Orson Welles, Vol I (112 page)

32.
‘Don’t start forbiddin’ anybody …’ and
ff. From
His Honor the Mayor
by Orson Welles.

33.
‘… the Hearst papers have repeatedly described me …’ Quoted by Frank Brady, op. cit.

1.
‘Attacks of knife-like pain …’ Medical report in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.

2.
‘Orson Welles?! He’s an exhibitionist …’ Quoted in
Citizen Kane
by Frank Brady.

3.
‘You might say I’m a relative …’ Quoted
in
This is Orson Welles
by Peter Bogdanovich.

4.
‘Happy Birthday to you …’ Quoted in
Orson Welles
by Barbara Leaming.

5.
‘Mr Genius comes through …’
Hollywood Reporter
12 March 1941.

6.
‘Now that the wrappers are off …’
New York Times
2 May 1941.

7.
‘Perhaps when the uproar has died down …’
Nation
26 April 1941.

8.
‘Now that the returns are in …’
New York Times
4 May 1941.

9.
‘it is … when all has been told …’
Theatre Arts
2 June 1941.

10.
‘Miss Powell talked of Charles Foster Kane …’ London
Sunday Times
5 November 1941.

11.
‘Not one glimpse …’
New Masses
13 May 1941.

12.
‘
Citizen Kane
was made in the most wildly …’ and ff. Quoted in
Mank
by Richard Meryman.

13.
‘There are more conscious shots …’ From Peter Bogdanovich, op. cit.

14.
‘Orson
Welles never once makes concessions …’
Commonweal
9 May 1941.

15.
‘I am so bored with the aesthetics …’ BBC interview on
Monitor
.

16.
‘Welles … has an almost total empathy with the audience …’ From
Raising Kane
by Pauline Kael.

17.
‘
Citizen Kane
was inspired by …’ Quoted in
The Magic World of Orson Welles
by James Naremore.

18.
‘
Citizen Kane
is a tragedy on Marlovian lines …’
Film Comment
Summer 1971, reprinted in
Movies and Methods
ed. Bill Nichols.

19.
‘It is not his best film …’ From
The Cinema of Orson Welles
by Peter Bogdanovich.

20.
‘Orson Welles is 26 …’
Horizon
November 1941.

21.
‘There has never been a more exciting press show …’
The Clipper
May 1941.

22.
‘Finally he went on to produce …’ and ff. From the souvenir booklet for
Citizen Kane
’s
first release.

23.
‘Stay away from this …’ Quoted in
Orson Welles
by Charles Higham.

24.
‘here’s what i wanted to wire you …’ Quoted by Richard Meryman, op. cit

25.
‘i am very happy to accept …’ ibid.

More than most, biographers depend on the kindness of strangers. In the six years of researching and writing, I have been grateful for the openness and willingness to give up their time of the many people whom I have interviewed for the book; I have been touched by the thoughtfulness of the smaller but still considerable number who have written to me, sometimes out of the
blue, with their memories and mementoes; and I have been frankly astonished by the generosity of fellow workers in the field, Welles scholars – some published and some not – all gleefully sharing with me their research and their insights. These latter I must thank first, since the book has benefited immensely from their selfless generosity; there could be no motive for their willingness to show me
the hard-won fruits of their work but devotion to the truth about Welles (and an extraordinary trust in my ability to make good use of the material). Among these scholars were Richard France, author of
The Theatre of Orson Welles
and
Welles’ Shakespeare
, both pioneering texts, which make brilliant use of materials available nowhere else; Andrea Nouryeh, whose uniquely comprehensive
Mercury Theatre
(an unpublished thesis still obtainable from UMI) deserves much wider circulation; Peter Noble, author of the first full-length biography,
The Fabulous Orson Welles
; Professor James Naremore, whose
The Magic World of Orson Welles
remains without question the best sustained piece of critical writing about Welles; M. François Thomas, the leading authority on the radio work (his
Positif
special edition
on the subject is the most comprehensive account of those years); and Peter Bogdanovich, in various early writings a perceptive and elegant champion of Welles, who, in the more recent
This is Orson Welles
, provides a direct and entirely lifelike impression of one of the essential Welleses: the conversationalist. Each of these writers, making themselves freely accessible to my unending enquiries,
has introduced me to materials and also thoughts that have influenced the book; the work of each remains, despite the extensive use I have made of it, indispensable in its own right, crammed with fascinating information and analysis. Though not strictly a Welles scholar, Sam Leiter, author of the several volumes of the compendious
Encyclopaedia of the New York Stage
, has been unstintingly forthcoming
in his detailed information of the theatre of the years covered by the present volumes, helping to reveal the context in which Welles functioned.

