Orson Welles, Vol I
Page 82
31. ‘We’re all a little skittish now …’ Quoted in a profile, New York Times 20 February 1938.
32. ‘God keep them from all Broadway entanglements …’ New York Daily News 9 January 1938.
33. ‘… during February and March, the Mercury Theatre …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
34. ‘He’d had his hair just done …’ Norman Lloyd in an interview with S.C.
35. ‘With a voice that booms like Big Ben’s …’ ‘Marvelous Boy’, Time Magazine 9 May 1938.
36. ‘He is an intuitive showman …’ New York Times 7 November 1938.
37. ‘1) I found Welles …’ from letters page, New York Times 20 November 1938.
38. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you may have heard some rumours …’ Quoted by Andrea Nouryeh, op. cit.
39. ‘Most of us in our hearts …’ ibid.
40. ‘I wouldn’t be happy if I couldn’t …’ Quoted in an interview with Harold Stagg, New Haven Ledger 21 January 1938.
41. ‘She timed her entrance …’ New York World Telegram 9 April 1938.
42. ‘My god the ceiling’s fallen in …’ Quoted by Vincent Price in an interview with S.C.
43. ‘One of Mr Shaw’s more interminable …’ New York Times 30 April 1938.
44. ‘the truth is that the production …’ New York Post 30 April 1938.
45. ‘Mr Welles as Shotover plays much better …’ New York Sun 30 April 1938.
46. ‘The Mercury Company act out Heartbreak House …’ and ff. From Sights and Spectacles by Mary McCarthy.
47. ‘THE SUMMING UP …’ New York Times July 1938.
48. ‘Personally we were grateful to our investors …’ and ff. From John Houseman, op. cit.
49. ‘the high-livers were killing me …’ Hiram Sherman quoted by Andrea Nouryeh, op. cit.
50. ‘The pace had become so wild …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
Theatre of the Air
1. ‘… limp and huge in a darkened room …’ and ff. From Run-Through by John Houseman.
2. ‘What can management do to encourage …’ Quoted in On a Note of Triumph by R. LeRoy Bannerman.
3. ‘Orson Welles, the twenty-three-year-old actor-director …’ New York Times 12 June 1938.
4. ‘The less a radio drama resembles a play …’ Radio Annual 1939.
5. ‘There is no place where ideas are as purely expressed as on the radio …’ Lecture Notes on Acting at the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
6. ‘… avoiding the cut-and-dried dramatic technique …’ Newsweek 11 July 1938.
7. ‘He seemed to assume I would be working with him …’ and ff. From John Houseman, op. cit.
8. ‘Welles’ specific contribution was putting it over …’ An interview at NYU.
9. ‘Orson in his usual way heard it and said …’ Paul Stewart quoted in Positif, edited by François Thomas, translated by S.C.
10. ‘At first Orson tried to produce the Mercury …’ ibid.
11. ‘There was absolute chaos …’ ibid.
12. ‘Tottering to the microphone …’ New York Times 1 July 1938.
13. ‘All come out of a little affair …’ From Too Much Johnson by William Gillette.
14. ‘Would you prefer the slow sit or the fast sit, Mr Welles?’ Quoted in Citizen Welles by Frank Brady.
15. ‘A sequence in Cuba …’ From This is Orson Welles by Peter Bogdanovich.
16. ‘… laughing at his own footage …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
17. ‘Orson opened the script and said …’ Quoted in The Mercury Theatre, unpublished thesis by Andrea Nouryeh.
18. ‘… the play and the film were too surreal for the audience …’ Quoted by Frank Brady, op. cit.
19. ‘… one of our best things, but aborted …’ From Peter Bogdanovich, op. cit.
20. ‘… he retired into his air-conditioned tent at the St Regis …’ and ff. From John Houseman, op. cit.
21. ‘I’d like you to meet Jim Hawkins …’ Transcribed from the Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast of Treasure Island.
22. ‘It struck us as a brilliant notion …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
23. ‘I doubt if any stage …’ Commonweal 4 January 1928.
24. ‘The impression of a tremendous plenitude and variety of life …’ From Reinhardt and his Stage by Heinz Herald, translated by J. L. Styan.
25. ‘… a treacherous system of gaping holes …’ From Andrea Nouryeh, op. cit.
