Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane (123 page)

Chapter 13:
1937–1938

“One of the happiest . . .” and “Orson devoted himself . . .” from Feder,
In My Father’s Shadow.
“It was easy to detect that Helen Menken . . .” from “Radio’s
Twelfth Night
,”
New York Times
, September 5, 1937. “That was part of her great charm . . .” from Leaming,
Orson Welles.
David O. Selznick and OW are quoted from Thomson,
Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick
(Knopf, 1992) and from Thomson,
Rosebud
. Goldwyn a “monster” and Mayer “the worst of them all” from Biskind,
My Lunches with Orson.
“Much of the speed and violence . . .” is from the OW-JH proclamation,
New York Times
, August 29, 1937. “He stared at me . . .” from Feder,
In My Father’s Shadow.
OW letters to VW from Crawford Notch are in the Feder papers at UM. “The same kind of hysteria . . .” is cited in Michael Denning, “The Politics of Magic: Orson Welles’s Allegories of Anti-Fascism,” in Naremore,
Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane: A Casebook.
“There was never a production . . .” from
Everybody’s Shakespeare
(Todd Press, 1934).

I repeatedly referred to Andrea Janet Nouryeh’s painstaking and exhaustive thesis, “The Mercury Theatre: A History” (New York University, 1987), incorporating her sources, information, and observations for my chapters on the Mercury Theatre. “They were Welles’s shows . . .” and “Some of the people around him . . .” (JH) are quoted in France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
“You were production material . . .” from Jean Rosenthal and Lael Wertenbaker,
The Magic of Light
(Little, Brown, 1972). I have consulted and quoted from Howard Pollack,
Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World
(Oxford University Press, 2012). Walter Ash (interviewed in 1979), George Coulouris (January 29, 1981), William Mowry Jr. (October 22, 1980), and Elliott Reid (August 17, 1980) are quoted from their oral histories in CCOHC. Maurice Bessy is quoted from Bessy,
Orson Welles
(Crown, 1971). Holly Gent Palmo, coscenarist of
Me and Orson Welles
, told me that the scene suggesting a girlfriend in the cast of
Julius Caesar
in the film “involves Orson and a character we dubbed ‘Ingenue.’ Orson refers to her as ‘Betty’ as he hustles her to her seat when Virginia arrives (‘Betty, I believe it was Stanislavsky who said—Ginny! What a surprise!’), but the Ingenue is really an anonymous character meant to represent his various flirtations.” Unless otherwise noted, Norman Lloyd is quoted from Lloyd,
Stages: Of Life in Theatre, Film and Television
(Scarecrow Press, 1990). “The hoodlum element you find . . .” is OW quoted in Alan Sinfield,
Faultlines: Cultural Materialism and the Politics of Dissident Reading
(University of California Press, 1992). “King actor” and “the fragility of great authority” from Leslie Megahey, filmed interview with Welles for the BBC’s two-part “The Orson Welles Story,”
Arena
(1982); an edited transcript is included in Estrin,
Orson Welles Interviews.
“At the box-office as well . . .” and “The plan is to open it . . .” from “News of the Stage,”
New York Times
, November 15, 1937.

Sidney Slon and Ken Roberts are quoted from Martin Grams Jr.,
The Shadow: The History and Mystery of the Radio Program, 1930–1954
(OTR Publishing, 2011). I also consulted Walter B. Gibson,
The Shadow Scrapbook
(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979). “I remember him arriving” from Elia Kazan,
Elia Kazan: A Life
(Knopf, 1988). “Major design concept,” the anecdote about
Shoemaker’s Holiday
and Lehman Engel’s “Often he tapped out rhythms . . .” are from Nouryeh, “The Mercury Theatre.” “Firk was promoted . . .” (Hiram Sherman) is from France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
“From the ordinary marts . . .” from “The Play: Mercury Theatre Adds Dekker’s
The Shoemaker’s Holiday
to Its Repertory,”
New York Times
, January 3, 1938. “He loved you to bite the cue . . .”: Arthur Anderson is quoted in France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
“On the precise machine-like interplay . . .” from Lehman Engel,
This Bright Day
(Macmillan, 1974). Orson’s apron speech preceding the
Shoemaker’s Holiday
preview from Lloyd,
Stages.
“Boy genius” and all other Geraldine Fitzgerald quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from her son Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s
Luck and Circumstance.
Fitzgerald’s “absolutely bowled over . . .” from a footnote quoting the actress in Houseman,
Run-Through.
VW’s discovery of OW’s apparent infidelity from Feder,
In My Father’s Shadow.
The OW-Losch correspondence is in Tilly Losch’s papers in Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections.

