WELLES, ORSON

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915–October 9, 1985) was an American director and actor in film, theater, and radio. Born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Welles was a precocious child, whose mother began reading Shakespeare to him when Orson was two. At sixteen, traveling in Ireland, Welles was hired as an actor at the renowned Gate and Abbey theatres. When he returned to the United States, he acted on Broadway and soon began to direct plays. Welles's uniquely modern productions gained acclaim, and he led his theater company into the new field of radio drama. His famously deep, melodic voice became the incarnation of The Shadow, and his version of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, broadcast in October 1938 and intended as a Halloween entertainment, was so realistic that it caused a panic—and brought Welles to the attention of Hollywood. RKO invited the then 25-year-old to direct a picture; the result was Citizen Kane (1941), considered one of the finest films ever made.

The New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA) sought to provide appropriate work for artists, as well as laborers; the WPA's theatrical arm was the Federal Theatre Project. Welles, then in his twenties, became the creative force behind New York's Negro Theatre Project, and selected Macbeth as its first production. To deal with the issue of black dialect and black actors playing Shakespeare, he changed the play's setting from Scotland to Haiti. The resulting "Voodoo Macbeth" combined Macbeth's tragic elements with voodoo chants, dramatic lighting, and music scored by composer Virgil Thomson. Welles then headed the Federal Theatre Project's classical wing, Project 891, for which he directed a variety of plays, from Horse Eats Hat, an eighteenth-century farce, to Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, in which he also starred. Welles continued to evolve a dramatic use of lighting, sometimes on an empty stage.

Although Project 891 was funded by the federal government, Welles mounted Marc Blitzstein's controversial The Cradle Will Rock, a "sociological light opera" that condemned big industry corruption and championed the gallantry of struggling labor unions. When the government reduced funding to programs in 1937, WPA members went on strike and closed all federal theatres. Blitzstein and the opera's cast stood in front of the theater, handing out leaflets protesting the government's imminent action, which was a parallel to the opera itself. On the day of the sold-out first performance of The Cradle Will Rock, the front doors of the theater were padlocked and federal guards were placed outside. Welles stood on a box and shouted to the waiting audience that the play would go on in the Venice Theatre, twenty blocks uptown, at no charge. Cheering, the crowd made its way north, doubling by the time it reached the Venice. Without funding to pay for an orchestra, they rented a battered upright piano. The Federal Theatre Project actors were not allowed to appear onstage at another theater, so they sat in the audience, standing when appropriate to sing their parts. The review in Stage magazine claimed "a great art became a living crusade."

Time magazine featured the 23-year-old Orson Welles on its May 9, 1938, cover for simultaneously directing plays, acting in his own and other productions, and being host, director and star of weekly radio dramas. With his direction of Citizen Kane, he added film to his repertoire. The parallels of Citizen Kane to the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst caused Hollywood to turn against Welles, and he spent the next decade working in Europe. Only years later was Citizen Kane acknowledged as one of the most innovative, cinematically original films ever made. Despite his struggles in Hollywood, Welles managed to direct thirteen feature films, including The Magnificent Ambersons, Macbeth, and Touch of Evil. He also acted in dozens of films, including his small but memorable role as Harry Lime in The Third Man, in which he wrote much of his own dialogue.

WELLES, ORSON

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