Orson Welles
Orson Welles is a legendary figure in radio. Born in 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin Welles grew up in a family that encouraged thought. His mother was a musician and his father was an inventor. As a result, he knew many people of different backgrounds and was exposed to great creativity. Orson had a love of Shakespeare from a very early age and this would become evident throughout his career on stage and radio.
Growing up, Welles had a great love for magic. He learned many illusions and continued to enjoy life as a magician when he became an adult. As a teenager, Welles decided he wanted to be an actor and worked in the theater in Ireland. Eventually he returned to the United States and acted in plays such as Candida and Romeo and Juliet.
It was while on stage in New York in 1934 that he met John Houseman who later became his partner in The Mercury Theater on the Air . In 1936 at the age of 21 the unknown Orson Welles was offered the part of Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Columbia Workshop production and later in February 1937 the role of Macbeth. His next role for Columbia Workshop was as the narrator of probably its most famous story The Fall of the City broadcast on 11th April 1937 and said to represent the terror of its time.
From July to September 1937 exactly a year before Mercury Theater Orson Welles produced, directed and starred in his first dramatic effort, Victor Hugo's Les Miserables that was broadcast in seven 30-minute episodes. Following this Welles auditioned for and won the part of The Shadow . At the time he was still quite unknown and only 22 years of age yet he became one of the best-known voices of The Shadow in which he starred from September 1937 through March 1938.
In June 1938 CBS gave the famous young Orson Welles the chance to bring his celebrated Mercury repertory company from Broadway to The Broadway of The Air . In the first of these excellent shows you are treated to the most famous horror story in the world, Bram Stokers Dracula , which was adapted for radio by his Mercury Theater partner John Houseman. The recording is a little crackly, but even after over 60 years it is still well worth listening to.
No one could write anything about the life of Orson Welles without mentioning his famous performance of The War of the Worlds . In 1938, the Mercury Theater presented a broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds that sent people into mass hysteria.
The realistic performance of news bulletins depicting visitors from Mars had many people looking toward the sky and waiting for a space landing. There were reports of deaths and panic as a result of the show. However, in reality no one actually died after the broadcast – though there were some very upset people and even a few lawsuits.
From 1939 Mercury Theater gained sponsorship and was henceforth known as Campbell Playhouse and Orson Welles went on to produce, direct and star in the shows until 1940. By now Orson Welles had become part of an exclusive little group along with Arch Oboler, Norman Corwin and Elliott Lewis known as the triple threat men because of their ability to write, produce and direct.
In 1942 Orson Welles made his debut on Suspense both directing and starring in Hitchhiker . It is a gripping tale of a man on a journey that begins well enough but very quickly descends into a frightening tale of fear and paranoia . Other memorable Suspense episodes featuring Orson Welles are The Most Dangerous Game in 1943 as well as The Marvelous Barastro in 1944 and Donovan's Brain in 1944.
In 1941, the movie Citizen Kane, co-written by and starring Orson Welles, was released. This film is known as one of the greatest movies of all time, though it wasn’t received well by Hollywood at the time of its release.
After Citizen Kane , Welles was unable to create the kind of independent films that he wanted to make. Instead, he made his living mostly from acting and lending his famous voice to commercials and other narrations.
In 1943 Welles married his second wife Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. Welles then moved to Europe and while in England in 1949 he appeared as Harry Lime in the successful film The Third Man by Graham Greene.
A few years later in 1951 Harry Alan Towers, British radio producer resurrected the Lime character for radio in the series The Third Man subtitled The Lives of Harry Lime. Starring Orson Welles it was very successful, and ran for 52 weeks and was syndicated to American radio in 1952.
After the success of the Harry Lime radio show Towers offered Welles another series, The Black Museum , with Welles as host and narrator, and this would also run 52 weeks and could be heard in America throughout 1952. In 1953 Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the BBC radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring British actors John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson.
While he was nominated for many Academy Awards and Golden Globes, Welles actually won surprisingly few. However, in 1975 he was honored with the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement award and in 1979 Welles was inducted into the Radio Hall of fame.
In 1982, Welles won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his role on Donovan's Brain . In 1985 at the age of 70, Orson Welles died in Los Angeles from a heart attack. He was survived by his wife and three children.
I will be adding some of the great works of Orson Welles throughout the week and for shows already on RUSC you can do apower search adding his name to "starring".
Happy listening my friends,