Orson Welles

Orson Welles (1915-1985), American actor, producer, director, and writer, most famous for directing and starring in the film Citizen Kane (1941). He was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rejecting college for world travel, he began his acting career in Ireland in the early 1930s. He toured the United States over the next couple of years with the American actress Katharine Cornell's company, appearing in productions of Romeo and Juliet, Candida, and The Barretts of Wimpole Street. He then acted and directed with the Federal Theatre Project, staging a “voodoo” Macbeth in 1936 with a black cast. In 1937 he was a founder of the Mercury Theatre, which produced innovative stage and radio drama. His 1938 radio version of War of the Worlds by the English author H. G. Wells was so realistic that thousands believed an alien attack was actually occurring.

Welles's first completed film, Citizen Kane, is often cited as one of the finest films ever made. Then 25 years old, Welles coscripted, starred in, and directed this psychological study of an American newspaper tycoon. His innovative Expressionistic use of sound and camera techniques greatly influenced later film-makers. The film was not commercially successful, however, and Welles spent most of the next two decades in Europe, acting, directing, and continuing to experiment. He directed films ranging from thrillers to television documentaries to works of Shakespeare. Among them are The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1948), Macbeth (1948), Othello (1952), Touch of Evil (1958), and F for Fake (1975). Films by other directors in which Welles acted include Jane Eyre (1943), The Third Man (1949), Compulsion (1959), Voyage of the Damned (1976), and Someone to Love (1987). In 1975 Welles received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute.