Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane

by McGilligan, Patrick

  “ ‘The Shadow’ was born . . . ,” “something of a masterpiece . . . ,” and “discoursed intelligently . . .” from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. “Emily Watson introduced me . . . ,” “He drew a circle on a blackboard . . . ,” “We’ve known each other . . . ,” and “I persistently pretended . . . ,” from Tarbox, Orson Welles and Roger Hill. “I was my mother . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. “Shock of black hair . . .” from Charles Higham’s interview with Agnes Moorehead, Film Digest no. 21 (Australia), curiously left out of his biography of Welles. OW told slightly varying versions of his several encounters with Houdini; I have favored Jim Steinmeyer’s books, which quote Welles from the author’s conversations with him. Frederick J. Garner is cited from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. Lowell Frautschi is from “Camp Indianola and Orson Welles, Boy Genius: A Memoir,” Wisconsin Academy Review, Winter 1994–1995, and from “The Profile” (of Frautschi), Wisconsin State Journal, June 27, 1943. OW’s summer camp poem (“From out of the dark and dreary night . . .”) is extracted from the 1939 special edition of Campers’ Trail among Marjorie Kantor’s papers at the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison. “Wonderful city” from Joseph McBride’s interview with OW, Wisconsin State Journal, September 14, 1970, referenced in McBride, What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? Stanley Custer’s papers are at the Wisconsin Historical Society along with those of journalist Frank Custer, who wrote about his brother’s boyhood friendship with OW and Welles’s time in Madison on several occasions in the Capital Times, recapping those articles on the occasion of OW’s death on October 25, 1985. “From my earliest childhood . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. “A squat little man . . .” from Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear (Carroll and Graf, 2003).

  “Quite a large and discerning . . .” from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. “Eastern oysters and Western trout” from OW’s piece in Paris Vogue, 1983. “I chased him into the hotel . . .” from Higham’s Orson Welles. Henry C. Warner is quoted from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. Annetta Collins’s reminiscences are from her tape recording among Todd School oral histories in the McHenry County Historical Society. Notes of Roger Hill (RH) on young OW’s “genius” score on the Binet-Simon test were supplied to the author by Todd Tarbox, who described them as “typed and taped by my grandfather on the outside of one of his ‘Orson’ files.” OW mused on “genius” in Michel Mok, “Orson Welles, Who Puts Shakespeare’s Romans in Fancy Duds, Discusses Ruffians, Past and Present,” New York Post, November 24, 1937.

  Chapter 5: 1926–1929

  “A paradise for boys” from Feder, In My Father’s Shadow. “I hear we’ve got another . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. Unless otherwise noted, John Dexter is quoted from Reunion 2005 Stories, a Camp Tosebo Clubhouse CD recording supplied to the author by Daniel and Caryl Lemanski. “Rather too much hair . . . ,” “A terrific show,” and “No doubt my fascination . . .” from Tarbox, Orson Welles and Roger Hill. “When he finished with me . . .” from Callow, Orson Welles. “Was always trying to get some money . . .” is from the transcript of Leaming’s interview with RH, February 19, 1983, supplied to the author by Todd Tarbox. Issues of The Red & White courtesy of Tarbox. “My great pal . . .” from the full OW-RH telephone transcripts. “In many a school . . .” from the Leaming-RH transcript.

  “One of those lost worlds . . . ,” and “a childhood in the last century . . .” from Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles. “How easily words flowed . . .” is from Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance. “One of the sexiest pictures . . .” from the OW-RH phone transcripts. “Our sunshine . . .” from OW’s eulogy for Hortense Hill, cited in Feder, In My Father’s Shadow. “Try to build a mountain . . .” from the OW-RH transcripts. The local newspaper reports I consulted for coverage of the Sheffield fire include “Sheffield Hotel at Grand Detour Burned Today,” Dixon Evening Telegraph, May 14, 1928; “Historic Inn at Grand Detour Burned,” Freeport Journal-Standard, May 14, 1928; and “Grand Detour Hotel Destroyed by Fire,” Ogle County Republican, May 17, 1928.

