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John Rhys-Davies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born May 5, 1944 (1944-05-05) (age 64)
Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Occupation actor, voice artist
Years active 1964 - present

John Rhys-Davies (born May 5, 1944) is an English-born Welsh actor and voice artist. He is perhaps best known for his portrayals as the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which he also voiced Ent Treebeard. He also portrayed Professor Maximillian Arturo in Sliders, General Leonid Pushkin in the James Bond film The Living Daylights and provided of voices of Cassim in Disney's Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Man Ray in Spongebob Squarepants, and Tobias in the computer game Freelancer.





Early life

Rhys-Davies was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, the son of Welsh parents Mary Margaretta Phyllis Jones, a nurse, and Rhys Davies, a mechanical engineer[1][2] and colonial officer.[3] He spent much of his childhood in his mother's home town of Ammanford, Wales although he was also raised in Africa. He was sent to Truro School in Cornwall. He later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the University of East Anglia.[4]


Career

Early career

Although appearing sporadically on UK television in the early 1970s (for instance, as gangster Laughing Spam Fritter opposite Adam Faith in Budgie), Rhys-Davies first gained widespread popularity for his performance as Praetorian officer Naevius Sutorius Macro in I, Claudius. He then began to appear more frequently, and not just in the UK, with roles as a Portuguese captain Rodrigues in the 1980 television miniseries Shogun, and in the Indiana Jones movies. He has since appeared in numerous television shows and miniseries, including a leading role in the television series Sliders as Professor Maximillian Arturo from 1995 to 1997. He also made several appearances on Star Trek: Voyager as a holodeck version of Leonardo da Vinci. He also starred as an ally of James Bond in The Living Daylights and appeared in the movie One Night with the King.


The Lord of the Rings trilogy

He is also known for his popular portrayal of the dwarf Gimli in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. The filmography of that was complicated by the fact that Rhys-Davies is of above-average height (6'1"),[5] whereas his character was supposed to be very short. Rhys-Davies is the only cast member who played a member of the Fellowship but did not receive a tattoo of the word "nine" written in the Tengwar script. The other members of the cast (Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood) got the same tattoo. Rhys-Davies' stunt double got the tattoo instead.


Voice work

In addition to voicing the Ent Treebeard in Lord of the Rings, Rhys-Davies has also lent his distinctive deep, Welsh voice to many video games and animated television series, including playing the role of Hades in Justice League and in Gargoyles, as the character Macbeth. He appears in the full motion video cut scenes of computer games including Ripper (as Vigo Haman) (1996), Dune 2000 (as Noree Moneo) (1998), and the Wing Commander series (as James Paladin Taggart). He also lent his vocal talents to the games Freelancer and Lords of Everquest (both in 2003) and the game Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness, which was released with his narration on a CD ROM version in 1995. In 2004, he was the unknowing subject of an internet prank that spread false rumours in several mainstream media sources that he was scheduled to play the role of General Grievous in Star Wars Episode III.[6]He also made a voice role on Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance as the character Jherek, and narrated a documentary called "The Glory of Macedonia".


Political views

He is a member of the British Conservative Party. As a university student in the 1960s, he was a radical leftist, but he started to change his views when he went to heckle a young local member of parliament, Margaret Thatcher. Rhys-Davies says that "she shot down the first two hecklers in such brilliant fashion that I decided I ought for once to shut up and listen."

In 2004, in a magazine interview, Rhys-Davies compared the theme of The Lord of the Rings with the current situation of Western Europe, whose civilisation he described as being challenged by a rise of the Muslim population, stating:

There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well… By 2020, fifty percent of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent… And don't forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers. Western Europeans are not having any babies. The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56% of what it is now. The populations of France, 52% of what it is now. The population of Italy is going to be down 7 million people.[7]
His comments were endorsed by the British National Party.[8][9] Rhys-Davies commented that it was "distressing to find yourself on a BNP leaflet".[7]

Yet, in an interview with the conservative National Review, he clarifies that he is opposed to Islamic extremism precisely because he feels that it violates Western beliefs in equality, democracy, tolerance, and the abolition of slavery.[10] "When I look at contemporary Islam, I see homophobia, forced conversion, genital mutilation, slavery, two million people being put to death in the Sudan because of their religion".[11]

Bob Seger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Robert Clark Seger
Born May 5, 1945 (1945-05-05) (age 62)
Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.
Genre(s) Rock, heartland rock
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, Musician
Instrument(s) Vocals, Guitar, Piano
Years active 1961 - present
Label(s) Capitol
Associated acts Silver Bullet Band, Eagles
Website BobSeger.com

Robert Clark Seger (born May 5, 1945) is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter and musician.

After years of local Detroit-area success, recording and performing in the mid-1960s, Seger achieved superstar status by the mid-1970s and continuing through the 1980s with the Silver Bullet Band. A roots rocker with a classic raspy, shouting voice, Seger was first inspired by Little Richard and Elvis Presley. He wrote and recorded songs that dealt with blue-collar themes. Seger has recorded many rock and roll hits, including "Night Moves", "We've Got Tonight", "Like a Rock" and also co-wrote the Eagles number one hit "Heartache Tonight." His iconic signature song "Old Time Rock and Roll" was named one of the Songs of the Century in 2001. With a career spanning five decades, Seger continues to perform and record today.

Seger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.





Biography

Early years

Bob Seger was born at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and lived in the area until age 6 when his family moved to the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. When Seger was 10 years old, his father left the family and moved to California. Seger attended Tappan Middle School and Ann Arbor High School (now Pioneer High School) in Ann Arbor and graduated in 1963.


Influences

Bob Seger has stated that "Little Richard was the first one that really got to me. Little Richard and, of course, Elvis Presley." Growing up, Seger also listened to James Brown and has said that among him and his friends, Live at the Apollo was their favorite record. "Come Go With Me" by The Del Vikings was the first record he bought. Seger also named Van Morrison as being one of his influences. Mentioning Frankie Miller, Graham Parker and Bruce Springsteen, Seger remarked: "There's a whole little clique of male vocalists. We're just sort of all connected. I think every last one of us has a connection with Van Morrison."[1]


Regional favorite: 1966-1976

Seger began his musical career in 1961 in Detroit as a member of The Decibels, where he first met his future manager and record producer, Punch Andrews. Seger returned to Ann Arbor where he played with The Town Cryers and then Doug Brown and the Omens. With them, he released his first single in 1965 for the local Hideout Records label. In 1966 Seger sang on Doug Brown and the Omens' parody of Barry Sadler's song "Ballad of the Green Berets" which was re-titled "Ballad of the Yellow Beret" and mocked draft dodgers. Soon after its release Sadler and his record label threatened Brown and his band with a lawsuit and the recording was withdrawn from the market.

In 1966 Seger left Brown's group but retained him as a producer. As Bob Seger and the Last Heard, Seger had his first big Detroit hit with "East Side Story", which sold 50,000 copies, mostly in the Detroit area and led to a contract with Cameo-Parkway Records. Another of Seger's biggest early hit singles locally was "Heavy Music" in 1967, which sold even more copies and had potential to break out nationally when Cameo-Parkway went out of business . Nevertheless, "Heavy Music" would stay in his live act for many years to come.

During these early Detroit years, Seger also acted as producer for the local band The Mushrooms. He became (and remained) friendly with the band's leader Glenn Frey, who would later become one of the founding members of the Eagles.

In 1968, Bob Seger signed with major label Capitol Records and formed The Bob Seger System. This group was essentially a Michigan proto-punk band not unlike the SRC or The Frost. Their first single was the anti-war message song "2+2=?", which reflected a marked change in Seger's political attitudes from "The Ballad of the Yellow Beret". The single was again a hit in Detroit but went unnoticed almost everywhere else.

The second single from The Bob Seger System was "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man". Predictably it was a smash hit in Detroit, but it also became Seger's first nationally charted hit, peaking at #17. The song's success led to the release of an album in 1969, and the Ramblin' Gamblin' Man album reached #62 on the Billboard pop albums chart.

Seger was unable to follow up this early moderate success; The Bob Seger System's follow-up album Noah failed to chart at all, leading Seger to briefly quit the music industry and attend college. Seger then returned the following year with the System's final album, 1970's Mongrel. In 1971, Seger released his first solo album, the all-acoustic Brand New Morning which he recorded to fullfill his Capitol Records contract.

Seger's next few albums, released on Punch Andrews' Palladium label and distributed by Reprise Records, were stylistically erratic and appeared in the low 100s on the Billboard albums chart, if at all. These albums included Smokin' O.P.'s (1972), which featured a minor hit (#76 US) with a cover of Tim Hardin's "If I Were A Carpenter", and Back in '72 (1973) which featured a long list of known session musicians and work from J. J. Cale. It also has the studio version of Seger's live classic "Turn the Page" (later covered by Metallica and Waylon Jennings). Seger maintained his regional appeal in Detroit, and had built a modest following in Florida (necessitating many drives back and forth), but to the general music world was regarded as a one-hit wonder.

In 1974 Seger formed the Silver Bullet Band and released the album Seven, which contained the Detroit-area hard-rock hit "Get Out of Denver". This track that was a modest success and charted at #80 nationally.

In 1975, Seger's returned to Capitol Records and released the album Beautiful Loser. The album's single "Katmandu" (in addition to being another substantial Detroit-area hit) was Seger's first real national break-out track since "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man". Although it just missed the US top 40, peaking at #43, the song received strong airplay in a number of markets nationwide.

In April 1976 Seger and the Silver Bullet Band had an even bigger commercial breakthrough with the album Live Bullet, recorded over two nights in Detroit's Cobo Arena in September 1975. The album stayed on the Billboard charts for 168 weeks, peaking at #34 which was Seger's highest charting album at the time. It also contained Seger's hit rendition of Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits" (#69 US) as well as Seger's own classic take on life on the road, "Turn the Page", from Back in '72. It also included his late 1960's successful releases ?- "Heavy Music" and "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man".

Critic Dave Marsh later wrote that "Live Bullet is one of the best live albums ever made ... In spots, particularly during the medley of 'Travelin' Man'/'Beautiful Loser', Seger sounds like a man with one last shot at the top." An instant best-seller in Detroit, Live Bullet quickly began to get attention in other parts of the country. In June 1976 he was a featured performer at the Pontiac Silverdome outside Detroit in front of nearly 80,000 fans. Only three nights before in Chicago, Seger had played before 50 people in a bar.


National success: 1976-1987

Seger finally achieved his indisputable commercial breakthrough with his October 1976 album Night Moves. The title song "Night Moves" was a highly evocative, nostalgic, time-spanning tale that was not only critically praised, but became a #4 hit single on the Billboard pop singles chart as well as a heavy album-oriented rock airplay mainstay. The album also contained "Mainstreet", a #24 hit ballad that emphasized Seger's heartland rock credentials, as well as the AOR anthem "Rock and Roll Never Forgets". Night Moves was Seger's first Top 10 album in the Billboard 200, and through late 2006 had sold over 6 million copies in the U.S. Furthermore it activated sales of Seger's recent back catalog, so that Beautiful Loser would eventually sell 2 million and Live Bullet would sell 5 million copies in the U.S..