26. ‘… had that awed and childlike respect …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
27. ‘Mister Soldier, handsome soldier …’ Quoted in Mark the Music by Eric A. Gordon.
28. ‘… backstage at the Mercury …’ Quoted in Drama was a Weapon by Morgan Himelstein.
29. ‘ACTORS OFTEN “LIVE“ IN THE THEATRE …’ New York Herald Tribune 23 October 1938.
30. ‘We pre-empted all the masks in New York that year …’ Richard Barr in his unpublished memoirs.
31. ‘… a steely-gray, vicious, as though …’ From The Theatre of Orson Welles by Richard France.
32. ‘I kept saying, “it’s going to look like a lot of pebbles …”’ Howard Teichmann in an interview with NYU.
33. ‘Orson yelled out for some lights …’ Quoted by Andrea Nouryeh, op. cit.
34. ‘… with instructions from Houseman …’ From Howard Koch’s introduction to The Panic Broadcast.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
War of the Worlds/Danton’s Death
1. ‘Radio was full at that time of remote programs …’ Eric Barnouw in an interview with NYU.
2. ‘All during rehearsals Orson railed at the text …’ Richard Barr in his unpublished memoirs.
3. ‘Awakening many listeners to the swift …’ From On a Note of Triumph by LeRoy Bannerman.
4. ‘You really had the feeling that the world …’ Eric Barnouw in an interview with NYU.
5. ‘We know now that in the early years …’ and ff. From the script of The War of the Worlds by Howard Koch from the novel by H. G. Wells.
6. ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have that information here …’ Quoted in the introduction by Howard Koch to The Panic Broadcast.
7. ‘Everyone ran to get their coats …’ Letter to New York Daily News magazine 30 October 1938.
8. ‘Whose farm I knew was in the destruction path …’ ibid.
9. ‘… no further significance than the holiday …’ Transcribed from the Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast of The War of the Worlds.
10. ‘Someone had called threatening to blow up the CBS building …’ Richard Barr in his unpublished memoirs.
11. ‘… young Mr Welles, a student of Shakespeare …’ New York World Telegram 1 November 1938.
12. ‘… one of the most fascinating and important events …’ New York Herald Tribune 2 November 1938.
13. ‘The most terrifying thing …’ and ff. Alva Johnston and Fred Smith, ‘How to Raise a Child’, Saturday Evening Post 3 February 1940.
14. ‘America today hardly knows …’ London Times 1 November 1938.
15. ‘HE’S A LAD …’ London Daily Express 1 November 1938.
16. ‘He has had a career …’ London Star 1 November 1938.
17. ‘… by his energetic direction …’ London Evening News 1 November 1938.
18. ‘He said he was sorry …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
19. ‘LEFT ON BROADWAY …’ Daily Worker 20 October 1938.
20. ‘Welles stumbled and stumbled …’ William Alland in an interview with S.C.
21. ‘… living one hour and a little more …’ Brooklyn Eagle 6 November 1938.
22. ‘… overwhelming and a worthy successor …’ New York Times 3 November 1938.
23. ‘It is too arty, too self-conscious …’ New York Post 5 November 1938.
24. ‘Its only purpose …’ New York World Telegram 3 November 1938.
25. ‘… it may be electrically …’ George Jean Nathan: Newsweek 14 Novembe
r 1938.
26. ‘ORSON WELLES DOES BÜCHNER’S DANTON’S DEATH …’ Arthur Pollock: Brooklyn Eagle-Examiner 6 November 1938.
27. ‘Every movement is made as if it were artistically precious …’ New York Herald Tribune 3 November 1938.
28. ‘It is done with great deliberation …’ New York Daily News 3 November 1938.
29. ‘Incoherent and handsomely fatuous …’ New Republic 30 November 1938.
30. ‘… that baleful voice …’ New York Times 7 November 1938.
31. ‘… he had trouble with the English language …’ and ff. New Yorker 12 November 1938.
32. ‘Welles is at heart a magician …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
33. ‘After twenty-one performances we threw in the sponge …’ ibid.
34. ‘… co-operative in every sense of the word …’ New York World Telegram 29 April 1939.
35. ‘… an enterprise the Press was sincerely fond of …’ From The Fervent Years by Harold Clurman.
