Biographical note

Orson Welles (1915-85) was a US director, actor, writer, and producer. Welles made his acting debut at the age of 16 in Jew Süss (1931) at Dublin's Gate Theatre, after falsely telling the management that he was a member of the Theatre Guild. He subsequently toured in plays by Shakespeare and Shaw before collaborating with John Houseman (1902-88) on the Federal Theatre Project. As part of the Project he directed a successful Macbeth (1936) with a Black cast at Harlem's Lafayette Theatre. In 1937, when they devised a controversial 'labour opera' The Cradle Will Rock, Project officials closed the theatre two hours before the curtain was due to go up. Welles and Houseman simply moved the audience to another theatre and performed without scenery. That same year the two men opened their renowned Mercury Theatre with an anti-fascist interpretation of Julius Caesar in modern dress, featuring Welles as Brutus. In 1938 the Mercury's radio version of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds caused panic among listeners, who thought that Martians were genuinely invading New Jersey. In 1940 Welles took several of the Mercury players to Hollywood, where he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the film classic Citizen Kane (1941). After a decade in Hollywood, Welles returned to the theatre in 1951, making his London debut in the title role of Othello; in 1955 he played Ahab in Moby Dick with "a voice of bottled thunder" (in the words of Kenneth Tynan). He designed and directed a production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1960. Welles, as a true showman, was never at a loss on stage. When his false nose fell off during Moby Dick, he kicked the putty appendage straight into the stalls. In 1956, when he broke one ankle and sprained the other playing King Lear in New York, he disguised a wheelchair as a throne and rolled through the part.