The Life and Times of Orson Welles

Carlos Daez
Staff Reporter

For the entire month of May, the city of Kenosha will be honoring the one-hundredth
birthday of notable citizen and legendary filmmaker Orson Welles the director of Citizen
Kane, often referred to as 'the greatest movie of all time'.

Last May 6, the kickoff celebration began with a series of tributes by the Citizen Welles
Society of Kenosha at the Campbell Student Union Theater. Included were readings from
biographers, re-enactments from actresses, and several excerpts from Mr. Welles's body of
work covering theater, radio, and film.

George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha on the morning of May 6, 1915, to the
sound of neighboring factory whistles. Mr. Patrick McGilligan, author of the biography,
Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane, noted that although
Welles only stayed for three years and would later mock the city for having an obscure name,
the filmmaker acknowledged his Midwestern roots and values, sometimes likening himself to
a badger the state animal of Wisconsin.

During a trip in Ireland, teenaged Welles decided to abandon painting, an early

interest, to pursue a stage career. Through hard work and sheer luck, he managed to become
a relatively famous actor in Dublin, before leaving to return home and take on American
theater. Unfortunately, he was turned down in both New York and Chicago; after some more
soul-searching in the company of other industry fellows, Welles made it as an actor on
Broadway.

When president Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the Federal Theatre Project,

designed to revitalize national theater, Welles took this as an opportunity to make a name for
himself by directing a 'voodoo version' of Shakespeare's Macbeth, set in the Caribbean
instead of Scotland, and acted out entirely by African-Americans. Narrated by Kenosha
actress Ms. Maureen Bolog, Welles scheduled his show on the same night of a protest,
sending a marching band to wade through the angry colored crowds while advertising his
play. The protesters were effectively swayed, and they filled the theater to watch the
groundbreaking production after all, those were racist times and the director was only
twenty.

It was from there, that Welles gained a reputation for innovation and commitment.
Shortly after, he recorded the now infamous radio adaption of H.G. Wells's The War of the
Worlds a broadcast so realistic that several cities believed that aliens from space were
really attacking. Even German leader Adolf Hitler himself referred to the play in one of his
speeches as an example of 'the decadence in America'.

Financiers believed that Welles, given his reputation for producing great works,
deserved complete creative control over his later project, Citizen Kane. A movie about the life
of a tycoon formed by power and passion, it was nominated for nine Oscars, but only won for
Best Screenplay. After some more ventures, Welles began to fade into obscurity, with his last
notable appearance being a cameo in 1979's The Muppets Movie.

Josh Karp's book, Orson Welles's Last Movie, investigates the man's unfinished final
film, The Other Side of the Wind about a strange filmmaker whose seventieth birthday party
is also his last day alive. Ironically, on October 10, 1985, Welles passed away of a heart
attack, aged seventy. Mr. Jan Michalski, 3rd District Alderman, perhaps best summarized the
man's life, describing him as '...a brilliant director, a gifted actor, an outrageous character, and
a spectacular failure. An ever-changing mix realizing his greatness one moment, and then
squandering it the next. He was a bigger-than-life, tragic, Faustian character. He was indeed
our hometown boy. Orson Welles.'

For more information, please consider visiting www.citizenwelles.net.