History Creator / OrsonWelles

The majority of Welles' life was spent in an itinerant manner, planning several productions, writing several scripts and doing many projects at once. Much of this was unfinished, most never went past concept, and the films that were made (while critically acclaimed, technically and narratively inventive, and visually gorgeous) were even more obscure than ''Citizen Kane'', whose belated re-evaluation paradoxically lent Welles the taint of being a OneBookAuthor, and an artist who peaked early. On the other hand, Welles remained a major public figure and global celebrity, in demand for talk shows, commercials, voice-over work, character actor and villain roles. Some of the activities from this time endures in popular culture, most notably a [[http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/365/03/365-Days-Project-03-01-welles-orson-frozen-peas-spot.mp3 frozen peas commercial]]. His tagline in commercials for the Paul Masson winery, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpj0t2ozPWY We will sell no wine... before its time]]," became a meme in TheSeventies. He also became overweight in his later years, leading to many jokes relating to the fact that his final role would be that of a planet. Which is both sad and funny, because [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Unicron his last role really was a planet.]] He died of a heart attack five days after finishing recording the voice of Unicron for the 1986 ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie''. As such, Welles is a popular HistoricalDomainCharacter and a favorite for impressionists. Creator/MauriceLaMarche is often called to do impressions of him. Has also been played by actors [[Film/FullMetalJacket Vincent D'Onofrio]] in ''Film/EdWood'' (with the voice dubbed over by [=LaMarche=]), [=Angus MacFadyen=] in ''Cradle Will Rock'' and Christian [=McKay=] in the Creator/RichardLinklater film ''Film/MeAndOrsonWelles''. In ''The Night That Panicked America'', a 1970s recreation of the War of the Worlds broadcast, he's played by Paul Shenar, and in ''Film/HeavenlyCreatures'', he's played by Canadian actor [[http://filmbabble.blogspot.com/2008/05/orson-welles-wannabe-responds.html E. Jean Guérin]], who returned to play him again in the satirical murder mystery ''La vengeance de la femme en noir''. In ''Film/{{Mank}}'', Creator/DavidFincher's biopic of ''Citizen Kane'' co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz, Welles is played by Tom Burke. In the ''Series/UrbanMyths'' episode "Orson Welles in Norwich", he was played by Creator/RobbieColtrane.

Born to a cultured Kenosha, Wisconsin family, Welles was regarded from his youth as highly intelligent, precocious and charismatic. A boy who never lacked for confidence and [[TheCharmer charm]]. After attending the experimental Todd School of Boys, where he was mentored by the headmaster Richard Hill (who became Welles' lifelong friend), he became ambitious and restless. In TheThirties, he traveled to Europe to become a painter and ended up working in Dublin's Gate Theatre instead. He returned to the U.S. in the middle of TheGreatDepression, and soon thereafter cemented himself as a great maverick of the American stage with a series of daring productions, originally funded by the Federal Theatre of the WPA program of the New Deal but eventually produced by his own pioneering Mercury Theatre company, which in addition to working on the stage also worked on the radio and later in his first two films. Even before he made his film debut, Welles made a name for himself in the American performance arts for his ambitious theatre productions, which often featured daring SettingUpdate (such as ''Voodoo Macbeth'' and the anti-fascist ''Julius Caesar''). Alongside of this he worked in radio, including ''Radio/TheMercuryTheatreOnTheAir'' (with his regular troupe) and the first few seasons of ''Radio/TheShadow''. The event that made Welles into a household name across America was his ''Mercury Theatre'' radio dramatization of ''Radio/{{The War of the Worlds|1938}}'' on Halloween Eve in 1938, which according to legend was so convincing that some listeners actually believed Martians had landed in New Jersey. (This story, while not entirely untrue, was hardly the "nationwide panic" touted by subsequent media reports. There were, indeed, thousands of phone calls to police and radio stations, and some people even evacuated their homes, but there were no riots.)