Seger followed this up strongly with 1978's Stranger in Town. The first single, "Still the Same", emphasized Seger's talent for mid-tempo numbers that revealed a sense of purpose, and made the Top 5 on the pop singles chart. "Hollywood Nights" was an up-tempo rocker Top 15 hit, while "We've Got Tonight" was a slow ballad that not only was a Top 15 hit on its own, but would become an adult contemporary mainstay in years to come for both Seger and other artists. The final single, 1979's "Old Time Rock & Roll", was the least successful single from the album, reaching only the Top 30, but achieved substantial AOR airplay. Moreover, it would later became one of Seger's most recognizable songs following its memorable Tom Cruise-dancing-in-his-underwear use in the 1983 film Risky Business. Album tracks from Stranger in Town were equally strong, with "Feel Like a Number" being especially memorable for its raging powerless fury. Around this time Seger also co-wrote the Eagles' #1 hit song "Heartache Tonight" from their 1979 album The Long Run, their collaboration resulted from Seger and Glenn Frey's early days together in Detroit.

In 1980 Seger released Against the Wind and it became his first and only #1 album on the Billboard 200. The first single "Fire Lake" featured Eagles Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit, and Frey on backing vocals and reached #6 on the singles chart, while the title song "Against the Wind" reached #5 as a single. "You'll Accomp'ny Me" became the third hit single from the record. Against the Wind would also win two Grammy Awards. Through late 2006 both Stranger in Town and Against the Wind had sold over 5 million copies in the U.S., and were followed by the 1981 live album Nine Tonight which encapsulated this three-album peak of Seger's commercial career. Seger's take on Eugene Williams' "Tryin' to Live My Life Without You" became a Top 5 hit from Nine Tonight and would go on to sell 4 million copies.

Seger released The Distance in 1982. Critically praised for representing a tougher sound than some of his recent material, the album spawned hits with Rodney Crowell's "Shame on the Moon" (which also did moderately well as a country music song), "Even Now", and "Roll Me Away". But perhaps because Seger and his band were ill-equipped to exploit the new MTV era, Seger's album sales dropped noticeably, with The Distance only selling approximately 1 million copies. This record was perhaps the final mainstream rock album to be released on 8 track tape; Capitol had no plans to do so, but Seger, guessing that a good many of his fans still had 8 track players in their vehicles, prevailed upon the label to release the album in that fading format as well.

The following year country music superstar Kenny Rogers would team up with pop singer Sheena Easton to cover "We've Got Tonight". This version was a world wide hit and was so successful Rogers used it as the title cut to one of his own albums. In 1984 he wrote and recorded the power rock ballad "Understanding" for the "Teachers" movie soundtrack. The song was a mild Top 40 hit in 1985.

Seger was no longer as prolific and four years elapsed before his next studio album,1986's Like a Rock emerged. The fast-paced "American Storm" garnered both pop and rock airplay, and "Like a Rock" became yet another successful Seger ballad. Later it would become familiar to many Americans through its association with a long-running Chevrolet ad campaign (something Seger explicitly chose to do to support struggling American automobile workers in Detroit). Seger's 1986-1987 American Storm Tour was his self-stated last major tour, playing 105 shows over 9 months and selling almost 1.5 million tickets. Like a Rock sold over a million copies and went platinum. The following year Seger's "Shakedown", a somewhat uncharacteristic song off the 1987 film Beverly Hills Cop II's soundtrack, became his first and only #1 hit on the pop singles chart. The song had originally been intended for Glenn Frey, but when he lost his voice just prior to the recording session, he called in Seger to take his place.


Later years: 1988-present

Bob Seger's next record was 1991's The Fire Inside, at a time when glam metal, grunge and alternative rock were all taking the forefront. His new music found little visibility on radio or elsewhere. The same was true of 1995's It's a Mystery, however the album was certified Gold (500,000 copies sold). In between, however, his Greatest Hits compilation was a major success, achieving sales of over 8 million units through late 2006. Seger did go back on the road again for a 1996 tour, which was successful and sold the fourth-largest number of tickets of any North American tour that year.

In June 1997 Seger drove his automobile off the Trans-Canada Highway in Nipigon, Ontario and was charged by Ontario provincial police with drunk driving after crashing his car. [2]

Seger took a sabbatical from the music business for about ten years to spend time with his wife and two young children. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2004. Fellow Detroiter Kid Rock gave the induction speech and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm proclaimed that date Bob Seger Day in his honor.

Seger's first new album in 11 years, titled Face the Promise, was released on September 12, 2006. In its first 45 days, the album sold more than 400,000 copies, according to Soundscan. The album has sold over 1 million copies to date and stayed on the Billboard chart for months. His supporting tour has also been eagerly anticipated, with many shows selling out within minutes. Showing that Seger's legendary appeal in Michigan had not diminished, all 15,000 tickets available for his first show at Grand Rapids' Van Andel Arena sold out in under five minutes; three additional shows were subsequently added, each of which also sold out.[3]

In 2005 Seger was featured singing with 3 Doors Down on the song "Landing in London" from their Seventeen Days Album.

On October 21, 2006 Seger performed "America the Beautiful" at the first game of the 2006 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers.

Events in late March of 2007 suggested that Seger may move on from Capitol Records because those who had worked with him to this point are now gone from the label. The same press release also confirmed Seger's intention to release a live CD/DVD package chronicling his Face the Promise tour at some point in the fall.

Seger presently lives approximately a mile north of Good Hart, Michigan, on the famed route M-119. - (Note: This is not his primary residence).

On April 25, 2008, QFM96, a rock radio station in Columbus, OH, stated that Seger would enter the studio in May of 2008 to begin recording the follow-up to his 2006 album Face the Promise.'


Silver Bullet Band

The Silver Bullet Band was formed in 1974. Its original members were:

Drew Abbott, guitar
Charlie Allen Martin, drums
Rick Mannassa, keyboards
Chris Campbell, bass guitar
Alto Reed (real name: Thomas Neal Cartmell[4][5]), saxophones and flute
Seger himself did all lead vocals and plays guitar and piano.

In 1982 Abbott was replaced by Dawayne Bailey on guitar. Around 1977 Martin was replaced by Dave Teegarden on drums, who in 1983 was replaced by Don Brewer. In 1975 Mannassa was replaced by Robyn Robbins on keyboards, who in 1980 was replaced by Craig Frost.

Seger has almost always used session musicians, most notably The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, on his albums as well.

Airline attendants anouncements -

Category: Other Jokes

Airline attendants anouncements



Occasionally, airline attendants make an effort to make the "in-flight safety lecture" and their other anouncements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane…"

After landing: "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced: "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."

From a Southwest Airlines employee…. "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt, and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised.

In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face.

If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two or more small children, decide now which one you love more.

Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, we'll but try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines."

"Your seat cushions can be used for flotation, and in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments."

Once on a Southwest flight, the pilot said, "We've reached our cruising altitude now, and I'm turning off the seat belt sign. I'm switching to autopilot, too, so I can come back there and visit with all of you for the rest of the flight."

"Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or adults acting like children."

"As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."

"Last one off the plane must clean it."

And from the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry… Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight…!"

Heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in Salt Lake City: The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump and I know what ya'll are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendants' fault…it was the asphalt!"

Overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a particularly windy and bumpy day. During the final approach the Captain was really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant came on the PA and announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"

Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying XYZ airline." He said that in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally evryone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?" "Why no Ma'am," said the pilot, "what is it?" The little old lady said, "Did we land or were we shot down?"

After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the Flight Attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."

Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go zipping through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of us here at US Airways."

Scary, Bob.

And today's bio quintet:

Tyrone Power; Ann B. Davis; Tammy Wynette; John Rhys Davies and Bob Seger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFYlhw3g4P8

I got to see Dylan in person when this song was new. He played the organ on it. Having all the original musicians on stage, he made the songs sound pretty much like the record.

It's kinda late for this, but, it stll snows a bit in places like Denver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qoehZQFYc4

Then there's
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Iron Maiden

Soothing, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_EBGsOyAPE

I love this song, but never really cared for the artist or the artist's other songs.
Johnny Ray
Walking in the Rain

I chose it, because that's what I did all day long - walking in the rain. We had about four inches. One area near us got over seven.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKQUX3l1dIU

Roy Hamilton could go from the tender ballad to the up tempo rock song without breaking a sweat.

A great morning to yez all. How about a bit of Rod Stewart this fine AM?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmUmhFyic9A

Good morning, WA2K radio and edgar.

The wastrel and the prodigal have returned. Thank you so very much, Texas, for being such a wonderful host.

Will return later to acknowledge and listen to every song, but for the moment, here is my matin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BeCN5sZLk4

Good morning WA2K and Welcome Back, Letty.

Your matin, of course, reminded me of John Denver and a little bitty tear still falls whenever I hear his recording of "Back Home Again". I don't think it's on YouTube.

Here's some of the "sunshine" mentioned in that song, the sunshine that made his mother cry. - Hope you can feel the warmth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zx27dP1mTg&feature=related

Good morning, Raggedy. Love that one by John Denver. There are those who think "Sunshine" is an allusion to drugs, but I take each song at face value, and that one is valuable, PA.

Noticed that our edgar had a song by Iron Maiden, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I was intrigued, folks, and searched it out. Although I don't think that it may be the best version of the poem, I think the message is quite clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97pV7Z3EX_o

"...silly buckets on the deck that had so long remained; I dreamt that they were filled with dew, and when I woke, it rained...."

Rudolph Valentino
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla
May 6, 1895(1895-05-06)
Castellaneta, Italy
Died August 23, 1926 (aged 31)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s) Jean Acker (1919-1923)
Natacha Rambova (1923-1926)

Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 - August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor, sex symbol, and early pop icon. Known as the "Latin Lover",[1] he was one of the most popular stars of the 1920s, and one of the most recognized stars from the silent movie era. Some of his best known roles include the silent films The Sheik and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. His untimely death at age 31 caused mass hysteria among his female fans, propelling him into icon status.[2]





Biography

Early life

Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Italy, to a French mother, Marie Berthe Gabrielle Barbin (1856 - 1919), and Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fidele Guglielmi, a veterinarian who died of malaria when Valentino was 11.[3][4] He had an older brother, Alberto (1892-1981), a younger sister, Maria, and an older sister Beatrice who died in infancy.[5]

As a child, Valentino was reportedly spoiled and troublesome. His mother coddled him while his father disapproved of his behavior.[6] He did poorly in school, and was eventually enrolled in agricultural school where he received a degree.[7]

After living in Paris in 1912, he soon returned to Italy. Unable to secure employment, he departed for the United States.[8]


New York

Arriving in New York City, Valentino soon ran out of money and spent a period of time on the streets. He eventually supported himself with odd jobs such as bussing tables in restaurants and gardening.[8] Eventually, he found work as a taxi dancer.[9]

Valentino eventually befriended Chilean heiress Blanca de Saulles who was unhappily married to prominent businessman John de Saulles, with whom she had a son. Whether the two actually had a romantic relationship is unknown, but when the couple divorced, Valentino took the stand to support Blanca de Saulles' claims of infidelity on her husband's part. Following the divorce, John de Saulles reportedly used his political connections to have Valentino arrested, along with a Mrs. Thyme, a known madam, on some unspecified vice charges. The evidence was flimsy at best and after a few days in jail, Valentino's bail was lowered from $10,000 to $1,500.[10]

The trial and subsequent scandal was well publicized, following which Valentino could not find employment. Shortly after the trial, Blanca de Saulles fatally shot her ex-husband during a custody dispute over their son. Fearful of being called in as a witness in another sensational trial, Valentino left town, joining a traveling musical that led him to the West Coast.[11]


Film career

In 1917, Valentino joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah where it disbanded. He then joined an Al Jolson production of Robinison Crusoe Jr., travelling to Los Angeles. By fall, he was in San Francisco with a bit part in a theatrical production of Nobody Home. While in town, Valentino met actor Norman Kerry, who convinced him to try a career in cinema, still in the silent film era.[5]

