Orson Welles

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Early career (1931–1935)

Welles went to Europe after his father's death and carried only a small amount of his inheritance. Welles said he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed to be a Broadway celebrity while on a walking and painting tour of Ireland. Hilton Edwards' Gates' boss said he didn't believe him at the time, but was taken by his brashness and an impassioned audition he gave. 134 Welles made his stage debut at the Gate Theatre on October 13, 1931, appearing in Ashley Dukes' play Jud Süß as Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg. He appeared in small supporting roles in subsequent Gate productions, and he conceived and directed productions in Dublin. Welles appeared in W. Somerset Maugham's The Circle at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in March 1932 and then travelled to London to find more theatre roles. After struggling to get a work permit, he returned to the United States: 327-330.

Welles discovered his fame at a young age, transforming into a writing competition at Todd School that became incredibly popular, first entitled Everybody's Shakespeare and then The Mercury Shakespeare. Welles travelled to North Africa while designing thousands of illustrations for Everybody's Shakespeare collection of educational books, a line that has remained in print for decades.

Welles was welcomed by Roger and Hortense Hill in Chicago, where Welles and Thornton Wilder met Thornton Wilder in 1933. Welles demanded that Alexander Woollcott be welcomed to Katharine Cornell, who was assembling a repertory theatre company, and Wilder arranged for Welles to meet him in New York. Welles' husband, director Guthrie McClintic, was immediately put under control and cast him in three plays. 46-49. 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.

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Welles got his first radio job with The American School of the Air in 1934, thanks to actor Paul Stewart, who introduced him to director Knowles Entrikin. 331 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 alongside New York stage luminaries in shows such as Trilby, Hamlet, The Drunkard, and Tsar Paul. He shot his first film, An eight-minute short titled The Heart of Age, at the old firehouse in Woodstock.

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Welles married Chicago socialite and actress Virginia Nicolson, 332 (often misspelled "nicholson") in a civil ceremony in New York on November 14, 1934. A formal reception took place December 23, 1934, at the bride's godmother's New Jersey mansion, to appease the Nicolsons, who were outraged at the couple's elopement. Welles wore a cutaway borrowed from his buddy George Macready.

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At the Martin Beck Theatre in New York, Katharine Cornell's Romeo and Juliet opened on December 20, 1934. 331-32 Welles (now playing Tybalt) was brought to the attention of John Houseman, a Broadway actor who was casting the lead role in one of Archibald MacLeish's verse plays, Panic. 144–158 Welles made his debut on CBS Radio series The March of Time on March 22, 1935, appearing in a scene from Panic for a news article about the stage production.

Welles was supplementing his income as a radio actor in Manhattan in 1935, collaborating with many actors who later formed the basis of his Mercury Theatre's programs, including America's Hour, Cavalcade of America, Columbia Workshop, and The March of Time. 331–332 "Within a year of his debut as a performer, Welles could claim membership in the elite group of radio actors whose pay raises were second only to the highest paid movie actors."

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Later career (1970–1985)

Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his film and television projects. Welles also found himself in high demand on television talk shows, despite the fact that he wanted to perform, narrate, and host continued. He made frequent appearances for Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, and Merv Griffin.

The Other Side of the Wind, Welles' primary focus during his time as an actor, was shot on a film that was shot irregularly from 1970 to 1976. It is co-written by Welles and Oja Kodar and tells the tale of an aging film director (John Huston) who is looking for funds to finish his final film. Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, and Dennis Hopper appear on the film. After the Shah of Iran was deposed, financing by Iranian backers, the film became a legal disaster. The film was in an unfinished state until early 2017, when it was finally released in November 2018.

In the 1970 film Waterloo, Louis XVIII III of France was portrayed by Welles, who narrated the beginning and ending scenes of the historical comedy Start the Revolution Without Me (1970).

Welles produced a short version of Moby-Dick in 1971, a one-man performance on a bare stage, reminiscent of his 1955 stage play Moby Dick – Rehearsed. It was never finished, but the Filmmuseum München eventually unveiled it. He appeared in Ten Days' Wonder, co-starring Anthony Perkins and directed by Claude Chabrol (who played a bit as himself in Other Wind), based on a Ellery Queen detective story. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with an Academy Honorary Award "for his superlative artistry and versatility in the field of motion pictures" in the same year. Welles pretended to be out of place and sent John Huston to claim the award, thanking the Academy on film. Huston chastised the Academy for presenting the award but refusing to fund Welles' programs in his address.

Welles appeared on-screen narrator for Alvin Toffler's 1970 book Future Shock. Welles was still working for a British producer in director John Hough's Treasure Island (1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, which had been the second story told by The Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938. This was the last time he appeared in a major film lead. Welles contributed to the script, but his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O'O.' 'W. Jeeves' Robert Rietty reubbed Welles' original recorded dialogue in several versions of the film.

