to be directed by Welles starring Chaplin, then directed by Chaplin with the idea credited to Welles.


title: Orson Welles

text: Prior to 1948, Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of "Macbeth", which featured 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 "Citizen Kane" in its long takes and deep focus photography.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 almost a year after early negative press reaction, including "Life"s 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 some 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."


title: Orson Welles

text: In Italy he starred as Cagliostro in the 1948 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 1960s.


title: Orson Welles

text: The following year, Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's "The Third Man", alongside Joseph Cotten, his friend and co-star from "Citizen Kane", with a script by Graham Greene and a memorable score by Anton Karas.


title: Orson Welles

text: A few years later, British radio producer Harry Alan Towers would resurrect the Lime character in the radio series "The Adventures of Harry Lime".


title: Orson Welles

text: 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" (again with Tyrone Power).


title: Orson Welles

text: During this time, Welles was channeling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play "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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left for acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's published 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 wide re-release. The restoration included reconstructing Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original musical score, which was originally inaudible, and adding ambient stereo sound effects, which were not in the original film. The restoration went on to a successful theatrical run in America.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 for 52 weeks with Welles as host and narrator. Director Herbert Wilcox offered Welles the part of the murdered victim in "Trent's Last Case", based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953, the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem "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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles's next turn as director was the film "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 very limited budget. Based loosely on several 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 Harry 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 the film 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1955, Welles also directed two television series for the BBC. The first was "Orson Welles' Sketch Book", a series of six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera (including such topics as the filming of "It's All True" and the Isaac Woodard case), and the second was "Around the World with Orson Welles", a series of six travelogues set in different locations around Europe (such as Vienna, the Basque Country between France and Spain, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations (a technique he would continue to explore in later works).


title: Orson Welles

text: During Episode 3 of "Sketchbook", Welles makes a deliberate attack on the abuse of police powers around the world. The episode starts with him telling the story of Isaac Woodard, an African-American veteran of the South Pacific during World War II being falsely accused by a bus driver of being drunk and disorderly, who then has a policeman remove the man from the bus. Woodard is not arrested right away, but rather he is beaten into unconsciousness nearly to the point of death and when he finally regains consciousness he is permanently blinded. By the time doctors from the US Army located him three weeks later, there was nothing that could be done. Welles assures the audience that he personally saw to it that justice was served to this policeman although he doesn't mention what type of justice was delivered. Welles then goes on to give other examples of police being given more power and authority than is necessary. The title of this episode is "The Police".


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 several decades, where they were discovered in 1986, after Welles's death.


title: Orson Welles

text: He began filming a projected pilot for Desilu, owned by Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, who had recently 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles's next feature film role was in "Man in the Shadow" for Universal Pictures in 1957, starring Jeff Chandler.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles stayed on at Universal to direct (and co-star with) Charlton Heston in the 1958 film "Touch of Evil", based on Whit Masterson's novel "Badge of Evil". Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal Studios at the insistence of Charlton Heston. The film reunited many 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 Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich and Akim Tamiroff. Filming proceeded smoothly, with Welles finishing on schedule and on budget, and the studio bosses praising the daily rushes. Nevertheless, after the end of production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. Welles wrote a 58-page memo outlining suggestions and objections, stating that the film was no longer his version—it was the studio's, but as such, he was still prepared to help with it.


title: Orson Welles

text: As Universal reworked "Touch of Evil", Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes's novel "Don Quixote" in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza.


title: Orson Welles

text: He continued shooting "Don Quixote" in Spain and Italy, but replaced Mischa Auer with Francisco Reiguera, and resumed acting jobs.


title: Orson Welles

text: In Italy in 1959, Welles directed his own 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".


title: Orson Welles

text: Throughout the 1960s, filming continued on "Quixote" on-and-off until the end of the decade, as Welles evolved the concept, tone and ending several times. Although he had a complete version of the film shot and edited at least once, he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1980s, he never completed a version of the film 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 he 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 of the characters himself and provided narration. In 1992, the director Jesús Franco constructed a film out of the portions of "Quixote" left behind 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 harsh criticism.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1961, Welles directed "In the Land of Don Quixote", a series of eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network RAI. Similar to the "Around the World with Orson Welles" series, 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 Italian narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by which time the network had added Italian narration of its own. Ultimately, versions of the episodes were released with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Paola Mori and Akim Tamiroff. While filming exteriors in Zagreb, Welles was informed that the Salkinds had run out of money, meaning that there could be no set construction. No stranger to shooting on found locations, Welles soon filmed the interiors in the Gare d'Orsay, at that time an abandoned railway 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 together with the Film Editor, Frederick Muller (as Fritz Muller), in the old un-used, cold, depressing, station master office. The film failed at the box-office. Peter Bogdanovich would later observe that Welles found the film riotously funny. Welles also told a BBC interviewer that it was his best film. While filming "The Trial" Welles met Oja Kodar, who later became his partner and collaborator for the last 20 years of his life.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles played a film director in "La Ricotta" (1963), Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the "Ro.Go.Pa.G." movie, although his renowned voice was dubbed by Italian writer Giorgio Bassani. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming "Chimes at Midnight", which was completed in 1965.


title: Orson Welles

text: Filmed in Spain, "Chimes at Midnight" was based on Welles's play, "Five Kings", in which he drew material from six Shakespeare plays to tell the story of Sir John Falstaff (Welles) and his relationship with Prince Hal (Keith Baxter). The cast includes John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey and Margaret Rutherford; the film's narration, spoken by Ralph Richardson, is taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed. Welles held the film in high regard: "It's my favorite picture, yes. If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I would offer up."