Valentino, with Kerry as a roommate, moved back to Los Angeles and took up residence at the Alexandria Hotel. He continued dancing, building up a following which included older female clientele who would let him borrow their luxury cars.[5]

With his dancing success, Valentino found a room of his own on Sunset Blvd and began actively seeking screen roles. His first part was as an extra in the film Alimony, moving on to small parts in several films. Despite his best efforts he was typically cast as a "heavy" (villain) or gangster.[10] At the time, the major male star was Douglas Fairbanks, with a fair complexion, light eyes, and an All American look, with Valentino the opposite and seemingly "exotic".[12]

By 1919, he had carved out a career in bit parts. It was a bit part as a "cabaret parasite" in the drama The Eyes of Youth that caught the attention of screenwriter June Mathis, who thought he would be perfect for her next movie.[13]


Stardom

Displeased with playing "heavies", Valentino briefly entertained the idea of returning to New York permanently. He returned for a visit in 1917 staying with friends in Greenwich Village. It was here he met Paul Ivano; someone who would help his career greatly.[14]

While traveling to Palm Springs, Florida to film Stolen Moments, Valentino read the novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.[14] Seeking out a trade paper, he discovered that Metro had bought the film rights to the story. In New York, he sought out Metro's Office; only to find June Mathis had been trying to find him. She cast him in the role of Julio Desnoyers. For director, Mathis had chosen Rex Ingram, with whom Valentino did not get along, leading Mathis to play the role of peace keeper between the two.[14]

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, was released in 1921, becoming a commercial and critical success. It was one of the first films to make $1,000,000 at the box office, as well as the 6th best selling silent film ever.[13][15]


Metro Pictures seemed unwilling to acknowledge it had made a star. Most likely due to Rex Ingram's lack of faith in him, the studio refused to give him a raise beyond the $350 a week he had made for Four Horsemen. For his follow up film, they forced him into bit part in a B film called Uncharted Seas. It was on this film that Valentino met his second wife, Natacha Rambova.[14][16]

Rambova, Mathis, Ivano, and Valentino began work on the Alla Nazimova film Camille. Valentino was cast in the role of Armand, Nazimova's love interest. The film, mostly under the control of Rambova and Nazimova, was considered too avant garde by critics and the public.[16]

Valentino's final film for Metro was the Mathis penned The Conquering Power. The film received critical acclaim and did well at the box office.[16] After the film's release, Valentino made a trip to New York where he met with several French producers. Yearning for Europe, better pay, and more respect, Valentino returned and promptly quit Metro.[16]


The Sheik

After quitting Metro, Valentino took up with Famous Players-Lasky, a studio which films that were more commercially focused. Mathis soon joined him, angering both Ivano and Rambova.[16]

Jesse Lasky intended to capitalize on the star of Valentino, and cast him in a role that would solidify his reputation as the "Latin Lover". In The Sheik. Valentino played the starring role as Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. The film was a major success and would go on to define not only his career but his image and legacy. Valentino tried to distant the character from a stereotypical portrayal of an Arab man. Asked if Lady Diana (his love interest) would have fallen for a 'savage' in real life Valentino replied, "People are not savages because they have dark skins. The Arabian civilization is one of the oldest in the world...the Arabs are dignified and keen brained."[17]

Famous Players produced four more feature length films over the next 15 months. His leading role in Moran of Lady Letty was of a typical Douglas Fairbanks nature, however the bankability of his perceived led to his character being given a Spanish name and ancestry.[17] The film received mixed reviews but was still a hit with audiences.[17]

In November 1921, Valentino was set to star alongside Gloria Swanson in Beyond the Rocks. The film contained lavish sets and extravagant costumes, though Photoplay magazine said the film was "a little unreal and hectic". Released in 1922, the film was a critical disappointment. Years after its release, Beyond the Rocks was thought to be lost, save for a one minute portion.[18] In 2002, the film was discovered by the Netherlands Film Museum. The restored version was released on DVD in 2006.[19]

In 1922, Valentino began work on another Mathis penned film, Blood and Sand. Co-starring Lila Lee and Nita Naldi, Valentino played the lead, bullfighter Juan Gallardo. Initially believing the film would be shot in Spain, Valentino was upset to learn that the studio planned on shooting on a Hollywood back lot. He was further irritated by changes in production, including a director of whom he did not approve.[20]

After finishing the film, Valentino married Rambova, which led to a bigamy trial. The trial was a sensation and the pair was forced to have their marriage annulled and separated for a year. Despite the trial, the film was still a success, with critics calling it a masterpiece on par with Broken Blossoms and Four Horsemen. Blood and Sand went on to become one of the top 4 grossing movies of 1922, breaking attendance records, and grossing $37,400 at the Rivoli Theatre alone. Valentino would consider this one of his best films.[21]

During his forced break from Rambova; the pair began working (separately) on the Mathis penned The Young Rajah. Only fragments of this film, recovered in 2005, still remain.[21] The film did not live up to expectations and underperformed at the box office. Valentino felt he had underperformed in the film, being upset over his separation with Rambova.[21] Missing Rambova, Valentino returned to New York after the release of The Young Rajah. They were spotted and followed by reporters constantly. During this time Valentino began to contemplate not returning to Famous Players, although Jesse Lasky already had his next picture, The Spanish Cavalier, in preparation. After speaking with Rambova and his lawyer Arthur Butler Graham, Valentino declared a 'One man Strike' against Famous Players.[21]


Strike against Famous Players

Valentino's reasons for striking were financially based. At the time of his lawsuit against the studio, Valentino was earning $1,250 per week, with an increase to $3,000 after three years. This was $7,000 per week less than what Mary Pickford made in 1916.[22] He was also upset over the broken promise of filming Blood and Sand in Spain, and the failure to shoot the next proposed film in either Spain or at least New York. Valentino had hoped while filming in Europe he could see his family; whom he hadn't seen in ten years.[17]

In September 1922, he refused to accept paychecks from Famous Players until the dispute was solved, although he owed them money he had spent to pay off Jean Acker. Angered, Famous Players in turn filed suit against him.[23]

Valentino did not back down,[23] and Famous Players realized how much they stood to lose. In trouble after shelving Fatty Arbuckle pictures, the studio tried to settle by upping his salary from $1,250 to $7,000 a week. Variety erroneously announced it as a 'new contract' before news of the lawsuit broke. Valentino, ever prideful, threw the offer back in their faces.[21]

Valentino went on to claim that artistic control was more of an issue than the money. He wrote an open letter to Photoplay, entitled "Open Letter to the American Public", where he argued his case,[21], although the average American had trouble sympathizing, as most made $2,000 a year. Famous Players made their own public statements deeming him more trouble than he was worth (the divorce, bigamy trials, debts) and that he was temperamental, almost diva-like. They claimed to have done all they could and that they had made him a real star.[23]

Other studios began courting Valentino. Joseph Schenck was interested in casting him opposite his wife, Norma Talmadge, in a version of Romeo and Juliet. June Mathis had moved to Goldwyn Pictures where she was in charge of the Ben-Hur project, and interested in casting Valentino in the film. However, Famous Players exercised their option to extend his contract, preventing him from accepting any employment other than with the studio. By this point Valentino was around $80,000 in debt. Valentino filed an appeal, a portion of which was granted. Although he was still not allowed to work as an actor, he could accept other types of employment.[23]


Mineralava Dance Tour

In late 1922, Valentino met George Ullman, who would soon become Valentino's manager. Ullman had previously had worked with Mineralava Beauty Clay Company, and convinced them that Valentino would be perfect as a spokesman with his legions of female fans.[23]

The tour was a tremendous success with Valentino and Rambova performing in 88 cities in the United States and Canada. In addition to the tour, Valentino also sponsored Mineralava beauty products and judged Mineralava sponsored beauty contests.[24]One beauty contest was filmed by a young David O. Selznick entitled Rudolph Valentino and His 88 Beauties.[25]


Return to films

When Valentino returned to the United States, it was to an offer from Ritz-Carlton Pictures (working through Famous Players), which included $7,500 a week, creative control, and filming in New York.[26] Rambova negotiated a two picture deal with Famous Players and four pictures for Ritz Carlton.[27] He accepted, turning down an offer to film an Italian production of Quo Vadis in Italy.[26]

The first film under the new contract was Monsieur Beaucaire, wherein Valentino played the lead, Duke of Chatres. The film did poorly and American audiences found it 'effeminate'.[28] The failure of the film, under Rambova's control, is often seen as proof of Rambova's controlling nature and would later be cause to bar her from Valentino sets.[27]Valentino made one final movie for Famous Players. In 1924 he starred in The Sainted Devil, now one of his lost films. It had lavish costumes but apparently a weak story. It opened to strong sales but soon dropped off in attendance and ended up as another disappointment.[28]

With his contract fulfilled, Valentino was released from Famous Players but still obligated to Ritz Carlton for four films. Valentino's next film was a pet project entitled The Hooded Falcon. The production was beset with problems from the start, beginning with the script written by June Mathis. The Valentinos were dissatisfied with Mathis' version and requested that it be rewritten.[29]Mathis took it as a great insult and did not speak to Valentino for almost two years.[30]While Rambova worked designing costumes and rewriting the script for Falcon, Valentino was persuaded to film Cobra with Nita Naldi. Valentino agreed only on the condition that it not be released until after The Hooded Falcon debuted.[31]

After filming Cobra, the cast of The Hooded Falcon sailed to France to be fitted for costumes. After three months they headed back to the States where a sensation was caused by Valentino's new beard which he had grown for the film.[32] The crew and cast headed to Hollywood to begin preparations for the film but much of the budget was taken up during pre-production.[33]Due to the Valentinos lavish spending on costumes and sets, Ritz-Carlton terminated the deal with the couple, effectively terminating Valentino's contract with Ritz-Carlton.[34]


United Artists

During the filming of Monsieur Beaucaire, both Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks approached Valentino privately, due to his contract with Ritz Carlton, about joining with United Artists.[27] Valentino's contract with United Artists included $10,000 a week for only make three pictures a year plus a percentage of his films. The contract excluded Rambova from production of his films and the film set. Valentino's acceptance of the terms caused a major rift in his marriage to Rambova. George Ullman, who had negotiated the contract with United Artists, offered Rambova $30,000 to finance a film of her own. It became her one and only film, titled What Price Beauty? and starred Myrna Loy.[35]

Valentino chose his first UA project, The Eagle. With the marriage under strain, Valentino began shooting and Rambova announced that she needed a "martial vacation".[36] During the filming of The Eagle, rumors of an affair with co-star Vilma Banky were reported and ultimately denied by both Banky and Valentino.[13] The film opened to positive reviews but a moderate box office.[37]

For the film's release, Valentino headed to London, staying both there and in France, spending money with abandon while his divorce took place. It would some time before he made another film, The Son of the Sheik, despite his hatred of the sheik image.[38] The film began shooting in February 1926, with Valentino given his choice of director, and pairing him again with Velma Banky. The film used the authentic costumes he bought abroad and allowed him to play a dual role. Valentino was ill during production, but needed the money to pay his many debts. The film opened on July 8, 1926 to great fanfare. During the premiere, Valentino reconciled with Mathis; the two hadn't spoken in almost two years.[38]