Welles made a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and biographer Clifford Irving in 1973. It was based on an existing documentary by François Reichenbach and included new interviews with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart, and William Alland. An excerpt from Welles' 1930s War of the Worlds broadcast was recreated in this film; however, none of the dialogue in the film matches what was actually broadcast. Welles filmed a five-minute trailer, which was later rejected in the United States, and it included several photos of a topless Kodar.

During the 1973–74 television season, Welles hosted Orson Welles' Great Mysteries, a British syndicated anthology film. Gary Graver's brief introductions to the 26 half-hour episodes were shot in July 1973. Welles, 43, was also a member of the United Kingdom's 1974-1980s version of Agatha Christie's classic thriller Ten Little Indians starring an international cast starring Oliver Reed, Elke Sommer, and Herbert Lom.

Welles narrated the documentary Bugs Bunny: Superstar in 1975, focusing on Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s. Welles was also awarded by the American Film Institute in 1975 with its third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two went to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished The Other Side of the Wind at the reception.

Paraphrased Welles had intended to produce a series of Nero Wolfe films but Rex Stout, who was suspicious of Hollywood adaptations during his lifetime after two disappointing 1930s films, turned him down. Paramount planned to debut an ABC-TV film and hoped to convince Welles to continue the role in a miniseries. Frank D. Gilroy was hired to write the television script and direct the TV film on the promise that Welles would appear, but Welles had bowed out by April 1977. "The clear possibility" that Welles would appear in a Nero Wolfe television series for NBC television was published in 1980 by the Associated Press. Welles bowed out of the project due to creative differences, and William Conrad was playing the role.

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Welles completed his documentary Filming Othello (1979), which starred Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. It was also available in theaters and was intended for West German television. Welles completed his self-produced pilot for The Orson Welles Show television series in the same year, as well as Burt Reynolds, Jim Henson, and Frank Oz, as well as guest-starring the Muppets and Angie Dickinson. The pilot was never broadcast because he was unable to find a network interest. Welles appeared in The Secret of Nikola Tesla in 1979 and a cameo in The Muppet Movie as Lew Lord.

Welles was involved in a string of famous television commercial advertisements from the 1970s. "We will sell no wine before its time," Welles spokesman for the Paul Masson Vineyards said on camera, and sales increased by a third during the period. He was also the face behind the long-running Carlsberg "Definitely the best lager in the world" campaign, promoted Domecq sherry on British television and delivered narration on Findus advertisements, but the actual adverts were overshadowed by a famous blooper reel of voice recordings, the Frozen Peas reel. He also did commercials for the Preview Subscription Television Service, seen on television stations around the country, including WCLQ/Cleveland, KNDL/St. Louis and WSMW/Boston. As money ran out, he began directing commercials to make ends meet, including the famous British "Follow the Bear" commercials for Hofmeister lager.

Welles produced the documentary The Man Who Saw Tomorrow in 1981 about Renaissance-era prophet Nostradamus. The Orson Welles Story in the Arena series was broadcast on the BBC in 1982. Leslie Megahey, Welles, delved into his past, and several people from his career were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film. Welles provided narration for Manowar's 1987 album "Defender" and "Dark Avenger" on their 1982 album Battle Hymns. "Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America," he said at the concert introduction for Manowar. Since then, Manowar has been using this introduction for all of their concerts.

Welles worked on films including The Dreamers, based on two stories by Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and Orson Welles' Magic Show, which reused content from his failed TV pilot during the 1980s. Filming the Trial was another project he worked on, the second in a planned series of documentaries examining his feature films. Although these initiatives were shot in the beginning, none of them were finished. All of them were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

Welles narrated the short-lived television series Scene of the Crime in 1984. Welles, a prolific writer and playboy, was the voice of the unseen character Robin Masters, a P.I. writer and playboy in the early years of Magnum, P.I. Welles' death brought this minor character to a halt in the series. The Magnum, P.I., is obliquely dedicated to Welles, P.I. The producers ambiguously ended the story by accusing one actor of recruiting another actor to portray Robin Masters. He also released "I Know What It Is to Be Young (But You Don't Know What It Is To Be Old)," a music single that was released in this penultimate year, which he recorded under the Italian name Compagnia Generale del Disco. Jerry Abbott (father of guitarist "Dimebag Darrell" Abbott Abbott) performed the song with the Nick Perito Orchestra and the Ray Charles Singers and was produced by Jerry Abbott (father of guitarist "Dimebag Darrell" Abbott).

Voice work in the animated films Enchanted Journey (1984) and The Transformers: The Movie (1986), in which he provided the voice for the planet-eating supervillain Unicron, were among Welles' last film roles before his death. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's 1987 independent film Someone to Love, which was released two years after his death but not in Transformers: The Movie. His last television appearance was on the television show Moonlighting. He gave an introduction to an episode titled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice," which was partially shot in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory.

Henry Jaglom taped lunch conversations with Welles at Los Angeles's Ma Maison, as well as in New York. These interviews were edited into Peter Biskind's book My Lunches With Orson Welles' 2013.

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