  “Thirteen-year-old dramatic critic . . .” from Highland Park News, July 6, 1928. “Hitting the High Notes,” young OW’s column, is quoted from Highland Park News, July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27, and August 3, 1928. “I have so many happy memories . . .” from OW’s undated 1970s letter to Ruth Miller (UM). For history and context of the Goodman Theatre I drew on James S. Newell’s authoritative PhD thesis, “A Critical Analysis of the Kenneth Sawyer Goodman Memorial Theatre and School of Drama, Chicago, Illinois, 1925–1971” (Wayne State University, 1973). “As Cassius, I killed Caesar . . .” from New York Post, November 24, 1937. “For God’s sake, Roger . . .” from Tarbox, Orson Welles and Roger Hill. MAB’s letter to young OW, May 21, 1930, is in the Lily Library collection. “Third rate, almost bumming” from OW’s first “travel talk,” reported in Woodstock Daily Sentinel, March 25, 1930. “I was, however, not a wunderkind . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. “I was just becoming interested . . .” from the “Revisiting Vienna” episode of the British television series Around the World with Orson Welles, 1955.

  Chapter 6: 1929–1931

  Young OW’s “running fight” with Coach Roskie, his wariness of homosexual classmates, his flirtations with town girls (“Barking and yelling”), his attempted escapes from “the main part of the prison,” RH’s defense of him before the faculty, and the headmaster’s children’s resentment of OW: all from the OW-RH phone transcripts. “Was a good kid . . .” from Callow, Orson Welles. “Constant play going of this sort . . .” from Woodstock Evening Sentinel, February 24, 1930. The MAB–Edith Mason “rift” precipitated by young OW from Chicago Tribune, January 4, 1930. Details of the divorce proceedings, including Mason’s complaint that MAB often boasted of “his feminine conquests,” were reported on the front page of the Chicago Herald and Examiner, May 5, 1931. “Inklings” ran in the Highland Park News, June 20, July 4, August 1, and September 5, 1930. “Find a drink that wouldn’t . . .” and “I’ll never forget . . .” from Feder, In My Father’s Shadow. “That was the last . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. “A funny little fellow . . .” from the OW-RH phone transcripts. “If you had a lead . . .” (Hascy Tarbox) and “Keep it moving! . . .” (John Dexter), both quoted in Callow, Orson Welles. “His father would come . . .” from the Leaming-RH transcript. “Usually pretty heavily cocked . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. Ashton Stevens (AS), “A Column or Less,” his first piece about young OW, Chicago Herald and Examiner, November 11, 1930. “I admire him for that . . .” from the OW-RH phone transcripts. “Old-timers in the industry . . .” from Automobile Topics, March 7, 1931. “Dr. Bernstein Made Guardian of Rich Boy” from Chicago Herald and Examiner, January 3, 1931. “Enormously likable and attractive . . . ,” from Kenneth Tynan’s interview with Welles, Playboy, March 1967, included in Estrin, Orson Welles Interviews. “Momentarily, false gods” from Leaming, Orson Welles. “I couldn’t let them down . . .” from Feder, In My Father’s Shadow. “China and Japan,” OW’s talk, is in Woodstock Evening Sentinel, January 20, 1931.

  “A falling-to-pieces one-volume . . .” from France, The Theatre of Orson Welles. “The most outstanding affair . . .” from Woodstock Daily Sentinel, June 10, 1931. OW’s 1930–31 report card is in the Lilly Library. “At Todd, the guy was really . . .” from the Camp Tosebo reunion recording. “It was only at Todd . . .” from Feder, In My Father’s Shadow. “I remember we sat down . . .” is from the Leaming-RH transcript. RH’s letter of September 6, 1931, to Clyde Tull at Cornell College is posted at www.lettersofnote.com. Young OW’s initial Billboard advertisement from Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance; the second from Callow, Orson Welles. “Under his wing . . .” from the RH-Tull letter. Welles’s letter of August 1931 to RH, announcing his trip to Ireland, from France, The Theatre of Orson Welles.

