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George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
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- Citizen Kane
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- Beatrice Welles
- Overview
- Early work
- Theatre and radio in the 1930s
Orson Welles (born May 6, 1915, Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.—died October 10, 1985, Los Angeles, California) American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer. His innovative narrative techniques and use of photography, dramatic lighting, and music to further the dramatic line and to create mood made his Citizen Kane (1941)—which he wrote, directed, produced, and acted in—one of the most-influential films in the history of the art.
(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)
Welles was born to a mother, Beatrice Ives, who was a concert pianist and a crack rifle shot, and a father, Richard Welles, who was an inventor and a businessman. Welles was a child prodigy, adept at the piano and violin, acting, drawing, painting, and writing verse; he also entertained his friends by performing magic tricks and staging mini productions of William Shakespeare’s plays.
Welles’s parents separated when he was four years old, and his mother died when he was nine. In 1926 Welles entered the exclusive Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois. There his gifts found fertile ground, and he dazzled the teachers and students with stagings of both modern and classical plays. His father died in 1930, and Welles became the ward of a family friend, Chicago doctor Maurice Bernstein. In 1931 he graduated from Todd, but, instead of attending college, he studied briefly at the Art Institute of Chicago before traveling to Dublin, where he successfully auditioned at the Gate Theatre for the part of the Duke of Württemberg in a stage adaptation of Lion Feuchtwanger’s novel Jew Süss.
Britannica Quiz
Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia
When Welles was performing in Romeo and Juliet, he met producer John Houseman, who immediately cast him as the lead in Archibald MacLeish’s verse play Panic, which premiered in 1935 for Houseman’s Phoenix Theatre Group. They then moved on in 1936 to mounting productions for the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA’s) Federal Theatre Project. Their first effort, for the Federal Theatre’s Negro Division, was Macbeth, with an all African American cast and the setting changed from Scotland to Haiti. They began 1937 with Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragicall History of Doctor Faustus (starring Welles). Their most (in)famous effort was Marc Blitzstein’s proletarian musical play The Cradle Will Rock. WPA guards shut down the theatre the night before its opening. (The shutdown was ostensibly for budgetary reasons; however, the political nature of the play was considered too radical.) Welles and Houseman quickly rented another theatre, and on opening night the play was presented with the actors performing their roles from seats in the audience. That same year they formed the Mercury Theatre, which presented a renowned modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In 1938 the Mercury Theatre presented William Gillette’s comedy Too Much Johnson. Welles shot three short silent films to precede each act of the play; however, the films were never finished. (The Too Much Johnson footage was believed to have been destroyed by fire in 1970; however, it was rediscovered, restored, and premiered in 2013.)
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At the same time, Welles was making inroads in radio. His radio career began early in 1934 with an excerpt from Panic. In 1935 he began appearing regularly on The March of Time news series, and subsequent radio roles included the part of Lamont Cranston in the mystery series The Shadow. In 1938 the Mercury players undertook a series of radio dramas adapted from famous novels. They attained national notoriety with a program based on H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds; the performance on October 30, using the format of a simulated news broadcast narrated by Welles, announced an attack on New Jersey by invaders from Mars. (However, contemporary reports that the program caused a nationwide panic were exaggerated.)
- Michael Barson
Orson Welles filmography. Orson Welles (1915–1985) was an American director, actor, writer, and producer who is best remembered for his innovative work in radio, theatre and film. He is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
YearTitleRole1937Narrator1940Narrator1941Himself1941Learn about the life and career of Orson Welles, a legendary filmmaker, actor, and radio personality. Find out his achievements, controversies, family, and legacy in this comprehensive biography.
- May 6, 1915
- October 10, 1985
IMDb provides an extensive overview of the life and career of Orson Welles, a legendary actor, writer, director, and producer. Learn about his early years, his famous works, his achievements, and his legacy.
- January 1, 1
- Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA
- January 1, 1
- Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
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Apr 2, 2014 · Orson Welles was a filmmaker, actor and writer who created the influential film 'Citizen Kane' and starred in other classics like 'The Magnificent Ambersons' and 'Macbeth'. He also directed and produced radio shows, wrote novels and married Rita Hayworth. Learn more about his life, career and legacy on Biography.com.