* AchievementsInIgnorance: The innovative style and special effects achieved in ''Citizen Kane'' partly stemmed from Welles' lack of knowledge of Hollywood production standards, which allowed him to TakeAThirdOption that others had long neglected.

* BackhandedApology: When he apologized for ''War of the Worlds'', he said he was stunned that people believed it was true. He basically called them stupid. In the actual program, the show is clearly presented as fictional, the level to which he copied the style of the news program was just that convincing.

* BavarianFireDrill: As detailed in ''F for Fake'', Welles's first professional acting job was when he was touring Europe at age 16 and ran out of money in Dublin. He then entered the famous Gate Theatre and [[RefugeInAudacity demanded a part, claiming to be a famous American Broadway star.]] He got one. However, Michael [=MacLiammoir=], one of the managers of the theater noted in his autobiography that the Gate Theatre knew he was lying but was so impressed with his spirit that they took him on anyway.
* BerserkButton: He wouldn't stand for Ted Turner's attempt to ruin his film noir masterpiece ''Film/CitizenKane'' with Turnerization: "Keep Ted Turner and his goddamned Crayolas away from my movie."

* BigEater: ''Legendarily'' so. His average dinner consisted of two steaks cooked rare and a pint of scotch, and at one time he ate 18 hot dogs in one sitting at a Los Angeles hot dog stand. This undoubtedly led to his later obesity and was a common source of jokes at his expense, [[SelfDeprecation including from himself:]]
-->"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people."
** According to Creator/GoreVidal, who lunched with Welles at his favorite restaurant a few times, Welles wore bifurcated suits with fake lapels and buttons stitched on to suggest an actual suit. [[CrazyPrepared Every time they ate together, Vidal was ready to dial 9-11 at a moment's notice]].
--->''Considering what he ate and drank, it's a miracle [[MadeOfIron he lived to be seventy]].''
** As Michael McConnohie put it, while filming ''[[WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie Transformers: The Movie]]''
--->''The irony of having Orson Welles play a planet-sized eating machine wasn't lost on anyone.''

* TheBigGuy: He stood about 6'4 (192 cm) and was heavyset for much of his life.
* CigarChomper: He became associated with this trope in his later years.

* CryingWolf: A few years after ''Radio/TheWarOfTheWorlds1938'' broadcast, Welles was hosting a patriotic radio concert featuring poetry and music that was then interrupted with news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Nobody listening believed it until too late.
* DeadArtistsAreBetter: Welles predicted this would happen to him. Noting that people will love him after his death while in his life he had to constantly hustle and scheme to get movies made. Some also note about Welles that on account of the number of films he left incomplete or had shelved because of rights issues, he's one of the few film-directors who releases new works ''after'' his death, with some citing the Reconstruction of ''Touch of Evil'' and the upcoming ''The Other Side of the Wind'' as examples.

* DespairEventHorizon: In one of his last interviews -- done for the retrospective BBC documentary, "The Orson Welles Story", Welles had a bleak assessment of his career:
-->"I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paint-box, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about two percent movie-making and ninety-eight percent hustling. It's no way to spend a life."

* GenderBlenderName: He named his daughter Christopher.

* GrammarNazi: His mounting rage when a commercial director kept trying to make him read some awful, awful copy has achieved immortality as an [[http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/365/03/365-Days-Project-03-01-welles-orson-frozen-peas-spot.mp3 Internet audio file]].

* [[HilariousOuttakes Hilariously Drunken Outtakes]]: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFevH5vP32s AAAHH..!... the... Ff-f-rencchampagne...]]"
** Also, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V14PfDDwxlE this]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: In his "Frozen Peas" outtakes, he constantly chides the director and editor for giving him poor instructions on how they want the script read before finally exclaiming the money isn't worth the effort of trying to make it work. While one may scratch their head as to why he's taking such an obvious [[MoneyDearBoy easy paycheck]] so seriously, it can't be denied that all of his criticisms are valid, and if you're going to go to the effort of hiring someone of his caliber to narrate a commercial you should at least give a damn about coherency.