Chapter 14:
JANUARY–AUGUST 1938

The Sardi’s dinner anecdote from Virgil Thomson,
Virgil Thomson
(Dutton, 1985). Mrs. Patrick Campbell quoted from
Cecil Beaton’s Diaries, 1922–1939: The Wandering Years
(Little, Brown, 1961). Arthur Anderson’s helpful memoir is
An Actor’s Odyssey: Orson Welles to Lucky the Leprechaun
(BearManor Media, 2010). “An English cavalcade . . .” from “Gossip of the Rialto,”
New York Times
, February 27, 1938. “If possible . . .” and “progress report” from “News of the Stage,”
New York Times
, March 7, 1938, OW’s candidacy on the “liberal slate” for Equity leadership reported in the
New York Times
, March 19, 1938. OW discusses Vincent Price’s discomfort with
Heartbreak House
in Tarbox,
Orson Welles and Roger Hill.
Brenda Forbes’s recollections of
Heartbreak
from
Five Minutes, Miss Forbes
. The OW–Vera Zorina romance is pieced together from several sources: her papers, including correspondence with OW in the Harvard Theatre Collection at Houghton Library; her memoir,
Zorina
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986); Leaming,
Orson Welles
; and the OW-RH phone transcripts. “Steaming up various hired cars . . .” from Leaming,
Orson Welles.
The Balanchine anecdotes from the OW-RH transcripts. “The entire Mercury Theatre company . . .” from “Welles to Direct Plays,”
New York Times
, June 12, 1938. “The less a radio drama resembles . . .” from
Radio Annual 1939.
“The Summing Up” is also in the
New York Times,
June 12, 1938. Besides Victoria Price,
Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography
(St. Martin’s, 1999), I also consulted James Robert Parish and Steven Price,
Vincent Price Unmasked
(Drake, 1974). “Some of you may have . . .” (OW) is quoted in Andrea Janet Nouryeh’s thesis “The Mercury Theatre” (New York University, 1987). “How could you feel part of a . . .?” and “Orson never so much as . . .”: Hiram Sherman as quoted in France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
“A sizeable number of the Mercury . . . ,” “insure longer employment,” “The Mercury Fuehrer . . . ,” and “Coincidental with rumored . . .” from “News of the Stage,”
New York Times
, June 29, 1938. “He’s above taking . . .” from Whitford Kane, undated letter to AS and Florence Stevens (NL). “The high-livers were killing . . .” (Hiram Sherman) is from Nouryeh, “The Mercury Theatre.”

“The most hair-raising . . .” from Bogdanovich,
This Is Orson Welles.
“Almost as a precocious child . . . ,” “an instinctive, intuitive understanding . . . ,” and “an improviser” (Bernard Herrmann) are from the documentary narrated by Leonard Maltin, which is part of the supplementary material for
Theatre of the Imagination
(1995), a multimedia CD about the Mercury Theatre radio broadcasts. “At the start of every broadcast . . .” from Steven C. Smith,
A Heart at Fire’s Center
. Richard Wilson is quoted from
Theatre of the Imagination.
“One of the greatest, simplest . . .” from Brady,
Citizen Welles.
“The greatest gagman . . . ,” “almost the greatest movie . . . ,” and “the most poetic movie . . .” from Biskind,
My Lunches with Orson.
“A bit of a wild man” from
In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles
, ed. Jeffrey Miller (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994). For background about Harry Dunham, I also consulted Christopher Sawyer-Lauçane,
An Invisible Spectator: A Biography of Paul Bowles
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989); Martin Duberman,
The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein
(Knopf, 2007); and Russell Drummond Campbell, “Radical Cinema in the United States, 1930–1942: The Work of the Film and Photo League, Nykino, and Frontier Films” (thesis, Northwestern University, 1978). I interviewed John Berry extensively for Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle,
Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist
(St. Martin’s, 1997). I also consulted Berry’s unpublished autobiography. Details concerning the film half of
Too Much Johnson
come from “Metro-Goldwyn-Mercury,”
Stage Magazine
, September 1938, the most extensive of the contemporaneous accounts of the filming. The Equity dispute is covered in
Citizen Welles
and reported contemporaneously in newspapers. William Herz and (below) Ruth Ford are quoted from Steve Taravella,
Mary Wickes: I Know I’ve Seen That Face Before
(University Press of Mississippi, 2014).