  Chapter 7: 1931–1932

  There are many letters from young OW to RH and MAB, and some have been excerpted or pu
blished in their entirety—for example in the books by Roger Hill, Richard France, Barbara Leaming, Frank Brady, and Simon Callow. Callow apparently saw several letters (including one describing the post–Aran Islands bicycle trip) that are absent from archives. Others survive in handwritten or retyped form at LL or UM, or both. The Ashton Stevens collection at the Newberry Library (NL) also contains copies circulated by MAB. Most lack specific dating, and I have done my best to straighten out their chronology. OW’s contemporaneous letters home, when checked against known facts, seem relatively accurate and truthful.

  Orson “Ort” Wells is quoted from a letter of June 3, 1934, to George Ade, among Ade’s papers. Christopher Townley, “Galway’s Early Association with the Theatre,” from the Galway Reader (Spring, 1953), and the description of the Taibhdhearc Collection at the National University of Ireland, Galway, helped with the Taibhdhearc background. Mysteries shadow OW’s time in Dublin. The Gate Theatre archives at Northwestern University are extensive and helpful but sparse when it comes to OW, and there is almost nothing about the branch operations of the Peacock Repertory Theatre. Extensive searches of surviving periodicals, electronic indexes, and archival collections did not turn up any article with OW’s pen name “Knowles Noel Shane.” Trinity College in Dublin has no record of any application from OW. All for Hecuba is a tremendous source, but MacLíammóir also has been accused of embellishing the facts—even, on occasion, describing incidents at which he was possibly not present. (Christopher Fitz-Simon, The Boys: A Double Biography, published by Nick Hern Books in 1994, offers a valuable corrective.) Production records for the Peacock could not be traced; nor did the Irish press extensively cover the auxiliary operation. So it appears that OW made his professional directing as well as acting debut in Dublin—but what exact play he directed, when, and to what effect, remains to be discovered.

  “The Stately Homos of Ireland” from Joseph McBride, “The Irish Education of Orson Welles,” Irish America, July 31, 1999. “A violent cloud of dust” and other MacLíammóir commentary, unless otherwise noted, from MacLíammóir, All for Hecuba. “Deep, guttural” and “When Orson calls with a smile in his voice . . .” (quoting Paul Stewart) from Milton Berle, B.S. I Love You: Sixty Funny Years with the Famous and the Infamous (McGraw-Hill, 1988). “Forced and defensive . . .” (Tennessee Williams) is quoted by Kenneth Tynan in his profile of OW, Show, November 1961. J. J. Hayes wrote about the eighteen-year-old “Orson Wells” with Goodman and Theatre Guild experience in “A Yeats Play and an American Actor in Dublin,” New York Times, November 8, 1931. OW’s reminiscences about his salad days in Ireland from the six-part BBC television series Orson Welles’ Sketch Book, 1955 (including “It was the only thing I could think of . . .”). “With the gallery and the pit . . .” from OW, letter to Hortense Hill, quoted in Callow, Orson Welles. The Longfords and Betty Chancellor, unless otherwise noted, are quoted from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. “Went to jail . . .” from Biskind, My Lunches with Orson.