* TheMentor: As a young man, Welles' school principal Richard Hill encouraged his young prodigy who even then showed uncanny talent in his stage productions of Shakespeare at 15!
** Gregg Toland, the cinematographer for ''Citizen Kane'' served as this for Welles. He had seen Welles' theater work and volunteered to work on ''Kane'' because he was himself an innovative artist and felt that Welles would try out new ideas that he long wanted to do. On the set, when the crew tried to explain to Welles that he was breaking normal protocol. Toland told them to back down because he felt that on his first film, it was more important that Welles preserve his instincts, leaving a [[ConsummateProfessional professional]] like [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure him]] to watch his back. For this Welles gave Toland a shared credit on the screen, something that was rare at the time.
** Welles always regretted Toland's absence on ''Film/TheMagnificentAmbersons'', the DP Stanley Cortez (who did shoot Film/TheNightOfTheHunter, and ''Shock Corridor'' later) was also talented but far slower and the lack of rapport between him and Welles delayed the production, a factor that led to the [[ExecutiveMeddling famous crisis]] of its post-production.
** Welles himself served as TheMentor for Robert Wise (who started as editor on his first two films, and would go on to have a [[SidekickGraduationsStick long Hollywood career as director]]), Cy Endfield, and in his later years to the likes of Henry Jaglom and Peter Bogdanovich.
* MiddleNameBasis: His first name is "George". According to him, even ''he'' didn't know this until he was in elementary school.

* PlatonicLifePartners: With Creator/MarleneDietrich, with whom he often performed his magic show (and later cast in ''Film/TouchOfEvil'').

* TeenGenius / ChildProdigy: Welles is the definitive example of this in film history. He made Citizen Kane at the age of 25, and spent years before that changing the landscape of American theatre and radio with his innovative productions and was a workaholic of epic proportions. The failure of ''Kane'' at the box-office and the disappointment of ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' post-release halted this flow. In ''F For Fake'' he lamented:
---> "I guess you could say that I started at the top and [[HeroicSelfDeprecation worked]] my way to the bottom."
* SophisticatedAsHell: Welles admitted that he loved highbrow culture and lowbrow culture but hated middlebrow culture.

* AgingTropes: A common theme in all of Welles' films is the passing of time, and growing old and how people look back on their lives and the time they have left.
--> "You ain't got a future, Hank. Your future is all used up!" - Creator/MarleneDietrich, ''Touch of Evil''
** In 1984, he would record the song "I Know What It Is to be Young (But You Don't Know What it is to be Old)".

* ''Film/{{Austerlitz}}'' (1970) (cameo)

** It's tempting to many observers to apply this to Welles' own life.

* {{Tyepacting}}: Somehow at some point, if there was an EpicMovie about UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars, someone or something dictated that Welles had to be cast in it. It happened with ''[[Film/Napoleon1955 Napoléon]]'' (1955), ''Film/{{Austerlitz}}'' (1960) and ''Film/{{Waterloo}}'' (1970).

All this, before Welles turned 25. At that age, he produced, directed, co-wrote, and starred in his first feature film: ''Film/CitizenKane'', made for Creator/RKOPictures on a then-unprecedented contract which provided him [[AuteurLicense complete artistic control]], a privilege that even established Hollywood professionals never got, let alone an upstart who'd never worked in industry before. While it was OvershadowedByControversy and commercially unsuccessful on its release, ''Kane'' was a groundbreaking film, both technically and narratively inventive. It also confirmed Welles' talent within the industry, with its groundbreaking deep-focus cinematography and other technical feats providing inspiration for numerous filmmakers in the years to follow. The film was admired enough in its time that it received quite a few UsefulNotes/AcademyAward nominations, winning Welles the only competitive Oscar of his career (albeit shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz) its screenplay. ''Kane'' continued to be both admired and debated in the decades after its release, and since the 1960s has been [[VindicatedByHistory widely recognized as one of the greatest motion pictures – if not THE greatest – ever made]].