Chapter 15:
SEPTEMBER–DECEMBER 1938

Previously cited sources contributing to the first half of this chapter include Vera Zorina’s archives and her memoir,
Zorina
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986); Houseman,
Run-Through
; Howard Pollack,
Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World
(Oxford University Press, 2012); my interview with John Berry; and Andrea Janet Nouryeh’s thesis. George Coulouris’s reaction to the
Danton
casting is from Houseman,
Run-Through.
“He was very beastly . . .” Guy Kingsley, here and elsewhere in the book, is quoted from his oral history, December 17, 1980, part of CCOHC. Helen Ormsbee, “Actors Often ‘Live in Theater’ . . . ,”
New York Herald Tribune
, October 23, 1938. “Be changed or the show dropped . . .” from France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
“Because the cast and technical staff . . .” from “News of the Stage,”
New York Times
, October 28, 1938.

The “War of the Worlds” broadcast is the subject of numerous articles and books. My account draws from multiple sources, but particularly these: JH’s memoir
Run-Through
; his revised account in Houseman,
Unfinished Business: Memoirs, 1902–1988
(Applause Theatre Books, 1989); his earlier magazine piece, Houseman, “The Men from Mars,”
Harper’s Magazine
, December 1, 1948; Howard Koch,
As Time Goes By: Memoirs of a Writer
(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979); and John Gosling,
Waging the War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic
(McFarland, 2009). “Orson railed at the text . . .” from the unpublished memoirs of Richard Baer, later Barr, cited in Callow,
Orson Welles.
(Baer changed his name to Barr, becoming a noted stage director and producer, and president of the League of American Theatres and Producers from 1967 until his death in 1989.) Pauline Kael is quoted from her essay introducing Welles and Mankiewicz,
Citizen Kane: The Complete Screenplay.
Hadley Cantril’s book, the first to chronicle the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, is
The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic
(Princeton University Press, 1940). (Cantril’s book is treated at greater length in my Chapter Nineteen.) “A wave of mass hysteria,” “disrupted households . . . ,” “radio frequently had interrupted . . . ,” and “emphasizing its fictional . . .” from the front page,
New York Times
, October 31, 1938. “Looking for blood . . .” from Tarbox,
Orson Welles and Roger Hill.
Welles’s apology for the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, as filmed by newsreel journalists, can be viewed on YouTube nowadays. “For a few days . . .” from Bogdanovich,
This Is Orson Welles.
“Last Saturday night . . .” (Rabbi Jonah B. Wise) is from “Panic over Broadcast Linked to Fear of Hitler—Other Topics Discussed by Rabbis,”
New York Times
, November 6, 1938. Dorothy Thompson’s “On the Record” column “Mr. Welles and Mass Delusion,”
New York Herald Tribune
, November 2, 1938. Curiously, differing variations of Woollcott’s telegram have been published; mine is from Bogdanovich,
This Is Orson Welles.
“On Broadway . . .” I have quoted from Norton Russell, “Astounding Outcome of the ‘Martian Scare,’ ”
Radio Mirror
, February 1938. “Actually, it’s not a great play . . .”: Martin Gabel as quoted in Leaming,
Orson Welles
. The Max Reinhardt anecdote from Biskind,
My Lunches with Orson.
“That harum scarum production . . .” from Brooks Atkinson, “In Quest of the Mercury,”
New York Times
, December 18, 1938.

Chapter 16:
DECEMBER 1938–JULY 1939

All Burgess Meredith quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from his memoir,
So Far, So Good
(Little Brown, 1994). Jean Rosenthal is quoted from Rosenthal and Lael Wertenbaker,
The Magic of Light
(Little, Brown, 1972). Howard Pollack is from
Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man
(Henry Holt, 1949).

The “towering” and “impressionistic rather than realistic” sets of
Five Kings
from
Boston Globe
, February 28, 1939 (review of the play). “Orson Welles Is an Amazing . . .” from John I. Taylor, profile,
Boston Sunday Globe
, February 19, 1939. The Benzedrine anecdote is from Meredith,
So Far, So Good.
“He is almost entirely . . .” from Leslie Megahey, in Estrin,
Orson Welles Interviews.
“Not Henry Irving, not Beerbohm Tree . . .” (Martin Gabel) is quoted in France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
“Materially shortened . . .” from “
Five Kings
Now Materially Shortened,”
Boston Globe
, March 2, 1939. “At least a year” from “Gossip of the Rialto,”
New York Times
, March 12, 1939. “Guild officials have been burning . . .” from Houseman,
Run-Through.
“Certain members of the
Five Kings . . .”
from
Washington Daily News
, March 24, 1939. “It’s [Welles’s] optimism I remember . . .” (Marc Connelly) is quoted in France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.
OW’s telegram to Walter Ash also from France,
The Theatre of Orson Welles.