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 had 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 brief cameo as Cardinal Wolsey in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of "A Man for All Seasons"—a role for which he won considerable acclaim.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Kodar. 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 play "The Merchant of Venice" with Welles as Shylock. In 1969 Welles called again the Film 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 numerous 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on television talk shows. He made frequent appearances for Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and Merv Griffin.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles's primary focus during his final years was "The Other Side of the Wind", a project that was filmed intermittently between 1970 and 1976. 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 of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed. The legal disputes kept the film in its unfinished state until early 2017 and it was finally released in November 2018.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles portrayed Louis XVIII of France in the 1970 film "Waterloo", and narrated the beginning and ending scenes of the historical comedy "Start the Revolution Without Me" (1970).


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 eventually released by the Filmmuseum München. He also appeared in "Ten Days' Wonder", co-starring with Anthony Perkins and directed by Claude Chabrol (who reciprocated with a bit part as himself in "Other Wind"), 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 John Huston to claim the award, thanking the Academy on film. In his speech, Huston criticized the Academy for presenting the award while refusing to support Welles's projects.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1972, Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the film 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 the Robert Louis Stevenson 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 also 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.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1973, Welles completed "F for Fake", a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the 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 several shots of a topless Kodar.


title: Orson Welles

text: Welles hosted a British syndicated anthology series, "Orson Welles's Great Mysteries", during the 1973–74 television season. His brief introductions to the 26 half-hour episodes were shot in July 1973 by Gary Graver. The year 1974 also saw Welles lending his voice for that year's remake of Agatha Christie's classic thriller "Ten Little Indians" produced by his former associate, Harry Alan Towers and starring an international cast that included Oliver Reed, Elke Sommer and Herbert Lom.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1975, Welles narrated the documentary "", focusing on Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s. Also in 1975, the American Film Institute presented Welles with its third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two going to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). At the ceremony, Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished "The Other Side of the Wind".


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1976, Paramount Television purchased the rights for the entire set of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories for Orson Welles. Welles had once wanted to make a series of Nero Wolfe movies, but Rex Stout—who was leery of Hollywood adaptations during his lifetime after two disappointing 1930s films—turned him down. Paramount planned to begin with an ABC-TV movie and hoped to persuade Welles to continue the role in a miniseries. Frank D. Gilroy was signed to write the television script and direct the TV movie on the assurance that Welles would star, but by April 1977 Welles had bowed out. In 1980 the Associated Press reported "the distinct possibility" that Welles would star in a Nero Wolfe TV series for NBC television. Again, Welles bowed out of the project due to creative differences and William Conrad was cast in the role.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1979, Welles completed his documentary "Filming Othello", which featured Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. That same year, Welles completed his self-produced pilot for "The Orson Welles Show" television series, 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. Also in 1979, Welles appeared in the biopic "The Secret of Nikola Tesla", and a cameo in "The Muppet Movie" as Lew Lord.


title: Orson Welles

text: Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television commercial 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." He was also 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 the actual adverts have been overshadowed by a famous blooper reel of voice recordings, known as the Frozen Peas reel. He also did commercials for the Preview Subscription Television Service seen on stations around the country including WCLQ/Cleveland, KNDL/St. Louis and WSMW/Boston. As money ran short, he began directing commercials to make ends meet, including the famous British "Follow the Bear" commercials for Hofmeister lager.


title: Orson Welles

text: In 1981, Welles hosted the documentary "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow", about Renaissance-era prophet Nostradamus. In 1982, the BBC broadcast "The Orson Welles Story" in the "Arena" series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in great detail, and several people from his professional past were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as "With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film". Welles provided narration for the tracks "Defender" from Manowar's 1987 album "Fighting the World" and "Dark Avenger" on their 1982 album, "Battle Hymns". He also 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 been using this introduction for all of their concerts since then.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 he worked on was "Filming the Trial", the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot for these projects, none of them was completed. All of them were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.


title: Orson Welles

text: 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 famous writer and playboy. Welles's death forced this minor character to largely be written out of the series. In an oblique homage to Welles, the "Magnum, P.I." producers ambiguously concluded that story arc by having one character accuse another of having hired an actor to portray Robin Masters. He also, in this penultimate year 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 (father of guitarist "Dimebag Darrell" Abbott).


title: Orson Welles

text: The last film roles before Welles's death included voice work in the animated films "Enchanted Journey" (1984) and the animated film "" (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 the television show "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.


title: Orson Welles

text: In the mid-1980s, Henry Jaglom taped lunch conversations with Welles at Los Angeles's Ma Maison as well as in New York. Edited transcripts of these sessions appear in Peter Biskind's 2013 book "My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles".


title: Orson Welles

text: Orson Welles and Chicago-born actress and socialite Virginia Nicolson (1916–1996) were married on November 14, 1934. The couple separated in December 1939 and were divorced on February 1, 1940. After bearing with Welles's romances in New York, Virginia had learned that Welles had fallen in love with Mexican actress Dolores del Río.