Image

Dating back to the de Saulle trial in New York, during which his masculinity had been slandered in print, Valentino had been very sensitive with his public perception. Women loved him and thought him the epitome of romance. However, American men were less impressed, walking out of his movies in disgust. With the Fairbanks type being the epitome of manhood, Valentino was seen as a threat to the All American man. One man asked in a street interview what he thought of Valentino in 1922 replied, "Many men desire to be another Douglas Fairbanks. But Valentino? I wonder..."[21] Women in the same interview found Valentino, "Triumphantly seductive. Puts the love making of the average husband or sweetheart into discard as tame, flat, and unimpassioned."[21] Men may have wanted to act like Fairbanks, but they copied Valentino's look. A man with perfectly greased back hair was called a "Vaselino".[21]

Some journalists called his masculinity into question: his greased back hair, his clothing, his treatment of women, his views on women, and whether he was effeminate or not. Valentino hated these stories and was known to carry the clippings of them around and criticize them. [5]

In July 1926, The Chicago Tribune reported that a vending machine dispensing pink talcum powder had appeared in an upscale hotel washroom. An editorial that followed used the story to protest the feminization of American men, and blamed the talcum powder on Valentino and his films. The piece infuriated Valentino and he challenged the writer to a duel and then a boxing match. Neither challenge was answered.[39] Shortly afterward, Valentino met with journalist H.L. Mencken for advice on how best to deal with the incident. Mencken advised Valentino to "let the dreadful farce roll along to exhaustion"[40], but Valentino insisted the editorial was "infamous."[40] Mencken found Valentino to be likable and gentlemanly and wrote sympathetically of him in an article published in the Baltimore Sun a week after Valentino's death:[41]

" It was not that trifling Chicago episode that was riding him; it was the whole grotesque futility of his life. Had he achieved, out of nothing, a vast and dizzy success? Then that success was hollow as well as vast ?- a colossal and preposterous nothing. Was he acclaimed by yelling multitudes? Then every time the multitudes yelled he felt himself blushing inside... The thing, at the start, must have only bewildered him, but in those last days, unless I am a worse psychologist than even the professors of psychology, it was revolting him. Worse, it was making him afraid...
Here was a young man who was living daily the dream of millions of other men. Here was one who was catnip to women. Here was one who had wealth and fame. And here was one who was very unhappy.[42]
"

After Valentino challenged the Tribune's anonymous writer to a boxing match, the New York Evening Journal boxing writer, Frank O'Neill, volunteered to fight in his place. Valentino won the bout which took place on the roof of New York's Ambassador Hotel.[43]


Other ventures

In 1923, Valentino published a book of poetry which entitled Day Dreams,[44] He would later serialize events in various magazines. With Liberty magazine, he wrote a series entitled, "How You Can Keep Fit" in 1923.[44] "My Life Story" was serialized in Photoplay during his dance tour. The March issue was one of the best selling ever for the magazine.[23] He followed that with My Private Diary, serialized in Movie Weekly magazine. Most of the serials were later published as books after his death.[45]

Valentino was fascinated with every part of movie making. During production on a Mae Murray film he spent time studying the director's plans.[12] He craved authenticity and wished to shoot on location,[16][21] finally forming his own production company, Rudolph Valentino Productions, in 1925.[37] Valentino, George Ullman, and Beatrice Ullman were the incorporators.

On May 14, 1923, while in New York City, Valentino made his only two vocal recordings; "Kashmiri Song" ("The Sheik") and "El Relicario" ("Blood and Sand"). The recordings were not released until after Valentino's death.[46]

Valentino was one of the first in Hollywood to arrange an award for artist accomplishments in films. The Academy Awards would later follow suit. In 1925, he gave out his one and only medal, to John Barrymore, for his performance in Beau Brummell. The award, named The Rudolph Valentino Medal, required the agreement of Valentino, two judges and the votes of 75 critics. Everyone but Valentino was eligible.[37]


Personal life

In 1919, prior to the rise of his career, Valentino impulsively married actress Jean Acker. Acker, who was a lesbian, quickly regretted the marriage and locked Valentino out of their room on their wedding night. The couple separated soon after, the marriage never consummated.[4] The couple remained legally married until 1921, when Acker sued Valentino for divorce, citing desertation.[13] The divorce was granted with Acker receiving alimony. Despite her antics and use of the name "Mrs. Valentino" (a name to which she had no legal right), she and Valentino eventually renewed their friendship. The two remained friends until his death.[4]


Valentino first met Natacha Rambova, a costume designer and art director and protégé of Nazimova, on the set of Uncharted Seas in 1921. The two worked together on the Nazimova production of Camille, by which time they were romantically involved.[47] They married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico, which resulted in Valentino's arrest for bigamy since he had not been divorced for a full year, based on the law in California at the time. Days passed and his studio at the time, Famous Players-Lasky, refused to post bail. Eventually, a few friends were able to post the cash bail.[48]

Having to wait the year or face the possibility of being arrested again, Rambova and Valentino lived in separate apartments in New York City, each with their own roommates. On March 14, 1923, they legally remarried.[49]

Many of Valentino's friends disliked Rambova and found her controlling.[37] During his relationship with her, he lost many friends and business associates, including June Mathis. Toward the end of their marriage, Rambova was banned from his sets by contract. The end of the marriage was bitter, with Valentino bequeathing Rambova one dollar in his will.[13]

Valentino's sexuality was the subject of speculation. It was suggested he was in homosexual relationships with both roommates Paul Ivano and Douglas Gerrad, as well as Norman Kerry, openly gay French actor Jacques Herbertot and Andre Daven.[5] However, Ivano maintained that it was completely untrue and both he and Valentino were heterosexual.[14]

Shortly before his death, Valentino was dating actress Pola Negri. Upon his death, Negri made a scene at his funeral, claiming they had been engaged. Valentino never confirmed the engagement claim.[44]


Death and funeral

On August 15, 1926, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York City. He was hospitalized at the Polyclinic in New York and underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. The surgery went well and he seemed to be recovering when peritonitis set in and spread throughout his body. He died eight days later, at the age of 31.[13]


A mourner pictured with the body of Rudolph Valentino at the actor's funeralAn estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York City to pay their respects at his funeral, handled by the Frank Campbell Funeral Home. The event was a drama itself: actress Pola Negri collapsed in hysterics while standing over the coffin, windows were smashed as fans tried to get in, and Campbell's hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist Blackshirt honor guard, which claimed to have been sent by Benito Mussolini. It was later revealed as a planned publicity stunt.[50]

Valentino's funeral mass in New York was held at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, often called "The Actor's Chapel", as it is located on West 49th Street in the Broadway theater district, and has a long association with show business figures.[51]

After the body was taken by train across the country, a second funeral was held on the West Coast, at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills.[51] Valentino had no final burial arrangements and his friend June Mathis offered her crypt for him in what she thought would be a temporary solution. However, she died the following year and Valentino was placed in the adjoining crypt. The two are still interred side by side in adjoining crypts at the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now the Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood, California.[51]


Estate

Valentino left his estate to his brother, sister, and Rambova's aunt Teresa Werner, who was left the share originally bequeathed to Rambova.[52] His Beverly Hills mansion, Falcon Lair, was later owned by heiress Doris Duke. Duke died there in 1993. The home was later sold and underwent major renovations, though the exterior remains largely the same as it did when Valentino owned it.[51]


Legacy

After his death many of his films were reissued to help pay his estate expenses. Many were reissued well into the 1930s, long after the demise of silent film. Several books were written including one by Rambova.[53] Several songs, including one by first wife Jean Acker, entitled "There's a New Star in Heaven Tonight", were written and best sellers.[9]

Over the years, a "woman in black" carrying a red rose has come to mourn at Valentino's grave, usually on the anniversary of his death. Several myths surround the woman, though it seems the first woman in black was actually a publicity stunt cooked up by press agent Russel Birdwell in 1928. Several copycats have followed over the years.[54]


Films about Valentino

The life of Rudolph Valentino has been filmed a number of times for television and the big screen. One of these biopics is Ken Russell's 1977 film, Valentino, in which Valentino is portrayed by Rudolf Nureyev. The film itself is only loosely based on his life.

An earlier feature film about Valentino's life, also called Valentino, was released in 1951, starring Anthony Dexter as Valentino.[55]

The short film Daydreams of Rudolph Valentino, with Russian actor Vladislav Kozlov as Valentino, was presented at Hollywood Forever cemetery on August 23, 2006, marking the 80th anniversary of Rudolph Valentino's death.

Stewart Granger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born James Lablache Stewart
May 6, 1913
London, England
Died August 16, 1993, aged 80
Santa Monica, California
Spouse(s) Elspeth March (1938-1948)
Jean Simmons (1950-1960)
Caroline LeCerf (1964-1969)

Stewart Granger (May 6, 1913 - August 16, 1993), born James Lablache Stewart, was an English film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. Tall, dark, dignified and handsome, Granger was a popular leading man in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

He was born in London, and educated at Epsom College, and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. The grandson of the actor Luigi Lablache, he was obliged to change his name in order to avoid being confused with the famous American actor James Stewart. As Granger reported in an interview once, his off-screen friends called him "Jimmy".





Acting career

In 1933, he made his film debut as an extra. His first starring role was in the Gainsborough Pictures period melodrama The Man in Grey (1943), a film that helped to make him a huge star in Britain. In the early 1950s, he moved to Hollywood and starred in a number of swashbucklers and other adventure films for which his theatrical voice, stature (6'3" 191 cm) and dignified profile made him a natural, such as King Solomon's Mines (1950), Scaramouche (1952) and the 1952 remake of The Prisoner of Zenda, but he was just as dashing in comedies, as demonstrated by his performance in North To Alaska with John Wayne.

In Germany, Granger acted in the role of Old Surehand in three western movies adapted from novels by German author Karl May, with French actor Pierre Brice (playing the fictional Indian chief Winnetou), in Unter Geiern (Frontier Hellcat) (1964), Der ?-lprinz (Rampage at Apache Wells) (1965) and Old Surehand (Flaming Frontier) (1965).

He was united with Pierre Brice and Lex Barker, also a Karl May movie hero, in Gern hab' ich die Frauen gekillt (Killer's Carnival) (1966). In the German Edgar Wallace movie series of the 1960s, he was seen in The Trygon Factor (1966). Towards the end of his career, Granger even starred in a German soap-opera called Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (The Guldenburg Heritage) (1987).


Personal life

He was married three times:

Elspeth March (1938-1948); (two children, Jamie and Lindsay)
Jean Simmons (1950-1960), (with whom he had starred in Adam and Evelyne, Young Bess and Footsteps in the Fog); (one daughter Tracy)
Caroline LeCerf (1964-1969); (one daughter Samantha)
Stewart Granger revealed in his autobiography [1] that Deborah Kerr had tried to seduce him in the back of a London cab in 1950. Although they were married to others, they went on to have an affair [2]. They remained lifelong friends.

In 1956, Granger became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

He died in Santa Monica, California from prostate cancer at the age of 80.

Orson Welles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born George Orson Welles
May 6, 1915(1915-05-06)
Kenosha, Wisconsin, U.S.
Died October 10, 1985 (aged 70)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Years active 1934-1985
Spouse(s) Virginia Nicholson (1934-1940)
Rita Hayworth (1943-1948)
Paola Mori (1955-1985)
Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Original Screenplay
1941 Citizen Kane
Life Achievement Award (1971)
Grammy Awards
Best Spoken Word Album
1977 Great American Documents
1979 Citizen Kane
1982 Donovan's Brain
Other Awards
AFI Life Achievement Award
1975 Lifetime Achievement

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 - October 10, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning American director, writer, actor and producer for film, stage, radio and television. Welles first gained wide notoriety for his October 30, 1938 radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Adapted to sound like a contemporary news broadcast, it caused a great number of listeners across North American continent to panic. In the mid-1930s, his New York theatre adaptations of an all-black voodoo Macbeth and a contemporary allegorical Julius Caesar became legendary. Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. During this period he became a serious political activist and commentator through journalism, radio and public appearances closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1941, he co-wrote, directed, produced and starred in Citizen Kane, often chosen in polls of film critics as the greatest film ever made. The rest of his career was often obstructed by lack of funds, incompetent studio interference and other unfortunate occurrences, both during exile in Europe and brief returns to Hollywood. Despite these difficulties Othello won the 1952 Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the Cannes Film Festival and Touch of Evil won the top prize at the Brussels World Fair, while Welles himself considered The Trial and Chimes at Midnight to be the best of his efforts.

Although Welles remained on the margins of the major studios as a director/producer, his larger-than-life personality made him a bankable actor. In his later years he struggled against a Hollywood system that refused to finance his independent film projects, making a living largely through acting, commercials, and voice-over work. Welles received a 1975 American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement award, the third person to do so after John Ford and James Cagney. Critical appreciation for Welles has increased since his death. He is now widely acknowledged as one of the most important dramatic artists of the 20th century, in 2002 being voted in a BFI Top Ten Directors poll by the British Film Institute as the greatest film director of all time.[1][2]




Biography

Youth and early career (1915 to 1934)

Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the second son of Richard Head Welles, then a manufacturer of vehicle lamps, and Beatrice Ives, a concert pianist and suffragette. During Welles' boyhood, he encountered many hardships. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago, and his father became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles' mother died of jaundice on May 10, 1924 in a Chicago hospital, four days after Welles' ninth birthday. After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing his interest in music. Richard Welles died when Orson was 15, the summer after Orson's graduation from the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois. Welles later revealed in interviews that he felt that he had neglected and betrayed his father.

Maurice Bernstein became his guardian, but his background for the role is improbable. Born in Russia, he came to Chicago in 1890, studied and became a successful physician. In a very few years, he had several wives, including the Chicago Lyric Opera soprano, Edith Mason. Edith divorced company director Giorgio Polacco to marry Bernstein. Not long thereafter, they divorced and she remarried Polacco. In 1930, Bernstein was living in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, as a wealthy physician with another wife and child, claiming to have been born in Illinois to parents from New York.

At Todd, Welles came under the positive influence and guidance of Roger Hill, a teacher who later became Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an 'ad hoc' educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged his first theatrical experiments and productions there.

On his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe with the aid of a small inheritance. While on a walking and painting trip through Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. Gate manager Hilton Edwards later claimed he didn't believe him but was impressed by his brashness and some impassioned quality in his audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate in 1931, appearing in Jew Suss as the Duke. He acted to great acclaim, acclaim that reached the United States. He performed smaller supporting roles as well. On returning to the United States he found his brief fame ephemeral and turned to a writing project at Todd that would become the immensely successful Everybody's Shakespeare, and subsequently, The Mercury Shakespeare. Welles traveled to North Africa while working on thousands of illustrations for the Everybody's Shakespeare series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades.

An introduction by Thornton Wilder led Welles to the New York stage. He toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company. Restless and impatient when the planned Broadway opening of Romeo and Juliet was canceled, Welles staged a drama festival of his own with the Todd School, inviting Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear, along with New York stage luminaries. It was a roaring success. The subsequent revival of Romeo and Juliet brought Welles to the notice of John Houseman, who was then casting for an unusual lead actor and about to take a lead role in the Federal Theatre Project. Houseman was especially impressed by Welles' youth, wed to what appeared to be an overabundant creative certainty and drive.[citation needed]

By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theater as a radio actor in New York City, working with many of the actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre. He married actress and socialite Virginia Nicholson in 1934. They had one daughter, Christopher, who became known as Chris Welles Feder, an author of educational materials for children. Welles also shot an eight-minute silent short film, The Hearts of Age with Nicholson.


Renown in theatre and radio (1936 to 1940)

In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theatre performers and employees to work. Welles was hired by John Houseman and assigned to direct a project for Harlem's American Negro Theater. Wanting to give his all-black cast a chance to play classics, he offered them Macbeth, moved to Haiti at the court of King Henri Christophe (and with a setting of voodoo witch doctors). Jack Carter played Macbeth. The play was rapturously received and later toured the nation. It is considered a landmark of African-American theatre. At 20 Welles was hailed as a prodigy.



After the success of Macbeth, Welles mounted the absurd farce Horse Eats Hat. He consolidated his "White Hope" reputation with Dr Faustus. This was even more ground-breaking theatre than Macbeth, using light as a prime unifying scenic element in a nearly blacked-out stage. In 1937, he rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's pro-union 'labour opera' The Cradle Will Rock. Because of severe federal cutbacks and perhaps rumoured Congressional worries about communist propaganda in the Federal Theatre, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was cancelled and the theatre locked and guarded by National Guardsmen. In a last-minute theatrical coup Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, about twenty blocks away. Cast, crew and audience walked the distance on foot. Since the unions forbade the actors and musicians performing from the stage, The Cradle Will Rock began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage, with the cast performing their parts from the audience. This impromptu performance was a tremendous hit.

Resigning from the Federal Theatre, Welles and Houseman formed their own company, the Mercury Theatre, which included actors such as Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Frank Readick, Everett Sloane, Eustace Wyatt and Erskine Sanford, all of whom would continue to work for Welles for years. The first Mercury Theatre production was a melodramatic and heavily edited version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, set in a contemporary frame of fascist Italy. Cinna the Poet dies at the hands not of a mob but a secret police force. According to Norman Lloyd, who played Cinna, "it stopped the show." The applause lasted more than 3 minutes and the production was widely acclaimed.

Welles was increasingly active on radio, as an actor and soon as a director and producer. He played Hamlet for CBS on The Columbia Workshop, adapting and directing the play himself. The Mutual Network gave him a seven-week series to adapt Les Misérables, which he did with great success. Welles was chosen to anonymously play Lamont Cranston, The Shadow, in late 1937 (again for Mutual) and in the summer of 1938 CBS gave him (and the Mercury Theatre) a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. The show was titled The Mercury Theatre on the Air, with original music by Bernard Herrmann, who would continue working with Welles on radio and in films for years.

Their October 30 broadcast, H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, brought Welles notoriety and instant fame on both a national and international level. The fortuitous mixture of news bulletin format with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners from the rival and far more popular Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy program, created widespread confusion among late tuners. Panic spread among many listeners who believed the news reports of an actual Martian invasion. The resulting panic was duly reported around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech a few months later[citation needed]. Welles' growing fame soon drew Hollywood offers, lures which the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. However, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which had been a 'sustaining show' (without sponsorship) was picked up by Campbell Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse.


Welles in Hollywood (1939 to 1948)

RKO Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered Welles what is generally considered the greatest contract ever offered to an untried director: complete artistic control. RKO signed Welles in a two-picture deal; including script, cast, crew, and most important, final cut, though Welles had a budget limit for his projects. With this contract in hand, Welles (and nearly the entire Mercury Theatre) moved to Hollywood. He commuted weekly to New York to maintain his The Campbell Playhouse commitment.

Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO Pictures, settling on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which he worked on in great detail. He planned to film the action with a subjective camera from the protagonist's point of view. However, the darkened international political climate created marketing restrictions across Europe. When a budget was drawn up, RKO's enthusiasm cooled, as it was greater than the previously agreed limit. The anti-fascist tenor of the story was now suddenly problematic too. RKO also declined to approve another Welles' project, The Smiler with the Knife, for similar political reasons and ostensibly because they lacked faith in Lucille Ball's ability to carry the leading lady role.

In a sign of things to come, Welles left The Campbell Playhouse in 1940, due to creative differences with the sponsor. The show continued without him, produced by John Houseman. In perhaps another sign of things to come, Welles' first actual experience on a Hollywood film was as narrator for RKO's 1940 production of Swiss Family Robinson.

Welles found a suitable film project in an idea he conceived with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (who was then writing radio plays for The Campbell Playhouse). Initially called American, it would eventually become Welles's first feature film, Citizen Kane (1941).

Mankiewicz based his original notion on an expose of the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially but now hated, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Mankiewicz was now banished from her company because of his perpetual drunkenness. Mankiewicz, a notorious gossip, exacted revenge with his unflatteringly depiction of Davies in Citizen Kane for which Welles got most of the criticisms; Welles also had a connection with Davies through his first wife. Kane's megalomaniac personality was also loosely modeled on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer, as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. The use of multiple narrative perspectives in Conrad's Heart of Darkness also influenced the treatment. Supplying Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes Welles urged him to write the first draft of a screenplay under the watchful nursing of John Houseman, who was posted to insure Mankiewicz stayed sober. On Welles's instruction, Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of The March of Time newsreels. Taking these drafts, Welles drastically condensed and rearranged them, then added scenes of his own.

The resulting character of Charles Foster Kane is loosely based on parts of Hearst's life. Nonetheless, with perhaps sly and barely disguised malice towards their young boss, Mankiewicz and Houseman cunningly worked in autobiographical allusions to Welles himself, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood, particularly regarding his guardianship. Welles then added features from other famous American lives to create a general and mysterious personality rather than the narrow journalistic portrait intended by Mankiewicz, whose first drafts included scandalous claims about the death of the film director Thomas Ince, killed on an excursion on a Hearst yacht. Ironically, Mankiewicz later argued, probably astutely, that if this material had been left in Hearst would never have dared to make the public connection to his own life and would have left the film alone.

Once the script was completed Welles attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland, who walked into Welles office and announced he wanted to work on the picture. For the cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. Grasping that films were a collaboration, he invited suggestions from everyone, but only if they were directed through him.

There was little concern over the Hearst connection when Welles completed production on the film. However, Mankiewicz handed a copy of the final shooting script to his friend Charles Lederer, now husband of Welles' ex-wife Virginia Nicholson and nephew of Hearst's mistress Marion Davies. Hedda Hopper saw a small ad in a newspaper for a preview screening of Citizen Kane and went. Hopper, realizing immediately that the film was based on features of Hearst's life, reported this back to him and threatened to give "Hollywood, Private Lives" if that was what it wanted. Thus began the struggle over the attempted suppression of Citizen Kane.

Hearst's media empire boycotted the film. It exerted enormous pressure on the Hollywood film community by threatening to expose 15 years of suppressed scandals and the fact that most of the studio bosses were Jewish. At one point, the heads of the major studios jointly offered RKO the cost of the film in exchange for the negative and all existing prints, for the express purpose of burning it. RKO declined, and the film was given a limited release. Meanwhile, Hearst successfully intimidated theatre chains by threatening to ban advertising for any of their other films in any of his papers if they showed Citizen Kane. RKO didn't own many theatres, so few moviehouses actually dared to screen Citizen Kane.

While the film was critically well-received, by the time it reached the general public the positive tide of publicity had waned. It garnered nine Academy Award nominations, but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. The delay in its release and its uneven distribution contributed to its average result at the box-office, making back its budget and marketing, but RKO lost any chance of a major profit. The fact that Citizen Kane ignored many Hollywood conventions also meant that the film confused and angered the 1940s cinema public. Exhibitor response was scathing; most theater owners complained bitterly about the adverse audience reaction and the many walkouts, and only a few saw fit to acknowledge Welles's artistic technique. RKO shelved the film and did not re-release it until 1956. During the 1950s, the film came to be seen by young French film critics such as Francois Truffaut as exemplifying the "auteur theory," in which the director is the "author" of a film. Truffaut, Godard and others were inspired by Welles' example to make their own films, giving birth to the Nouvelle Vague. In the 1960s Citizen Kane became popular on college campuses, both as a film-study exercise and as an entertainment subject. Its frequent revivals on television, home video, and DVD have enhanced its "classic" status, and it ultimately recouped its costs.

The 1996 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane chronicles the battle between Welles and Hearst. In 1999, RKO 281, an HBO docudrama, tells the story of the making of Citizen Kane, starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles.


After Citizen Kane

Welles' second film for RKO was The Magnificent Ambersons, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. George Schaefer hoped to make back the money lost by Citizen Kane. Ambersons had already been adapted for The Campbell Playhouse by Welles, who wrote the screen adaptation himself. Toland was not available, so Stanley Cortez was named cinematographer. The meticulous Cortez, however, was slow and the film lagged behind schedule and over budget.

At RKO's request, simultaneously, Welles worked on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, Journey Into Fear, which he co-wrote with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was also producer. Direction was credited solely to Norman Foster. Welles later stated that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was whoever was closest to the camera.

Welles was then offered a new radio series by CBS. Called The Orson Welles Show, it was a half-hour variety show of short stories, comedy skits, poetry and musical numbers. Joining the original Mercury Theatre cast was Jiminy Cricket, "on loan from Walt Disney". The variety format was unpopular with the listeners, and Welles was soon forced into full half-hour stories instead.

To further complicate matters during the production of Ambersons and Journey into Fear, Welles was approached by Nelson Rockefeller and Jock Whitney to produce a documentary film about South America. This was at the behest of the federal government's Good Neighbor Policy, a wartime propaganda effort designed to prevent Latin America from allying with the Axis Powers. Welles saw his involvement as a form of national service, because his physical condition excused him from direct military service.

Expected to film the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Welles rushed to finish the editing on Ambersons and his acting scenes in Journey into Fear. Ending his CBS radio show, he lashed together a rough cut of Ambersons with Robert Wise, who had edited Citizen Kane, and left for Brazil. Unfortunately, to get Ambersons made, Welles had renegotiated away his original contract for final cut.

Wise was to join him in Rio to complete the film but never arrived. Other moves were afoot at RKO. A provisional final cut arranged via phone call, telegram, and shortwave radio was previewed without Welles' approval in Pomona in a double bill, to a mostly negative audience response, in particular to the character of Aunt Fanny played by Agnes Moorehead.

Whereas Schaefer argued that Welles be allowed to complete his own version of the film, and that an archival copy be kept with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, RKO was in no mood for such aesthetic niceties.

RKO studio management was in turmoil as Charles Koerner staged a management coup against Schaefer. It took control of the film, formed a committee which was ordered to remove fifty minutes of Welles' footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and tacked on a happy ending. Schaefer was replaced as RKO President by Koerner, who released the shortened film on the bottom of a double-bill with the Lupe Velez comedy Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost, thus providing the last nail in the coffin for both Welles's and Schaefer's careers. Ambersons was an expensive flop for RKO, though it received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead.

Welles' South American documentary, titled It's All True, budgeted at one million dollars with half of its budget coming from the U.S. Government upon completion, was treated scarcely better by RKO. They closed down the production, withdrew most of the crew and kicked the Mercury staff out of the studio while Welles was still in Brazil.

In It's All True, Welles recreated the journey of the jangadeiros, four poor fishermen who had made a 1500-mile journey on their open raft to petition Brazilian President Vargas about their working conditions. The four had become national folk heroes, Welles first read of their journey in Time. Despite their leader, Jacare, dying during a filming mishap, Welles begged to be able to finish the film. He was given a limited amount of black-and-white stock and a silent camera. He completed the sequence, but RKO refused to let him complete the film. Surviving footage was released in 1993, including a rough reconstruction of the Four Men on a Raft segment. Meanwhile, RKO launched a premeditated publicity campaign against Welles, falsely claiming he had gone to Brazil without a screenplay, and that he had squandered a million dollars. Their official company slogan was pointedly changed to "Showmanship in place of Genius."

Unable to continue work as a film director after the twin disasters of The Magnificent Ambersons and It's All True, Welles worked on radio. CBS offered him two weekly series, Hello Americans, based on the research he'd done in Brazil, and Ceiling Unlimited, sponsored by Lockheed, a wartime salute to advances in aviation. Both featured several members of his original Mercury Theatre. Within a few months, Hello Americans was canceled and Welles was replaced as host of Ceiling Unlimited by Joseph Cotten. Welles guest-starred on a great variety of shows, notably guest-hosting Jack Benny's show for a month in 1943. He took an increasingly active role in American and international politics and used journalism to communicate his forceful ideas widely.

In 1943 Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other directors' films. He starred in the 1943 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute Follow the Boys, in which he performed his Mercury Wonder Show magic act and sawed Marlene Dietrich in half after Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to allow Hayworth to perform.

In 1944 Welles was offered a new radio show, broadcast only in California. Orson Welles' Almanac was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. After the success of his stand-in hosting on The Jack Benny Show, the focus was primarily on comedy. His hosting on Jack Benny included several self-deprecating jokes and story lines about his being a "genius" and overriding any ideas advanced by other cast members. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts. When Welles started his Mercury Wonder Show a few months later, traveling to Armed Forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took a decidedly wartime flavor. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead was left. The series was cancelled by year's end due to poor ratings.

While his suitability as a film director remained in question, Welles' popularity as an actor continued. Pabst Blue Ribbon gave Welles their radio series This Is My Best to direct, but after one month he was fired for creative differences. He started writing a political column for the New York Post, again called Orson Welles Almanac. While the paper wanted Welles to write about Hollywood gossip, Welles explored serious political issues. His activism for world peace took considerable amounts of his time. The Post column eventually failed in syndication because of contradictory expectations and was dropped by the Post.


Post-World War II work (1946-1948)

In 1946, International Pictures released Welles' film The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in America. While Anthony Veiller was credited with the screenplay, it had been rewritten by Welles and John Huston. Welles' most imaginative work on the film was cut out by Spiegel, and the result apart from some bravura sequences on the clock tower or evoking the small town atmosphere, was a comparatively conventional Hollywood thriller. It was successful at the box office but Welles resolved not to have a career as a cog in a Hollywood studio. He resumed his struggle for the creative control which had originally brought him to Hollywood.

In the summer of 1946, Welles directed a musical stage version of Around the World in Eighty Days, with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven. When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles supported the finances himself. When he ran out of money at one point, he convinced Columbia president Harry Cohn to send him enough to continue the show, and in exchange Welles promised to write, produce, direct and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show would soon fail due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. He wound up owing the IRS several hundred thousand dollars, and in a few years time Welles would seek tax-shelter in Europe.

At the same time in 1946 he began two new radio series, The Mercury Summer Theatre for CBS and Orson Welles Commentaries for ABC. While Summer Theatre featured half-hour adaptations of some of the classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his Around the World stage play, and remains the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. It was only scheduled for the summer months, and Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play. Commentaries was a political soap-box, continuing the themes from his New York Post column. Again Welles lacked a clear focus, until the NAACP brought to his attention the case of Isaac Woodard. Welles devoted the rest of the run of the series to Woodard's cause, was the first broadcaster to bring it to national attention, and caused shock waves across the nation. Soon Welles was being hung in effigy in the South and The Stranger was banned in several southern states. ABC was unable to find a sponsor for the radio show and soon canceled it. Welles never had a regular radio show in America again and would never direct another anywhere.

The film for Cohn wound up being The Lady from Shanghai, filmed in 1947 for Columbia Pictures. Intended to be a modest thriller, the budget skyrocketed after Cohn suggested that Welles' then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-star. Cohn was enraged by Welles' rough-cut, in particular the confusing plot and lack of close-ups, and ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. After heavy editing by the studio, approximately one hour of Welles' first cut had been removed. While expressing dismay at the cuts, Welles was particularly appalled by the soundtrack, objecting to the musical score he thought more suitable for a Disney cartoon and the lack of the ambient soundscape he had designed. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release. Welles recalled people refusing to speak to him about it to save him embarrassment. Not long after release, Welles and Hayworth finalized their divorce. Though the film was acclaimed in Europe, it was not embraced in the US for several decades. A similar situation occurred when Welles suggested to Charles Chaplin that he star in a film directed by Welles based on the life of the French serial killer, Henri Désiré Landru. Chaplin instead adapted the idea for his own film, Monsieur Verdoux, with Welles officially credited for the idea. The film proved a failure opening during a time when Chaplin was publicly vilified, but since has gone on to be acclaimed as a classic black comedy.

Unable to find work as a director at any of the major studios, in 1948 Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of Macbeth, which featured papier mâché sets, cardboard crowns and a cast of actors lip-syncing to a prerecorded soundtrack. Republic did not care for the Scottish accents on the soundtrack and held up release for almost a year. Welles left for Europe, while his co-producer and life-long supporter Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles ultimately returned and cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover the gaps. The film was decried as another disaster. In the late 1970s, Macbeth was restored to Welles' original version.

During this time, Welles sought to adapt the radio and serial series The Shadow to the big screen. He aimed to direct, produce, write and star in the film, but the project collapsed when he failed to find any investors. The Mark Millar article detailing Welles' attempt at a Batman film is partially inspired by this.


Welles in Europe (1948 to 1956)

Welles left Hollywood for Europe in late 1947, enigmatically saying he had chosen "freedom". This must refer to both acting offers and the possibility of directing and producing films again. There is now compelling evidence that Welles was blacklisted in Hollywood, after years of propaganda by the Hearst empire labeling him a communist and years of FBI investigations prompted by J. Edgar Hoover.

In Italy he starred as Cagliostro in the 1948 film Black Magic. His co-star, Akim Tamiroff, impressed Welles so much that he appeared in four of Welles' own productions during the 1950s and 1960s.

The following year, Welles appeared as Harry Lime in The Third Man, written by Graham Greene, directed by Carol Reed, starring Mercury Theatre alumnus Joseph Cotten, and with a memorable zither score by Anton Karas. The film was an international smash hit, but Welles unfortunately turned down a percentage of the gross in exchange for a lump-sum advance. A few years later British radio producer Harry Alan Towers would resurrect the Lime character for radio in the series The Lives of Harry Lime. The 1951 series included new recordings by Karas, was very successful, and ran for 52 weeks. Welles claimed to write a handful of episodes -- a claim disputed by Towers, who maintains they were written by Ernest Borneman -- which would later serve as the basis for the screenplay of Welles' Mr. Arkadin (1955).


Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the 1949 Italian film Prince of Foxes, with Tyrone Power and Mercury Theatre alumnus Everett Sloane, and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in the 1950 film version of the novel The Black Rose (again with Tyrone Power). During this time, Welles was channeling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play Othello.

From 1949 to 1951, Welles worked on Othello, filming on location in Europe and Morocco. The film featured Welles' old friends Micheál MacLiammóir as Iago and Hilton Edwards as Desdemona's father Brabantio. Suzanne Cloutier starred as Desdemona and Campbell Playhouse alumnus Robert Coote appeared as Iago's associate Roderigo.

Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left to find other acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's published memoir Put Money in Thy Purse. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but was not given a general release in the United States until 1955 (by which time Welles had re-cut the first reel and re-dubbed most of the film, removing Cloutier's voice entirely), and it played only in New York and Los Angeles. The American release prints had a technically flawed soundtrack, suffering from a complete drop-out of sound at every quiet moment, and it was one of these flawed prints that was restored by Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith in 1992 for a wide re-release. The restoration included reconstructing Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original musical score (which was inaudible) and adding ambient stereo sound effects (which weren't in the original film). Though still active in Italy, Lavagnino was not consulted. The subject of great controversy among film scholars, the restoration went on to a successful theatrical run in America. A print of the US version was released on laser-disc in 1995 and soon withdrawn after a legal challenge by Beatrice Welles-Smith. The original Cannes version has survived but is not commercially available.

In 1952 Welles continued finding work in England, after the success of the Harry Lime radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, The Black Museum, with Welles as host and narrator, and this would also run 52 weeks. Director Herbert Wilcox offered him the part of the murdered victim in Trent's Last Case, based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. And in 1953 the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem Song of Myself. Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson.

Late in 1953, Welles returned to America to star in a live CBS Omnibus television presentation of Shakespeare's King Lear. The cast included MacLiammóir and the British actor Alan Badel. While Welles received good notices, he was guarded by IRS agents, prohibited to leave his hotel room when not at the studio, prevented from making any purchases, and the entire sum (less expenses) he earned went to his tax bill. Welles returned to England after the broadcast.

In 1954, director George More O'Ferrall offered Welles the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of Three Cases of Murder, co-starring Badel. Herbert Wilcox cast him as the antagonist in Trouble in Glen opposite Margaret Lockwood, Forrest Tucker and Victor McLaglen. Old friend John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in his film adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, starring Gregory Peck.

Welles' next turn as director was the film Mr. Arkadin (1955), produced by Louis Dolivet Welles' political mentor from the 1940s. It was filmed in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Based on several episodes of the Harry Lime radio show, it stars Welles as a paranoid billionaire who hires a petty smuggler to delve into the secrets of his seedy past. Welles' absurd and obvious makeup has been the subject of much derision, but it may have been the intent to show a character who was in disguise and hiding his true identity. The film stars Robert Arden, who had worked on the Harry Lime series, Welles' third wife, Paola Mori, whose voice was completely dubbed by actress Billie Whitelaw, and guest stars including Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Katina Paxinou, and Mischa Auer. Frustrated by Welles' slow progress in the editing room, producer Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished the film without him. Eventually five different versions of the film would be released, two in Spanish and three in English. The version which Dolivet completed was retitled Confidential Report and was the version furthest from Welles's original intention. In 2005 Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum oversaw a reconstruction of what might have been Welles' original intention. It was released by the Criterion Company on DVD and is considered by Welles scholar and director Peter Bogdanovich to be the best version available.

Also in 1955 Welles directed two television series for the BBC. The first was Orson Welles' Sketchbook, a series of six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera (including such topics as the filming of It's All True and the Isaac Woodard case), and the second was Around the World with Orson Welles, a series of six travelogues set in different locations around Europe (such as Venice, the Basque Country between France and Spain, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations (a technique he would continue to explore). A seventh episode of this series, based on the Gaston Dominici case, was suppressed at the time by the French government, but was reconstructed after Welles's death and released to video in 1999.

In 1956 Welles completed Portrait of Gina, posthumously aired on German television under the title Viva Italia, a 30-minute personal essay on Gina Lollobrigida and the general subject of Italian sex symbols. Dissatisfied with the results - Welles recalled he had worked on it a lot and the result looked like it - he left the only print behind at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. The film cans would remain in a lost and found locker at the hotel for several decades, where they were rediscovered after Welles' death.


Return to Hollywood (1956 to 1959)

In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood, guesting on radio shows (notably as narrator of Tomorrow, a nuclear holocaust drama produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration). He guest starred on television shows, including I Love Lucy and began filming a projected pilot for Desilu, owned by his former protégé Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, who had recently purchased the former studios of the now bankrupt RKO. The film was The Fountain of Youth, based on a story by John Collier. Originally deemed not viable as a pilot, the film wasn't aired until 1958. It won the Peabody Award for excellence. Welles' next feature film role was in Man in the Shadow for Universal Pictures in 1957, starring Jeff Chandler.

Welles stayed on at Universal to co-star with Charlton Heston in the 1958 film of Whit Masterson's novel Badge of Evil (Welles claimed never to have read it). Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal Studios at the suggestion (and insistence) of Charlton Heston. Reuniting many actors and technicians with whom he'd worked in Hollywood in the 1940s (including cameraman Russell Metty [The Stranger], make-up artist Maurice Siederman (Citizen Kane), and actors Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich, and Akim Tamiroff), filming proceeded smoothly, with Welles finishing on schedule and on budget, and the studio bosses praising the daily rushes. Out of the blue, the studio wrested Touch of Evil from Welles' hands, re-edited it, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. Despite the trauma of having the film ripped from his creative control for no ostensible reason, Welles wrote a 58-page memo outlining suggestions and objections. The studio followed a few of the ideas, but cut another 30 minutes from the film and released it. Even in this state, the film was widely praised across Europe, awarded the top prize at the Brussels World's Fair.

In 1978, the long preview version of the film was rediscovered and released. In 1998, editor Walter Murch and producer Rick Schmidlin, consulting the original memo, used a workprint version to attempt to restore the film as close as possible to the memo. This is at best a compromise that should not be mistaken for Welles' original intent. Welles stated in that memo that the film was no longer his version ?- it was the studio's, but as such, he was still prepared to help them with it.

As Universal reworked Touch of Evil, Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel Cervantes' novel Don Quixote in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project.

Welles continued acting, notably in The Long, Hot Summer (1958) and Compulsion (1959), but soon returned to Europe.


Return to Europe (1959 to 1970)

He continued shooting Don Quixote in Spain, but replaced Mischa Auer with Francisco Reiguera, and resumed acting jobs.

In Italy in 1959, Welles directed his own scenes as King Saul in Richard Pottier's film David and Goliath. In Hong Kong he co-starred with Curt Jurgens in Lewis Gilbert's film Ferry to Hong Kong.

In 1960 in Paris he co-starred in Richard Fleischer's film Crack in the Mirror. In Yugoslavia he starred in Richard Thorpe's film The Tartars. He also staged a play at the Gate Theatre in Dublin which compressed five of Shakespeare's history plays in order to focus on the story of Falstaff. Keith Baxter played Prince Hal and Welles called his adaption Chimes at Midnight.

By this time he had completed filming on Quixote. Though he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1970s, he never completed the film. On the scenes he did complete, Welles voiced all the actors and provided the narration. In 1992 a version of the film was completed by director Jess Franco, though not all the footage Welles shot was available to him. What was available had decayed badly. While the Welles footage was greeted with interest, the post-production by Franco was met with harsh criticism.

In 1961 Welles directed In the Land of Don Quixote, a series of eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network RAI. Similar to the Around the World with Orson Welles series, they presented travelogues of Spain and included Welles' wife, Paola, and their daughter, Beatrice. Though Welles was fluent in Italian, the network was not interested in him providing Italian narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by which time the network had added Italian narration of its own. Ultimately, the episodes were restored with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.

In 1962 Welles directed his adaptation of The Trial, based on the novel by Franz Kafka and produced by Alexander Salkind and Michael Salkind. The cast included Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Paola Mori and Akim Tamiroff. While filming exteriors in Zagreb, Welles was informed that the Salkinds had run out of money, meaning that there could be no set construction. No stranger to shooting on found locations, Welles soon filmed the interiors in the Gare d'Orsay, at that time an abandoned railway station in Paris. Welles thought the location possessed a "Jules Verne modernism" and a melancholy sense of "waiting", both suitable for Kafka. The film failed at the box-office. Peter Bogdanovich would later observe that Welles found the film riotously funny. During the filming, Welles met Oja Kodar, who would later become his muse, star and partner for the last twenty years of his life.

Welles plays a film director in La Ricotta - Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the Ro.Go.Pa.G. movie.

Welles continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming Chimes at Midnight, which was completed in 1966. Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff and his relationship with Prince Hal. The cast included Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey and Margaret Rutherford, with narration by Ralph Richardson. Music was again by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. Jess Franco served as second unit director.

In 1966, Welles directed a film for French television, an adaptation of The Immortal Story, by Isak Dinesen. Released in 1968, it stars Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio and Norman Eshley. The film had a successful run in French theaters. At this time Welles met Kodar again, and gave her a letter he had written to her and had been keeping for four years; they would not be parted again. They immediately began a collaboration both personal and professional. The first of these was an adaptation of Isak Dinesen's The Heroine, meant to be a companion piece to The Immortal Story and starring Kodar. Unfortunately, funding disappeared after one day's shooting. After completing this film, he appeared in a brief cameo as Cardinal Wolsey in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of A Man for All Seasons - a role for which he won considerable acclaim.

In 1967 Welles began directing The Deep, based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles F. Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually restored by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1968 Welles began filming a TV special for CBS under the title Orson's Bag, combining travelogue, comedy skits and a condensation of Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice with Welles as Shylock. Funding for the show sent by CBS to Welles in Switzerland was seized by the IRS, reputedly due to the anger of Richard Nixon over a record Welles had not written but had narrated, the political satire The Begatting of the President. Without funding, the show was not completed. The surviving portions were eventually restored by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1969, Welles authorised the use of his name for a cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Orson Welles Cinema remained in operation until 1986, with Welles making a personal appearance there in 1977.

Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles abandoned the editing of Don Quixote and moved back to America in 1970.


Return to United States and final years (1970 to 1985)

Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his own film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on talk shows, and made frequent appearances for Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, and Merv Griffin. Welles's primary focus in this period was filming The Other Side of the Wind, a project that took six years to film but has remained unfinished and unreleased. An early role was portraying Louis XVIII of France in Waterloo (1970).

In 1971 Welles directed a short adaptation of Moby-Dick, a one-man performance on a bare stage, reminiscent of his stage production Moby Dick Rehearsed from the 1950s. Never completed, it was eventually restored by the Filmmuseum München. He also appeared in La Décade prodigieuse, co-starring with Anthony Perkins and directed by Claude Chabrol, based on a detective novel by Ellery Queen.

In 1971 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary award "For superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures". Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles while they refused to give him any work.

In 1972 Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the film documentary version of Alvin Toffler's 1970 book Future Shock.

In 1973 Welles completed F for Fake, a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr d'Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving. Based on an existing documentary by Francois Reichenbach, it included new material with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart and William Alland.


Welles as Long John Silver in the film Treasure IslandWorking again for a British producer, Welles played Long John Silver in director John Hough's 1973 adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, which had been the second story broadcast by The Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938. Welles also contributed to the script, his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O. W. Jeeves'.

In 1975, the American Film Institute presented Welles with their third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two going to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). At the ceremony, Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished The Other Side of the Wind. By 1976, Welles had almost completed the film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed. Written by Welles, the story told of a destructive old film director looking for funds to complete his final film. It starred John Huston and the cast included Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, and Dennis Hopper. As of 2006, all legal disputes concerning ownership of the film have been settled and end money for completing the film is being sought, in part from the Showtime cable network.

