Favorites List --- Orson Welles --- Part One



We need to finally and for all time put rout to ideas that Orson Welles finished up a broken and frustrated has-been. Having watched Orson Welles --- The One-Man Band again (it's an extra on Criterion's F For Fake DVD), I've decided this was one happy and continually creating force who never let (so many) reversals get him down. Turns out Orson, according to that fine documentary, generated his own fun making movies virtually alone at home when studios or backers shut him out, and does not appear to have moped unduly over lost opportunities. What we sometimes forget about artists is their ability to keep on generating art, provided senses remain intact. A public's acclamation is secondary to the process itself. Welles had a blast shooting film while his (gorgeous) girlfriend was out of town and surprising her with footage when she got back. The rambling Spanish country house he maintained was location for all sorts of projects OW juggled between acting and commercial gigs. One-Man Band presents an always cheerful Welles excited over what he's currently up to, whether that be a photographed reading of Moby Dick (he and Gary Graver evidently did that largely by themselves) or conjuring another reel of legendarily unfinished The Other Side Of The Wind. Enough of poor Orson, then! We should all be so lucky as to find such joy in what we do, whatever the rewards bestowed or withheld. Of many things I admire about Welles, his never seeming to feel sorry for himself is uppermost.

To (begin to) know Orson Welles is to put aside everything else and submerge in the glut of books written about his amazing life and career. I'll go on a Welles binge from time to time and not come up for a week. Recommended starting points include two volumes so far from Simon Callow, This Is Orson Welles by the title subject and Peter Bogdanovich, an authorized biography by Barbara Leaming, Frank Brady's Citizen Welles, and Joseph McBride's Whatever Happened to Orson Welles ... for starters. Iron man status is achieved upon completion of these, even as I suspect, as would these authors, that but a fraction of Welles' history lays before us. Why does it matter? Well, for Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, if nothing else. Plus all the radio work ... how many Orsonists have listened to all his broadcasting that survives? Do we have sufficient hours left of life to hear the lot of them? More and more I envy Welles his citizenry of the world. Does anyone know how many languages he spoke? To have been a certified genius in childhood was surely a heavy burden. Orson had few friends among peers, according to biographers. His father was said (by Welles) to have turned the boy loose (and alone) on a European tour when he was ten. Now that is hard to imagine, particularly in our modern day when parents won't let their angels go to a mail box unaccompanied. I thought I'd been liberated at ten for venturing solo to watch Castle Of Blood at the Liberty, so all this is icy water in my cosseted face.

I enjoy Welles' shows of humility in late-life interviews, especially when he talks of Boy Genius days. There was always humor in the telling and recognition that here was a youngster too precocious for anyone's good. I'm sure Orson recast much of what was disagreeable about his youth; certainly he did so to the pleasure of his listeners. Maybe he came to believe the revisions himself. Welles liked to laugh and did so boomingly. I wish there was even more footage of him just talking (a good DVD is recently out, Orson Welles: The Paris Interview, done in 1960). There's not much denying the young Welles could be obnoxious ... too many others have testified to that. Well, so was I, and without the license genius confers. Did Orson lack patience with those (nearly everyone) running several ticks behind him? All's Well That Ends Welles, said one of his detractors (my favorite of many putdowns), and the Lord knows, much of Hollywood wanted to see Orson get his own George Minafer-ish comeuppance. Sometimes he spoofed the ego on radio. Those would be fun listening to. Again, it was his mischief and showmanship that delighted OW's public. He did magic acts at state fairs and service camps (commenting later that few people really seemed to enjoy watching him, or anyone, do tricks). Welles squired Dolores Del Rio and married Rita Hayworth, so had to be doing something right. Being such a big guy with a commanding voice made opponents stand down, but that didn't stop many of them knifing him from behind. If Welles' life had a continuing thread, it was recognition that he'd been betrayed by a lot of folks he thought were friends.

There were tales he told and retold. I want all of them to be true. Orson just got better at raconteur-ing as he approached anecdotage. It was a mercy he died before old age robbed him of such remarkable faculties (there was a talk show taped the evening before his sudden passing). That black tent he wore preceded him like circus set-up, and a lavish bow of a tie must have taken forever to get right (did companion Oja Kodar also serve as dresser?). Audiences loved Welles on TV. He may have talked down to RKO brass during Kane-days, but OW surely learned by middle-age how to play mass viewing's fiddle. How many guests were as welcome (recurringly so) on The Dean Martin Show as irresistible humbug Orson? I don't find any of such work degrading, and would submit neither did he. You can tell he liked people. Welles seemed to have been nothing if not social. I never heard of him dismissing anyone who wanted an autograph. The fictionalized cameo in Ed Wood is spot-on for showing Welles' generous nature toward a newcomer. I'm not unaware of a certain notorious tape of him sparring with technicians recording that green peas commercial. Well, who wouldn't get annoyed with such hair (or pea) splitting, especially when you just want to collect the fee, buy raw stock, and get home to read some more Moby Dick for posterity?

Just what made Pauline Kael attack Orson Welles with such ferocity? You wonder how many even remember that confrontation of nearly forty years ago. Certainly less than know Citizen Kane, the object of Kael's broadside. She proposed that Welles wrote none of it and tried rooking Herman J. Mankiewicz out of proper screenplay credit besides. Frank Brady speculated on Kael's own frustrated ambition to pen movies guiding her invective toward Welles. Certainly she seemed bent of hurting the man personally and professionally. It was as if forces resentful of OW when he first arrived in Hollywood were gathered once again to pull him down. To that point, Kael had assist from longtime Welles nemesis John Houseman, his infection having taken decades to fester. I guess Kael used Houseman to lend credence to her bold thesis, while Houseman used Kael to finally get even for wrongs inflicted long before she first dipped quill to acid. Or perhaps her enmity had origins more prosaic. Did Welles overlook or (God forbid) snub this woman in a long-ago theatre lobby or restaurant he (but not she) had forgot? Maybe PK wrote him a letter once and OW failed to respond. That so-called Golden Age of film criticism produced monster egos, if not writing of permanence. I'd just bet Pauline Kael was miffed with Welles over something a lot more personal than a 1941 movie credit. Even allowing for attention she knew such a radical position would generate, still hers was an assault you'd reserve for someone who'd really done you dirt. In Orson Welles' case, it might have been something so banal as failing to accord her respect she felt entitled to.

Also see Citizen Kane --- Parts One and Two at Greenbriar's Archive, plus The Stranger and Why Pick On Orson?