36. ‘I guess they figured if we could sell …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The Campbell Playhouse/Five Kings
1. ‘I am here to introduce the white hope of the American stage …’ and ff. Transcribed from Campbell Playhouse’s broadcast of Rebecca.
2. ‘The situation of Orson becoming a great national figure …’ From Run-Through by John Houseman.
3. ‘The performance of Shakespeare’s historical plays …’ ibid.
4. ‘Some of the plays of Shakespeare have been lost to the living theatre …’ New York Times 24 April 1939.
5. ‘I allowed Orson to use the theatre not only as an instrument …’ Letter quoted in Virgil Thomson by Virgil Thomson.
6. ‘Any bum can get a crack at …’ From This is Orson Welles by Peter Bogdanovich.
7. ‘… a part which Orson regarded …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
8. ‘That subdued muttering you hear …’ New York Herald Tribune 26 March 1939.
9. ‘I was introduced to a young lady …’ From The Magic Curtain by Lawrence Langner.
10. ‘… much to the annoyance of Burgess Meredith …’ From Richard Barr’s unpublished memoirs
11. ‘Those vaguely based on truth …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
12. ‘inordinately willing to suspend their disbelief …’ From Orson Welles on Shakespeare by Richard France.
13. ‘Having demonstrated his superiority as an artist …’ and ff. From John Houseman, op. cit.
14. ‘Welles, looking like a large moon-faced boy …’ Joseph Hardy in a letter to S.C.
15. ‘… having achieved his real objective …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
16. ‘… his prologue ultimately over …’ and ff. From Lawrence Langner, op. cit.
17. ‘Not until Mr Welles, still wearing the flesh of Falstaff …’ New York Times 5 March 1939.
18. ‘FIVE KINGS EXCITING …’ Peggy Doyle: Boston Evening American 28 February 1939.
19. ‘There are moments when mannerisms intrude …’ Christian Science Monitor 28 February 1939.
20. ‘To this courier, just back from Agincourt …’ John K. Hutchens: Boston Evening Transcript 28 February 1939.
21. ‘Orson Welles has bitten off a big hunk …’ Variety 22 March 1939.
22. ‘Like OI’ Man River …’ New York Times 5 March 1939.
23. ‘What might have been a tour de force …’ Time 13 March 1939.
24. ‘Not only are certain members of the Five Kings company …’ Washington Daily News 14 March 1939.
25. ‘The occasion consisted of a lot of …’ Philadelphia Daily News 21 March 1939.
26. ‘… only a gigantic Shakespeare vaudeville …’ Philadelphia Evening Bulletin 21 March 1939.
27. ‘… its weakness appears to be …’ Philadelphia Record 21 March 1939.
28. ‘To compare Orson Welles’ Falstaff to Mr Evans’s …’ Linton Martin, Philadelphia Inquirer 21 March 1939.
29. ‘The reports from the road …’ New York Herald Tribune 26 March 1939.
30. ‘Orson had a kind of No Man’s Land …’ Martin Gabel in an interview with NYU, 1985.
31. ‘It fell on its face not through any difficulties …’ Quoted in Virgil Thomson, op. cit.
32. ‘… all of us on the production staff …’ From The Magic of Light by Jean Rosenthal.
33. ‘I will play him as a tragic figure …’ Quoted in an interview with Christian Science Monitor 17 February 1939.
34. ‘The closer I thought I was getting to Falstaff …’ From Peter Bogdanovich, op. cit.
35. ‘… comic symbol for the supernatural order of Charity …’ From ‘The Prince’s Dog’ in The Dyer’s Hand by W. H. Auden.
36. ‘… the death song of the drunkard …’ ibid.
37. ‘… the drunkard is unlovely to look at …’ ibid.
38. ‘Still, Welles would not accept defeat …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
39. ‘Fatigue, humiliation, mutual reproaches …’ and ff. Quoted in Virgil Thomson, op. cit.
40. ‘I don’t know if I care very much …’ and ff. From The Green Goddess by William Archer.
41. ‘… with three rooms and bathrooms …’ From Orson Welles by Barbara Leaming.
42. ‘The theatre has lost its narrative style …’ From Lecture Notes on Acting, Lilly Library Welles Collection.