As an artist and a film-maker however, Welles codified the concept of the film-maker as artist, transforming the idea of cinema as factory product, and the profession of a film director, inspiring pretty much every post-war film-maker across the world. Despite being quintessentially American (born in Wisconsin and culturally Midwestern), he became an international icon, who had [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff a far better reputation]] [[NeverAcceptedInHisHometown outside his home country]]. It was only at the end of the 1950s that ''Kane'' was "rediscovered" as a masterpiece, and in the 1962 ''Sight & Sound'' poll critics voted it the greatest movie ever made for the very first time, a feat it maintained for the next six decades until 2012.[[note]]This despite the fact that it didn't even show up in the magazine's first poll ten years earlier.[[/note]] Today, scholars and cinephiles now recognize that his second career in Europe also includes very strong work. Thanks to later reappraisals, the revival and rediscovery of later films like ''Touch of Evil'' and ''F For Fake'', Welles is today seen and celebrated as one of the most daring, artistic and ambitious film-makers to have ever worked in the medium.

All this, before he turned 25. At that age, he made his first movie for Creator/RKOPictures: ''Film/CitizenKane'' on a then unprecedented contract that provided him [[AuteurLicense complete artistic control]], a privilege that established professionals never got, let alone an upstart who never worked in the movie business before. ''Citizen Kane'' was a groundbreaking film, technically and narratively inventive, controversial in its time and afterwards. Admired and debated for the next few decades [[VindicatedByHistory until it became recognized and celebrated in the 1960s onwards as "the greatest film ever made".]] It was however commercially unsuccessful in its time, even if it confirmed Welles' talent within the industry since the film's groundbreaking black-and-white cinematography and other technical feats would inspire film-makers for the next two decades. The film was OvershadowedByControversy in its time, but it was admired enough that it received quite a few Oscar nominations and Welles won his only competitive award for writing the screenplay of Kane, which he shared with Herman Mankiewicz.

Kane cemented Welles' reputation as the EnfantTerrible of Hollywood and from there, as [[Film/FForFake he put it himself later in his life]], [[RichesToRags having started at the top, he would work his way to the bottom]]. ''Film/TheMagnificentAmbersons'' suffered actual ExecutiveMeddling (which his AuteurLicense contract no longer covered) and with the exception of ''The Stranger'', no Welles feature would ever achieve commercial success. Welles eventually dropped out of the mainstream of American cinema entirely by the end of the decade. The one brief exception was 1958's ''Film/TouchOfEvil'' which ''again'', [[HereWeGoAgain led to]] ExecutiveMeddling. He would never quite enjoy the budget and freedom of ''Kane'', and would resort to making movies (very cheaply) in Europe by getting funding from multiple sources as well as his own acting fees. This ad-hoc means of production however created [[ScrewedByTheLawyers numerous rights issues]] in later decades which played a part in making many of them rare and hard-to-see. It took ''forty years'' for the quagmire of ''The Other Side of the Wind'' to resolve itself, which is the extreme version of this. Welles also resorted to using his fees as an actor to fund his films. The most famous of these parts and with the exception of his own directorial ventures, the greatest film he appeared in, was his performance as Harry Lime in ''Film/TheThirdMan'', whose famous speech was improvised by Welles himself.

* PopCulturalOsmosis: For people who never saw his movies he is forever associated with ''Film/CitizenKane'' and being an obese cigar smoking bearded man who spoke in a powerful voice and did wine commercials, as well as the guy who fooled New Jersey into believing that an alien invasion was imminent. For those who are only aware of popculture from 1979 through 2012, he'll be best remembered from TheTransformersTheMovie as the voice of Unicron, a planet-sized transformer who threatened to ''eat'' the galaxy. And [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools that's not a bad thing]], as far as those youngsters are likely concerned, now they've reached adulthood. He was a pivotal part of many people's childhoods, who have likely shown the film to succeeding generations, meaning that he'll be part of many childhoods to come, even if they never learn about ''Citizen Kane'' later in life. Not the worst legacy, when all is said and done. Orson loved a good story, and while ''Transformers'' is hardly the emotional epic that ''Kane'' was, it still tells a good story for kids to enjoy, and he got to be part of it. He would more than likely have approved at how he's come to be remembered by both children and those who are still kids at heart.