As for my correspondents, these have most notably included Welles’s
school friends John C. Dexter and Paul Guggenheim, both of whom have recounted in vivid detail their experiences of the young Welles, and both of whom gave me rare documents relating
to the early theatre work at Todd; and the late Hascy Tarbox, who offered a radically different perspective, and several indispensable documents including his father-in-law Roger Hill’s autobiography and a copy of
Marching Song
. Interviewees include Coach Tony Roskie from Todd School, Joanne and Hascy Tarbox from the same period, Tom Triffely, who knew Welles at the time of the
Romeo and Juliet
tour, Peg and Norman (‘total recall’) Lloyd, Arlene Francis, Paula Laurence and Chuck Bowden, Arthur Anderson, Elliot Reid, Sam Leve, Abe Feder, Frank Goodman, Henry Senber, the late Vincent Price, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Stefan Schnabel, and William Alland from the FTP and/or Mercury days, and Ruth Warrick from
Citizen Kane
. Many of them provided me with materials as well as memories. The late
Richard Wilson, custodian of the Mercury Archives and close collaborator of Welles, was exceptionally helpful in providing material, contacts and leads. He was a key figure in the early research; without him my task would have been twice as hard. Henry Senber, the Mercury’s matchless press officer, has been in regular contact with me over the six years. Quite unintentionally, I made Augusta Weissberger,
Welles’s and Houseman’s secretary for several years, cry, and for that I am sorry. Finally, I received the warmest support and an extraordinary final interview from the late John Houseman, who was encouraging to the last. I hope I have made his place in Welles’s history, and that of the theatre of the thirties, as clear as possible.

Other help has come from many sources: the academic institutions
have furnished fascinating material. Among those I must thank are: William G. Simon, of the department of Film Studies, New York University, who put at my disposal the materials which he assembled from his Welles theatre retrospective of 1988; Ruth Kerns, then head of the Federal Theatre Archive, then at George Mason University, Washington (it has since been removed from easy public access),
who made available to me the wonderful Project 891 materials; the Theatre Department at Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois, which marvellously tends the archive of the Dublin Gate Theatre, was especially helpful; the Chicago Historical Society was also exceptionally kind. The Billy Rose Collection at the Lincoln Center is another treasure-trove of theatrical material; the New York Public
Library is unrivalled as a newspaper archive, and I made considerable use of it. Finally, and with deep gratitude, I must, like all Welles scholars, offer humble thanks to Sondra Taylor and Rebecca Cape of the Lilly Library, at the University of Indiana, curators of the largest Welles collection in the world, who discharge their onerous tasks with incomparable efficiency and good humour. No book
of the slightest value on Welles could be written
without their collaboration; they have made the researching of this one a positive pleasure.

Then there are my own assistants, James Rodgers and Matthew Wooton kicking things off in London, Ted Schillinger in Chicago (taking time off from his day job as an inspired documentary filmmaker) and Dorothy Hanrahan, dedicated and shrewd, in New York,
slogging on through personal tragedy and professional upheaval. I have been through an alarming number of secretaries during the six years, but Janet Macklam was there for the first few, keeping the whole enterprise together with humour and resource; she was succeeded by Pamela Brooke and Sue Slater, who took on the mantle with great spirit. To all of these, thanks for their efficiency and patience.

In addition, Rosemary Wilton, with her unrivalled knowledge of RKO in the thirties, gave me a head start in writing about
Citizen Kane
which I can hardly adequately acknowledge; Leslie Megahey, who conducted the BBC’s revelatory 1982 interviews with Welles, was similarly full of direct insights which have much enriched the text. He was one of the dauntless handful of people who read the vast
manuscript of the first draft, and who offered sharp and precise criticisms of it; the others were Simon Gray (who was unerringly right about a dangerous tendency in the writing); Angus Mackay, who read it with a theatre scholar’s eye and an invaluable sense of period; and Jim Naremore, who made me think hard again about a number of important matters. Nick Hern commissioned the book, David Godwin
picked it up, Dan Franklin saw it through to publication and Chuck Elliott subjected it to his fine toothcomb, always and rightly urging concision, if not excision. Peter Ward was responsible for making the final book look so attractive, Margaret Clark read the proofs with tact and wit and assembled the play, radio and film lists, and Helen Baz completed the huge task of compiling the index. Maggie
Hanbury, my agent, fought the book’s corner with everything at her disposal when all seemed nearly lost.

Lastly, friends: or rather firstly, since it was Nick Hern who urged me to write a book about Orson Welles’s theatre, and Kathleen Tynan and Leo Lerman, both untimely deceased, both dreadfully missed, who persuaded me to go the whole hog and take on
le tout Orson
. So it’s all their fault.
Edward Johnson, musicologist, cinephile and passionate fan, supplied me with all sorts of curious information, as well as tape transfers of
The Mercury Shakespeare
series of records. I would further like to thank two men, Richard Holmes and Robin Lane Fox, for their influence on my approach to biography; one I know (Holmes), the other I do not; both have been beacons in my attempt to make the
past live in a credible fashion. My last thought is of two women; first my friend Ann Rogers, for many years Orson Welles’s secretary (and before that, Charles Laughton’s), whose
subtle and shrewd support has kept me in touch with my purposes in writing this book, and secondly, the late Peggy Ramsay. This is the first book I have written without subjecting it to her sharp eye and full heart, and
I miss both more than I can say.

Oh, and thank you, Christopher, for putting up with five years of Orson in the morning, Orson in the evening and Orson at suppertime. This book is for you.

The author and publishers are grateful for permission to reprint the following: excerpts from
Virgil Thomson
by Virgil Thomson, copyright © 1966 by Virgil Thomson;
excerpts from
Orson Welles: A Biography
by Barbara Leaming, copyright © 1985 by Barbara Leaming; both published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson: excerpts from
Run-Through
by John Houseman, copyright © 1972 by John Houseman, published by Simon & Schuster, reprinted by permission of the estate of John Houseman: excerpts from
This is Orson Welles
, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Peter Bogdanovich, reprinted
by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.: excerpt from an article by Orson Welles from the December 1982 issue of French
Vogue
, reprinted by permission of French
Vogue
.

Aherne, Brian,
A Proper Job
. Houghton Mifflin, 1969.

Auden, W.H.
The Dyer’s Hand
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Baker, Carlos,
Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
. Scribner’s, 1969.

Bannerman, R. LeRoy,
Norman Corwin and Radio: The Golden Years
. Lyle Stuart, 1986.
On a Note of Triumph
. Lyle Stuart, 1986.

Barr, Richard,
Memoirs
. Unpublished.

Blake, Nicholas
(C. Day Lewis),
The Smiler with the Knife
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Bogdanovich, Peter & Orson Welles, ed. Jonathan Rosenbaum,
This is Orson Welles
. HarperCollins, 1992.

Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger & Kristin Thompson,
The Classical Hollywood Cinema
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Bowles, Paul,
Without Stopping
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Brady, Frank,
Citizen Welles
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Buxton, Frank
& Bill Owen,
The Big Broadcast 1920–1950
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Cantril, Hadley,
The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic
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Carringer, Robert L.,
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Clurman, Harold,
The Fervent Years
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Cocteau,
Jean,
My Journey Round the World
. Peter Owen, 1958.

Connelly, Marc,
Voices Offstage
. Henry Holt, 1968.

Copland, Aaron & Vivian Perlis,
Copland 1900–1942
. St Martin’s Press, 1984.

Corneau, Guy,
Absent Fathers, Lost Sons
. Shambhala, 1991.

Cotten, Joseph,
Vanity Will Get You Somewhere
. Mercury House, 1987.

Davies, Marion,
The Times We Had: Life with William Randolph
Hearst
. Foreword by Orson Welles. Bobbs-Merrill, 1975.

Edwards, Hilton,
The Mantle of Harlequin
. Progress House, 1958.

Engel, Lehman,
This Bright Day
. Macmillan Publishing, 1974.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, ‘Pat Hobby and Orson Welles’.
Esquire
magazine, May 1940.

Flanagan, Hallie,
Arena
. Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1940.

Fowler, Roy Alexander,
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. Greenwood Press, 1990.

France, Richard,
The Theatre of Orson Welles
. Bucknell University Press, 1977.

Gassner, John,
Producing the Play
. Dryden Press, 1941.

Goldstein, Malcolm,
The Political Stage
. Oxford University Press, 1974.

Gordon, Eric
A.,
Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein
. St Martin’s Press, 1989.

Guiles, Fred Laurence,
Marion Davies
. McGraw-Hill, 1972.

Higham, Charles,
Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius
. St Martin’s Press, 1985.

Hill, Roger,
One Man’s Time and Chance: A Memoir of Eighty Years 1895–1975
. Privately printed, 1977.

Hill, Roger & Orson Welles,
Marching
Song
. Unpublished play.
Everybody’s Shakespeare: Three Plays (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar
and
Twelfth Night). Edited for Reading and Arranged for Staging
. Todd Press, 1934. Reprinted as
Mercury Shakespeare
. Harper, 1939.

Himelstein, Morgan Y.,
Drama was a Weapon: The Left-Wing Theatre in New York 1929–1941
. Rutgers University Press, 1973.

Hoke, John,
Todd School
. Unpublished
thesis, 1934.