  Young OW discussed The Dead Rides Fast disparagingly with Hugh Curran in the Chicago Tribune, November 19, 1931. Joseph Holloway’s journals, touching on Gate Theatre productions during this period, were edited by Robert Hogan and Michael J. O’Neill and published as Joseph Holloway’s Irish Theatre: Volume Two 1932–1937 (Proscenium, 1970). All of OW’s quotes about the supposed jealousy of MacLíammóir and comparing him with Anew McMaster come from Leaming, Orson Welles. “Several pounds of nose-putty . . .” from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. “Hilton Edwards played Mogu as he played . . .” and Padraic Column’s “I don’t recognize . . .” from Georgie Hyde-Lees (Mrs. William Butler Yeats), “Yours Affly, Dobbs: George Yeats to Her Husband,” in Essays for Richard Ellmann: Omnium Gatherum, ed. Susan Dick (McGill-Queen’s Press, 1989). “Youngest and only American . . .” from Irish Tattler and Sketch, January 1932. “One of the best [Ghosts] I have ever seen . . .” from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. “That’s a problem . . .” from OW’s filmed conversation with Bernard Braden in a Paris hotel room, known as Orson Welles: The Paris Interview (1960). “My debt to them . . .” from OW’s footage in the Irish television documentary Orson Welles and the Gate Theatre (Darren Chan/Brian Reddin, 2013).

  Chapter 8: 1932–1933

  All the OW quotes in the first half of this chapter, and later, describing his trip to Africa and Spain, are from contemporaneous letters to RH, except where noted. Most of the letters have been published, partially or in full, some originally in Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance. I fact-checked all the letters, arriving at the conclusion that, however much it goes against the grain of his mythmaking reputation, these contemporaneous accounts are largely truthful and accurate. Most of the letters, albeit with gaps in time, are on deposit at the UM or LL. They are augmented by letters in the Ashton and Florence Stevens Collections at the NL, which also contains correspondence from Welles, from Dr. Maurice and Hazel (Moore) Bernstein, and from Whitford Kane to the Stevenses. Once again, I have tried to sequence the letters, which are typically undated.

  “In the throes of Orson” from Hazel Bernstein (HB), letter of May 29, 1948, to AS, and “an intensely interesting person . . .” from HB, letter of May 5, 1948, to Florence Stevens (NL). “Suitable for entertaining . . .” and the rest of RH’s account of the New York expedition from Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance. “I do hope you won’t . . .” from Leaming, Orson Welles. The accounts of the possible radio job and audition and of young OW’s visit to the Whistler retrospective with AS come from a series of undated 1932 letters from OW and AS to Florence Stevens, including AS’s letter of November 19, 1932, to his wife, and her undated reply (NL). “There is splendid stuff . . .” from AS, letter of November 27, 1932, to Florence Stevens (NL). “Some very exciting letters . . .” from an undated 1932 letter from OW to Florence Stevens (NL).

  “As you love me, do . . .” from OW, letter of January 1933 to RH (UM). “His opera house and his millions . . .” from Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance. “Tough days those . . .” from John Clayton, “The Man Behind This,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1938. “Stick with this boy!” from Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance. Roger Hill did stick with “Marching Song,” presenting its world premiere, performed by the Todd Troupers, directed by Hascy Tarbox, at the Woodstock Opera House on June 7, 1950. “Debussy and others . . .” from OW, undated letter to RH, winter of 1932–1933 (UM). “The year is tearing by . . .” and “I have decided not to go to college . . .” from OW, letter of January 1933 to RH. “Shakespeare said everything . . .” from Everybody’s Shakespeare: Three Plays Edited for Reading and Arranged for Staging—Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Merchant of Venice (Todd Press, 1934).

  “No one believes me . . .” from Callow, Orson Welles. James Van Hise, Nils Hardin, and Sam Moskowitz’s investigation into OW’s pulp fiction credentials was published as “Orson Welles: Pulp Writer?” in Rocket’s Blast and the Comic Collector, May 2000. OW’s deposition in the Ferdinand Lundberg lawsuit (like Herman Mankiewicz’s and John Houseman’s testimony, quoted elsewhere in this book) is among the voluminous civil case files held in Record Group 21 of the U.S. District Court in the National Archives and Records Administration, New York City. “The home of song and dancing” from Walter Starkie, Don Gypsy (John Murray, 1936). The actual facts of Welles’s bullfighting stint have thus far eluded the best detectives. OW wrote the introduction to Conchita Cintrón’s Torera! Memoirs of a Bullfighter (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968). “Juan, you know how much I love . . .” from my correspondence with Juan Cobos, who interviewed OW extensively and worked with him in Spain and who impressed upon me the importance of Walter Starkie, Seville, Triana, Spain, and bullfighting. “[Don Quixote] is better than any . . .” from Cobos’s notes and reminiscences.