* PopCulturalOsmosis: For people who never saw his movies he is forever associated with ''Film/CitizenKane'' and being an obese cigar smoking bearded man who spoke in a powerful voice and did wine commercials, as well as the guy who fooled New Jersey into believing that an alien invasion was imminent. For those who are only aware of popculture from 1979 through 2012, he'll be best remembered as the voice of Unicron, a planet-sized transformer who threatened to ''eat'' the galaxy. And [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools that's not a bad thing]], as far as those youngsters are likely concerned, now they've reached adulthood. He was a pivotal part of many people's childhoods, who have likely shown the film to succeeding generations, meaning that he'll be part of many childhoods to come, even if they never learn about ''Citizen Kane'' later in life. Not the worst legacy, when all is said and done. Orson loved a good story, and while ''Transformers'' is hardly the emotional epic that ''Kane'' was, it still tells a good story for kids to enjoy, and he got to be part of it. He would more than likely have approved at how he's come to be remembered by both children and those who are still kids at heart.

* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: Welles ran a middle-ground. On the one hand he was sentimental about the past, admired the concept of the GoldenAge and the idea of a dream-like past, but on the other hand he refused to write off progress altogether, and generally presented a GrayAndGreyMorality version of the conflict.

* EndOfAnAge : A frequent theme in his films. Welles stated that the idea of a "Golden Age" was one of the great triumphs of human civilization and believed that the past was the one treasure everyone shared.

Born to a cultured Kenosha, Wisconsin family, Welles was regarded from his youth as highly intelligent, precocious and charismatic. A boy who never lacked for confidence and [[TheCharmer charm]]. After attending the experimental Todd School of Boys, where he was mentored by the headmaster Richard Hill (who became Welles' lifelong friend), he became ambitious and restless. In TheThirties, he traveled to Europe to become a painter and ended up working in Dublin's Gate Theatre instead. He returned to the U.S. in the middle of TheGreatDepression, and soon thereafter cemented himself as a great maverick of the American stage with a series of daring productions, originally funded by the Federal Theatre of the WPA program of the New Deal but eventually produced by his own pioneering Mercury Theatre company, which in addition to working on the stage also worked on the radio and later in his first two films. Even before he made his film debut, Welles made a name for himself in the American performance arts for his ambitious theatre productions, which often featured daring SettingUpdate (such as ''Voodoo Macbeth'' and the anti-fascist ''Julius Caesar''). Alongside of this he worked in radio, including ''Radio/TheMercuryTheatreOnTheAir'' (with his regular troupe) and the first few seasons of ''Radio/TheShadow''). The event that made Welles into a household name across America was his ''Mercury Theatre'' radio dramatization of ''Radio/{{The War of the Worlds|1938}}'' on Halloween Eve in 1938, which according to legend was so convincing that some listeners actually believed Martians had landed in New Jersey. (This story, while not entirely untrue, was hardly the "nationwide panic" touted by subsequent media reports. There were, indeed, thousands of phone calls to police and radio stations, and some people even evacuated their homes, but there were no riots.)

Born to a cultured Kenosha, Wisconsin family, Welles was regarded from his youth as highly intelligent, precocious and charismatic. A boy who never lacked for confidence and [[TheCharmer charm]]. After attending the experimental Todd School of Boys, where he was mentored by the headmaster Richard Hill (who became Welles' lifelong friend), he became ambitious and restless. In TheThirties, he traveled to Europe to become a painter and ended up working in Dublin's Gate Theatre instead. He returned to the U.S. in the middle of TheGreatDepression, and soon thereafter cemented himself as a great maverick of the American stage with a series of daring productions, originally funded by the Federal Theatre of the WPA program of the New Deal but eventually produced by his own pioneering Mercury Theatre company, which in addition to working on the stage also worked on the radio and later in his first two films. Even before he made his film debut, Welles made a name for himself in the American performance arts for his ambitious theatre productions, which often featured daring SettingUpdate (such as ''Voodoo Macbeth'' and the anti-fascist ''Julius Caesar''). Alongside of this he worked in radio, including ''Radio/TheMercuryTheatreOnTheAir'' (with his regular troupe) and the first few seasons of ''Radio/TheShadow''). The event that made Welles into a household name across America was his ''Mercury Theatre'' radio dramatization of ''Radio/{{The War of the Worlds|1938}}'' on Halloween Eve in 1938, which according to legend was so convincing that some listeners actually believed Martians had landed in New Jersey. (This story, though true, was blown up into a "nationwide panic" by subsequent media reports. There were thousands of phone calls to police and radio stations, and some people evacuated their homes, but there were no riots.)

Born to a cultured Kenosha, Wisconsin family, Welles was regarded from his youth as highly intelligent, precocious and charismatic. A boy who never lacked for confidence and [[TheCharmer charm]]. After attending the experimental Todd School of Boys, where he was mentored by the headmaster Richard Hill (who became Welles' lifelong friend), he became ambitious and restless. In TheThirties, he traveled to Europe to become a painter and ended up working in Dublin's Gate Theatre instead. He returned to the U.S. in the middle of TheGreatDepression, and soon thereafter cemented himself as a great maverick of the American stage with a series of daring productions, originally funded by the Federal Theatre of the WPA program of the New Deal but eventually produced by his own pioneering Mercury Theatre company, which in addition to working on the stage also worked on the radio and later in his first two films. Even before he made his film debut, Welles made a name for himself in the American performance arts for his ambitious theatre productions, which often featured daring SettingUpdate (such as ''Voodoo Macbeth'' and the anti-fascist ''Julius Caesar''). Alongside of this he worked in radio, (''Radio/TheMercuryTheatreOnTheAir'', and the first few seasons of ''Radio/TheShadow'') with his regular troupe. The event that made Welles into a household name across America was the 1938 nationwide broadcast of ''Radio/{{The War of the Worlds|1938}}'', which was so convincing that some listeners actually believed Martians had landed in New Jersey. (This story, albeit true, is often highly exaggerated. There were thousands of phone calls to police and radio stations, and some people did leave their homes, but there were no riots.)

Born to a cultured Kenosha, Wisconsin family, Welles was regarded from his youth as highly intelligent, precocious and charismatic. A boy who never lacked for confidence and [[TheCharmer charm]]. After attending the experimental Todd School of Boys, where he was mentored by the headmaster Richard Hill (who became Welles' lifelong friend), he became ambitious and restless. In TheThirties, he traveled to Ireland and Europe to become a painter and ended up working in the Abbey Theatre instead. He returned to the U.S. in the middle of TheGreatDepression, and cemented himself as a great maverick of the American stage with a series of daring productions, originally funded by the Federal Theatre of the WPA program of the New Deal but eventually produced by his own pioneering Mercury Theatre company, which in addition to working on the stage also worked on the radio and later in his first two films. Even before he made his film debut, Welles made a name for himself in the American performance arts for his ambitious theatre productions, which often featured daring SettingUpdate (such as ''Voodoo Macbeth'' and the anti-fascist ''Julius Caesar''). Alongside of this he worked in radio, (''Radio/TheMercuryTheatreOnTheAir'', and the first few seasons of ''Radio/TheShadow'') with his regular troupe. The event that made Welles into a household name across America was the 1938 nationwide broadcast of ''Radio/{{The War of the Worlds|1938}}'', which was so convincing that some listeners actually believed Martians had landed in New Jersey. (This story, albeit true, is often highly exaggerated. There were thousands of phone calls to police and radio stations, and some people did leave their homes, but there were no riots.)