Orson Welles: Hello Americans

Simon Callow is an actor, director and writer. He has appeared on the stage and in many films, including the hugely popular
Four Weddings and a Funeral
. Callow’s books include
Being an Actor, Shooting the Actor
, a highly acclaimed biography of Charles Laughton, and
Love is Where it Falls
, an account of his friendship with Peggy Ramsay.

‘Callow’s riveting and superlative biography satisfies at every level, and I for one cannot wait for the next volume’

‘The research is breathtaking. The book is bursting with details, references and anecdotes’

‘Such is Callow’s sympathetic absorption in the mass of material, which he handles with a light and ironic touch, that I found myself utterly hooked … As an actor
himself Callow writes illuminatingly about Welles’ performances’

‘This is a bitter-sweet book: we say goodbye to the very best of company but we also look forward to Callow bringing that company back to life in his third volume’

‘Superb … One of the very best things I’ve seen on Welles … written with Callow’s customary brio and crammed with useful information.
I was surprised by how much it contains that I didn’t know … above all, I was impressed by Callow’s generosity of spirit and balanced judgement of Welles … a biographical masterwork’

‘Callow’s finely-balanced judgement, enhanced by his own observations as an actor, ensures that this not only ranks as one of the best Welles biographies, but
of film biographies full-stop’

‘This is an attractive and persuasive view of an ocean-sized talent for which there is still no finished map. One can only hope that Callow continues the voyage’

‘The facts of this remarkable period [in Welles’ career] are well established, but
Hello Americans
offers a novel lens through which to view them afresh’

‘Almost every page throws up nuggets of interest … This is a rich, meaty and ultimately rewarding banquet’

‘Admirably level-headed’

‘A universal story of hubris, wasted talent, and celebrity achieved at much too young an age’

1.
RKO studios, 1945.

2.
George Schaeffer, Dolores del Rio and Orson Welles at the Los Angeles premiere of
Citizen Kane
, May 1941.

3.
A brief break in filming
The Magnificent Ambersons
.

4.
Stanley Cortez with Ann Baxter, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, shooting in Los Angeles.

5.
Welles in conference with Jack Moss.

6.
The poster for
The Magnificent Ambersons
, drawn by Norman
Rockwell.

7.
The poster for
The Journey into Fear
.

8.
Rio Carnival, February 1942.

9.
Welles being interpreted.
It’s All True
.

10.
Welles on the beach in Fortaleza.

11.
Welles framing a shot in Fortaleza for
Four Men on a Raft
.

12.
Jangadeiros
, photographed by Chico Albuquerque.

13.
Welles in Fortaleza lining up a shot for
Four Men on a Raft
with George Fanto, photographed by Chico Albuquerque.

14.
Welles on the air.

15.
Welles co-starring with Jack Benny.

16.
GIs queuing for
The Mercury Wonder Show
.

17.
Bill of fare for
The Mercury Wonder Show
.

18.
Orson the Magnificent in
The Mercury Wonder Show
.

19.
Rita Hayworth with Orson Welles and George ‘Shorty’ Chirello.

20.
Shooting
The Stranger
.

21.
A scene from
Around the World
.

22.
Orson Welles as Dick Fix, scandalising Julie Warren
as Mary Muggins.

23.
Al Hirschfeld’s pen and ink with multimedia depiction of
Around the World in Eighty Days
.

24.
Lady from Shanghai
still.

25.
Isaac Woodard with other members of the Blind Veterans’ Association.

26.
Woodard with Walter White.

27.
Woodard at a press conference, July 1946.

28.
The newly-blonde Rita Hayworth with Welles.

29.
Welles shooting
The Lady from Shanghai
in Catalina.

30.
Michael O’Hara takes a tumble in
The Lady from Shanghai
.

31.
The famous climax of
The Lady from Shanghai
.

32.
Welles and Jeanette Nolan on the Republic lot for
Macbeth
.

33.
Welles surveys
Macbeth
.

34.
Filming
Macbeth
.

35.
Welles’s sketch for the film of
Macbeth
.

36.
Macbeth
on stage: Salt Lake City.

37.
Welles at a rehearsal of
Macbeth
in Salt Lake City.

1 & 2 Courtesy
of Marc Wanamaker, Bison Archives; 6
The Magnificent Ambersons ©
RKO Pictures, Inc. Licensed by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved; 7
Journey into Fear
© RKO Pictures, Inc. Licensed by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved; 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 34 Copyright Getty Images; 10 Courtesy of Film Society of Lincoln Center; 12 & 13 Copyright Chico Albuquerque;
23 Copyright Al Hirschfeld. Reproduced by arrangement with Hirschfeld’s exclusive representative, the Margo Feiden Galleries Ltd, New York,
www.alhirschfeld.com
: 35 Courtesy of The Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana; 24, 29, 30, 31
The Lady from Shanghai
© 1948, renewed 1975 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

The author
and publishers have made every effort to trace and contact copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to correct any mistakes or omissions in future editions.

FROM THE MID-NINETEEN-FIFTIES
Orson Welles was working on a version of Cervantes’s great novel
Don Quixote
, snatching days where he could, borrowing equipment, staging sequences, slowly assembling his footage. Young actors grew old, old actors died. And still he shot, quietly pursuing his private passion, never with a thought to completion, or, God forbid, to showing it to anyone. And
over the years, whenever they came across him, people would ask Welles the question, ‘When are you going to finish
Don Quixote?
’ Finally, out of amused exasperation, he changed the title of his film to
When are you going to finish Don Quixote?
Sometimes, in the over ten years since the publication of
The Road to Xanadu
, it has occurred to me to call its successor
When are you going to deliver
Volume Two?

I hasten to disclaim any larger similarities between myself and Welles, but it has seemed to take an awfully long time to determine what would be the most useful way to continue the investigation into one of the most extraordinary figures of twentieth-century art begun in the earlier book. The problem is a simple one:
The Road to Xanadu
took 600 pages to cover Welles’s first twenty-five
years, culminating in the release of
Citizen Kane
. He was professionally active for only seven of those twenty-five years, and I devoted most of my pages to a close scrutiny of the legendary work that he did in the theatre and the radio of the nineteen-thirties – Unit 691, the Mercury Theatre, the Mercury Theatre on the Air:
Dr Faustus, Julius Caesar, The War of the Worlds
– ending with an account
of the depressing period in limbo in Hollywood before the making of
Kane
and its subsequent delayed release. It was, I believe, the unusually detailed examination of the work and the circumstances that gave rise to it, as well as the attendant myths that surrounded everything to do with Welles, that gave the book its value. The patina of legend – placed there partly by Welles, partly by various
interested parties who sought to prove their own points of view, and mostly by journalists happy to be handed colourful
copy
on a plate – had often obscured what was really remarkable about the man and his achievements, at the same time presenting a false image of his work in the various media in which he was engaged – theatre, radio, cinema. Only the closest scrutiny, it seemed to me, could restore
the living reality, both of Welles and his world. The context was almost as important as the event. And that meant time and space; it meant length. My publisher was kind enough to see the point of this, as he showed by commissioning a two-volume biography.