43. ‘ORSON WELLES GIVING METRO THE PIX CHILL’ Variety 29 December 1939.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Hollywood/Heart of Darkness
1. ‘Who’s this Welles?’ and ff. From ‘Pat Hobby and Orson Welles’, Esquire May 1940.
2. ‘LITTLE ORSON ANNIE’ Gene Lockhart. Quoted in Orson Welles by Roy Alexander Fowler.
3. ‘a full contingent …’ From Run-Through by John Houseman.
4. ‘Orson does not think of his income …’ Letter in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
5. ‘Rumours began to circulate …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
6. ‘Wheelock says absolutely not …’ Letter to John Houseman in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
7. ‘Practical considerations suggest enormous advantages …’ Telegram in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
8. ‘Why did you two lice can Chips …’ and ff. Letters in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
9. ‘Please remember that whatever gives our format individuality …’ Telegram in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
10. ‘Orson, who was beginning to have his own doubts …’ From John Houseman, op. cit.
11. ‘Both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate …’ and ff. From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.
12. ‘The picture is, frankly, an attack on the Nazi system …’ Quoted in Citizen Welles by Frank Brady.
13. ‘The story is of a man and a girl in love …’ and ff. Undated memo to the RKO publicity department, in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
14. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is Orson Welles …’ and ff. From the screenplay to Heart of Darkness printed in Film Comment November/December 1972 with article by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
15. ‘All this severe blow …’ Telegram in the RKO archives.
16. ‘… dear mr schaefer: you have my word …’ Telegram in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
17. ‘Thanks so much for your wire …’ Letter in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
18. ‘If Mr George Schaefer …’ Hollywood Reporter 26 September 1939.
19. ‘… she apparently didn’t consider having an affair …’ From On the Other Hand by Fay Wray.
20. ‘He was goggle-eyed …’ Quoted in Orson Welles by Barbara Leaming.
21. ‘As for the chronological story …’ Letter in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
22. ‘I never stood in your way …’ Letter in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
23. ‘If Marlow was standing on the deck of a boat …’ From The Making of Citizen Kane by Robert L. Carringer.
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br /> 24. ‘… pissing it away …’and ff. From John Houseman, op. cit.
25. ‘In the past year my position with you and the Mercury …’ Letter in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
26. ‘If an artist finds that public response …’ and ff. Quoted in Virgil Thomson by Virgil Thomson.
27. ‘I couldn’t say to him …’ Quoted by Barbara Leaming, op. cit.
28. ‘… his magnetic, brown, gold-flecked eyes …’ and ff. From The Smiler with the Knife by Nicholas Blake (C. Day Lewis).
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
Mank
1. ‘… credits that would knock your eye out …’ From ‘Pat Hobby and Orson Welles’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Esquire May 1940.
2. ‘Idiocy is all right in its own way …’ and ff. Quoted in Mank by Richard Meryman.
3. ‘… you felt this fondness …’ and ff. ibid.
4. ‘Both came away enchanted and convinced …’ Letter to Richard Meryman quoted in Mank.
5. ‘He was, variously, my collaborator …’ From Run-Through by John Houseman.
6. ‘Sadly, the closer Jack got to Mank …’ Quoted in ‘Is it true what they say about Orson?’ New York Times August 1971.
7. ‘As a result of Mankiewicz’s wicked sense of humour …’ From ‘Raising Kane’ by Pauline Kael, introduction to The Citizen Kane Book.
8. ‘When Mank left for Victorville …’ Quoted in This is Orson Welles by Peter Bogdanovich.
9. ‘I have only one real enemy in my life …’ Quoted by Richard Meryman, op. cit.
10. ‘… an error so grave …’ Telegram in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
11. ‘Script ideas and development …’ Letter in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
12. ‘Your suggested revision …’ Telegram in the Lilly Library Welles Collection.
13. ‘In his hatred of Hearst …’ and ff. Quoted by Richard Meryman, op. cit.
14. ‘… the tremendous vitality, gaiety and joie de vivre …’ and ff. Quoted in Citizen Welles by Frank Brady.
15. ‘dear mank received your cut version …’ Telegram in Houseman collection, UCLA.
16. ‘He had a sallow complexion …’ From ‘Gregg Toland ASC’ by George E. Turner, American Cinematographer November 1982.