  Chapter 9: 1933–1934

  “He turned out literally . . .” from Hill, One Man’s Time and Chance. MAB quoted from his notes for a memoir. “Jump of association” and the rest of the account of young OW’s first encounter with Thornton Wi
lder (TW) from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles, with emendations from other sources. “Rather pudgy-faced . . .” and “The whole town [of Dublin] was staggered . . .” from TW’s letter of August 1933 to Alexander Woollcott, published in its entirety in The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder, ed. Robin G. Wilder and Jackson R. Bryer (HarperCollins, 2008). “At times Wilder’s mentor . . .” from Penelope Niven, Thornton Wilder: A Life (HarperCollins, 2012). “With no more than a ‘wotta-mess-I’m in’ . . .” from OW’s undated letter of late August 1933 to Hortense Hill. “Never passed so serene a Pullman night . . . ,” from OW’s undated letter of late August 1933 to RH. The rest of OW’s fall 1933 correspondence with RH (including, below, “In the simple acceptance of each other . . .”) is undated. “Conversation was the most . . .” from Howard Teichmann, Smart Aleck: The Wit, World, and Life of Alexander Woollcott (Morrow, 1976). OW’s handwritten, nineteen-page letter of September 11, 1933, to TW is in Wilder’s papers in Special Collections, Beinecke Library, Yale University. “Physical vitality, psychic intensity . . .” from Michael A. Morrison, John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

  “The ghosts of past magnificence . . .” and the outlook for the “grand tour of the country” from “Miss Cornell Starts Her Tour,” New York Times, November 26, 1933. Basil Rathbone writes about the tour in In and Out of Character (Doubleday, 1962). Brenda Forbes’s autobiography, also touching on the Cornell tour, is Five Minutes, Miss Forbes (Fairmile, 1994). A couple of tour anecdotes come from MAB’s notes for a memoir. I also drew from Guthrie McClintic, Me and Kit (Little, Brown, 1955), and cited McClintic from Noble, The Fabulous Orson Welles. Katharine Cornell is quoted from her six-part “I Wanted to Be an Actress,” as told to Ruth Woodbury Segwick, Stage magazine, 1939, which evolved into her autobiography I Wanted to Be an Actress (Random House, 1939). (Part Five, Stage, January/February 1939, centers on the national repertory tour.) In his papers, Stanley Custer recalled greeting OW backstage at the Madison stop of the tour. There are many versions of the cross-country train trip to Seattle, including Alexander Woollcott, “Miss Kitty Takes to the Road,” Saturday Evening Post, August 18, 1934. I have fact-checked and collated the versions with Seattle press accounts. “Orson at the time always . . .” from France, The Theatre of Orson Welles. “Terribly campy” from Callow, Orson Welles. “Do reviews ever wound you?” from Michael Parkinson’s interview with Welles on BBC’s Parkinson, 1974. I have a sheaf of clippings from newspapers in U.S. cities, which helped trace the itinerary and events of the tour. Kenneth Tynan mentioned the palmisty and fortune-telling anecdotes in his collected Profiles, ed. Kathleen Tynan (Nick Hern Books, 1990); the long portrait of Welles melds his early Show piece with later interviews with OW. “About twice a year . . .” (OW) and, below, “gauche and tiresome . . .” (Forbes) from France, The Theatre of Orson Welles.