Holloway, Joseph ed. Robert Hogan & Michael O’Neill,
Joseph Holloway’s Irish Theatre
. Proscenium Press, 1968.

Hoogstraten, Nicholas van,
Lost Theatres of Broadway
. Princeton Architectural Press, 1991.

Houseman, John,
Run-Through
. Simon & Schuster, 1972.

Hughes, Richard,
In the Lap of Atlas
. Chatto & Windus, 1979.

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Cities of Spain
. Methuen,
1927.

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The RKO Story
. Arlington House, 1982.

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. Little Brown, 1971.

Kaufman, George S. & Moss Hart,
The Fabulous Invalid
. Random House, 1938.

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Starting Out in the Thirties
. Little Brown, 1965.

Koch, Howard,
The Panic Broadcast
. Avon Books, 1971.

Langner, Lawrence,
The Magic Curtain
. Dutton, 1951.

Leaming, Barbara,
Orson Welles: A Biography
. Viking, 1985.

Leiter, Sam,
The Encyclopaedia of the New York Stage 1930–1940
. Greenwood Press, 1989.

Lewis, Robert,
Slings and Arrows: Theater in my Life
. Stein & Day, 1984.

McCann, Sean.
The Story of the Abbey Theatre
. New English Library, 1967.

McCarthy, Mary,
Sights and Spectacles
. Farrar Straus, 1956.

McClintic, Guthrie,
Me and Kit
. Atlantic, Little Brown, 1955.

Mac Liammóir, Micheál,
All for Hecuba
. Methuen, 1946.

Maxwell, Gavin,
The Lords of Atlas
. Century, 1983.

Meryman, Richard,
Mank: The Wit, World and Life of Herman Mankiewicz
. William Morrow, 1978.

Mitchell,
Blood Sport
. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.

Mordden, Ethan,
The American Theatre
. Oxford University Press, 1981.

Mosel, Tad,
Leading Lady
. Atlantic, Little Brown, 1978.

Naremore, James,
The Magic World of Orson Welles
. Oxford University Press, 1978.

Noble, Peter,
The Fabulous Orson Welles
. Hutchinson, 1956.

Nouryeh, Andrea,
The Mercury Theatre: A history
. Unpublished thesis, 1987.
Native Son
. Unpublished thesis.

O Conaire, Pádraic translated by Cormack Dreathnach,
Field and Fair: Travels with a Donkey in Ireland
. Talbot Press, 1928.

O’Connor, John & Lorraine Brown,
Free, Adult, and Uncensored
. New Republic Books, 1978.

O’Flaherty, Liam,
A Tourist’s Guide to Ireland
. Mandrake, 1930.

Pritchett, V.S.,
Dublin: A Portrait
. Bodley Head, 1967.

Rathbone, Basil,
In and Out of Character
. Ianmead, 1989.

Rosenthal, Jean & Lael Wertenbaker,
The Magic of Light: The Craft and Career of Jean Rosenthal, Pioneer in Lighting for the Modern Stage
. Little Brown, 1972.

Sawyer-Laucanno, Christopher,
An Invisible Spectator
. Weidenfeld, 1989.

Shiaras, David,
John Deere & the Billion Dollar Plow Gamble
. Privately printed, 1983.

Smith, Alston J.,
Chicago’s Left Bank
. Henry
Regnery, 1953.

Stern, Ernst, translated Fitzgerald,
My Life, My Stage
. Gollancz, 1951.

Taubmann, Howard,
The Making of the American Theatre
. Longman, 1967.

Teichmann, Howard,
Smart Aleck: The Wit, World, and Life of Alexander Woollcott
. Morrow, 1976.

Thomas, François, ‘
Dossier: La Radio d’Orson Welles
.’
Positif
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Thomson, Virgil,
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Playboy
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Playboy
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Walker, Margaret,
Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius
. Amistad Press, 1988.

Welles, Orson.
Bright Lucifer
. Unpublished play.
The Cradle Will Rock
. Screenplay. Santa Teresa Press, 1992.
The Director in the Theatre Today
. Theatre Education League, 1939. ‘
His Honor, the Mayor
’ (text of radio
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… Dodd Mead, 1941. ed. David Ramon.
Santa
. Screenplay. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1991.

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. December, 1982.

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Backstage at ‘The Cradle Will Rock’
. Theatre History Studies, vol. xii, 1992.

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Adult Children of Alcoholics
. Health Communications, 1983.

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Orson
Welles: A Bio-Bibliography
. Greenwood Press, 1990.

Wray, Fay,
On the Other Hand: A Life Story
. St Martin’s Press, 1989.

Wright, Richard,
Native Son
. Harper, 1940.