In 1979 Welles completed his documentary Filming Othello, which featured Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. That same year, Welles completed his self-produced pilot for The Orson Welles Show television series, featuring interviews with Burt Reynolds, Jim Henson and Frank Oz and guest-starring The Muppets and Angie Dickinson. Unable to find network interest, the pilot was never broadcast.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television commercial advertisements, acting as the on-camera spokesman for the Paul Masson wine company. The sign-off phrase of the commercials ?- "We will sell no wine before its time" ?- became a national catchphrase. He was also the voice behind the long-running Carlsberg "Probably the best lager in the world" campaign.[3] The "probably" tag is still in use today. During coverage of these commercials on Ads Infinitum, Victor Lewis Smith, a critic of Masson wines, fondly remarked that Welles endorsements of the wine were proof he was "a genius, but a lying bastard" and promptly showed an outtake of Welles being impossible to work with in a commercial shoot. In 1979 Welles also appeared in the biopic "The Secret Life of Nikola Tesla."

In 1982 the BBC broadcast The Orson Welles Story in the Arena series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in great detail, and several people from his professional past were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film.

Welles was the unseen voice of Robin Masters during the early years of Magnum, P.I..

During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as The Dreamers, based on two stories by Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and The Orson Welles Magic Show, which reused material from his failed TV pilot. Another project he worked on was Filming The Trial, the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot for these projects, none of them were completed. All of them were eventually restored by the Filmmuseum München.

Welles in his later years was unable to get funding for his many film scripts, but came close with The Big Brass Ring and The Cradle Will Rock. Arnon Milchan had agreed to produce The Big Brass Ring if any one of six actors - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, or Burt Reynolds - would sign on to star. All six declined for various reasons. Independent funding for The Cradle Will Rock had been obtained and actors had signed on, including Rupert Everett to play the young Orson Welles, location filming was to be done in New York City with studio work in Italy. While pre-production went without a problem, three weeks before filming was to begin the money fell through. Allegedly Welles approached Steven Spielberg to ask for assistance in rescuing the film, but Spielberg declined. The scripts to both films were published posthumously. After a studio auction, he complained that Spielberg spent $50,000 for the Rosebud sled used in Citizen Kane, but would not give him a dime to make a picture. Welles retaliated by publicly announcing the sled to be a fake, the original having been burned in the film, but he later recanted the claim.


Religion

In April 1982, Merv Griffin interviewed Welles and asked about his religious beliefs. Welles replied, "I try to be a Christian, I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God."[4] After the success of his 1941 film Citizen Kane, Welles announced that his next film would be about the life of Jesus Christ, and that he would play the lead role. However, Welles never got around to making the film.[5]


Death

Welles suffered from a serious obesity problem in his later years, to the point that it restricted his ability to travel and aggravated other health conditions. He died of a heart attack at his home in Hollywood, California, at age 70, on October 10, 1985. He had various projects underway, including a film adaptation of King Lear, The Orson Welles Magic Show and The Dreamers. His final interview had been recorded on the day of his death for The Merv Griffin Show; he died two hours later. The last film roles before Welles' death included voice work in the animated films The Enchanted Journey (1984) and The Transformers: The Movie (1986), along with on-screen work in Henry Jaglom's film Someone to Love (1987).


Unfinished projects

Welles' exile from Hollywood and reliance on independent production meant that many of his later projects were filmed piecemeal or were not completed. In the mid-1950s, Welles began work on the Cervantes' masterpiece Don Quixote, initially a commission from CBS television. Welles expanded the film to feature length, developing the screenplay to take Quixote and Sancho Panza into the modern age. Filming stopped with the death of Francisco Reiguera, the actor playing Quixote, in 1969. Orson Welles continued editing the film through the next few decades and had supposedly completed a rough cut in the mid 1970s. By his death however, the footage of many scenes had been lost around the world during Welles' travels. A search continues for Orson Welles' later edits and other missing footage, but they likely no longer exist. An incomplete version of the film was released in 1992.

In 1970 Welles began shooting The Other Side of the Wind, about the effort of a film director (played by John Huston) to complete his last Hollywood picture, and is largely set at a lavish party. Although in 1972 the film was reported by Welles as being "96% complete", the negative remained in a Paris vault until 2004, when Peter Bogdanovich (who also acted in the film) announced his intention to complete the production. Peter Bogdanovich is currently in the process of editing the footage, and it is scheduled to be completed and released through Showtime sometime in 2009. Some footage is included in the documentary Working with Orson Welles (1993).

Other unfinished projects include The Deep, an adaptation of Charles Williams' Dead Calm ?- abandoned in 1970 one scene short of completion due to the death of star Laurence Harvey ?- and The Big Brass Ring, the script of which was adapted and filmed by George Hickenlooper in 1999.

The 1995 documentary Orson Welles: One-Man Band, included on the Criterion Collection DVD release of F for Fake, features scenes from several of these unfinished projects, as well as footage from an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice starring Welles that was never aired due to vital footage being allegedly stolen; several short subjects such as the titular One-Man Band, a Monty Python-esque spoof in which Welles plays all but one of the characters (including two characters in drag); footage of Welles reading chapters from Moby-Dick; and a comedy skit taking place in a tailor shop and co-starring Charles Gray. One short, also included in the documentary, is a comedy routine in which Welles (filmed in the 1970s) plays a reporter interviewing a king, also played by Welles, but in footage shot in the 1960s; Welles finished the skit and edited it together years later. The documentary also includes two completed and edited sequences from the unreleased The Other Side of the Wind, and footage from an unbroadacast television pilot for a talk show (he is shown interviewing The Muppets and discussing his rationale for doing the talk show, which was produced in the round). The documentary is built around a college lecture given by Welles not long before his death, in which he displays frustration at being unable to complete so many projects. According to Oja Kodar, interviewed in the documentary, Welles always traveled with camera equipment and would shoot film whenever the mood struck him, even if there were no immediate prospects for commercial release of such material.


In popular culture

Welles has been portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio with his voice dubbed by Maurice LaMarche in Ed Wood and the 2005 short film Five Minutes, Mr Welles, Angus Macfadyen in Cradle Will Rock, Liev Schreiber in RKO 281, Jean Guerin in Heavenly Creatures, Danny Huston in the upcoming Fade to Black, Paul Shenar in The Night That Panicked America, Eric Purcell in Malice in Wonderland, John Candy in Second City Television, David Benson in the Doctor Who audio drama Invaders From Mars and the voice of Maurice LaMarche in various animation and films.
Welles' voice was featured on the 1987 re-release of the Alan Parsons Project album Tales of Mystery And Imagination. The dialogue used for the song "A Dream Within A Dream" was later re-released in its uncut and original entirety in 2007, on a 2 disk remastered version of the album.
Welles voiced original trailers for The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957, Star Wars in 1977, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979.
His last filmed appearance was on the television show Moonlighting. He recorded an introduction to an episode entitled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice," which was partially filmed in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Welles as the 16th greatest male star of all time.
He was the voice of Robin Masters, the famous writer and playboy in the TV series Magnum, P.I.. Welles's sudden death forced the character to be largely written out of the series.
An actor depicting Welles voice appears in an episode of the animated series, The Critic, "Welles" provides voicing in two advertisements; first a jug of cheap wine and secondly a type of green pea with which Welles walks off the camera muttering obsenitites.
Orsonwelles, a genus of linyphiid spiders from the Hawaiian Islands, was named in Welles' honor in 2002. Many species - like Orsonwelles othello, Orsonwelles macbeth, Orsonwelles falstaffius, Orsonwelles ambersonorum - are named after well-known characters played by the late actor.
A statue of Welles was recently unveiled in Split, Croatia. It was sculptured by Oja Kodar - Welles' companion during the final years of his life. [6]
Bright Lucifer, a song that appears on the Notes for "Holy Larceny" LP by UK musician Yo Zushi, is named after Welles's play of the same name.

George Clooney
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born George Timothy Clooney
May 6, 1961 (1961-05-06) (age 47)
Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Years active 1978-present
Spouse(s) Talia Balsam (1989-1993)
[show]Awards won
Academy Awards
Best Supporting Actor
2005 Syriana
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
2005 Syriana
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Best Ensemble - Drama Series
1997 ER
1998 ER
1999 ER
Other Awards
Saturn Award for Best Actor (film)
1996 From Dusk Till Dawn
NBR Award for Best Actor
2007 Michael Clayton

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, who gained fame as one of the lead doctors in the long-running television drama, ER (1994-99), as Anthony Edwards's character's best friend and partner, Dr. Douglas "Doug" Ross. He is best known for his subsequent rise as an "A-List" movie star in contemporary American cinema. Clooney has balanced his glamorous performances in big-budget blockbusters with work as a producer and director behind commercially riskier projects, as well as social and political activism. On January 31, 2008, the United Nations named Clooney a "Messenger of peace".[1][2]




Early life

Family

Clooney, an Irish American,[3] was born in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Bruce (née Warren), is a former pageant queen, while his father, Nick, is a journalist, anchorman, game show and American Movie Classics host, and - in later years - an aspiring politician from the state of Kentucky.[4]

Clooney also has an older sister, Delenia, one niece, Alison, and one nephew, Nicholas (aka Nick). His cousins include actors Miguel and Rafael Ferrer, who are the sons of his aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney, and actor José Ferrer. He is also related to another singer, Debby Boone, who married José and Rosemary's son, Gabriel Ferrer. From an early age, Clooney would hang around his father's sets, often participating in shows, where he proved to be a crowd favorite.


Education

Clooney began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky. Spending part of his childhood in Ohio, he attended St. Michael's School in Columbus, and the Western Row and St. Susanna schools, both in Mason. There he developed an interest in theater. Eventually, his parents moved to Augusta, Kentucky, where he went to Augusta High School and began his lead in several plays. Clooney has stated that he earned all A's and a B in school,[5] and was an enthusiastic baseball and basketball player. He tried out with the Cincinnati Reds in 1977 to play professional baseball, but was not offered a contract. He did not pass the first round of player cuts.[6]

Clooney attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981 and, very briefly, the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either.[6][7]


Career

Early roles

His first major role came in 1984 in the television medical comedy-drama E/R. Though it took place in a hospital, it should not be confused with ER, which Clooney more famously starred in a decade later. Additionally, he played a handyman on the series The Facts of Life. He played Bobby the detective on one episode of The Golden Girls. His first significant break was a semi-regular supporting role in the sitcom Roseanne, playing Roseanne Barr's overbearing boss Booker Brooks, followed by the role of a construction worker on Baby Talk and then as a sexy detective on Sisters. Clooney achieved stardom when he was selected to play Dr. Doug Ross on the hit NBC drama ER from 1994 to 1999. Clooney was also partnered with Deborah Leoni in their production company Mirador Entertainment.

Prior to his success on ER, he met Michael Riffenburg, a later close friend with whom he co-wrote Good Night, and Good Luck. Heslov was also the president of Section Eight Productions, Clooney and director Steven Soderbergh's production company. In August 2006, Clooney and Heslov started a new company: Smoke House. Clooney said in an interview that he was driving an RV through the country with Heslov, who, at the time, was getting over a broken engagement, when he got a phone call from his agent telling him that NBC just picked up ER for a full season. Clooney said, "I think I just got my career."[cite this quote]

It has been rumored that Clooney was the one to have circulated the videotape of Jesus vs. Santa (the video greeting card that gave birth to South Park) around the Los Angeles area in 1995.[8] The show's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, invited him to play a role in the show as the voice of Stan Marsh's gay dog Sparky in the episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", a role with no dialogue except normal dog noises. He later appeared in the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Despite their history, the show's creators, Parker and Stone, lampooned Clooney for his outspoken political views in their feature film Team America: World Police. However, Clooney later said that he would have been offended if he hadn't been made fun of in the film.[9] He was also mentioned in the episode "Smug Alert!", which mocks his acceptance speech at the 78th Academy Awards.


Initial success

Clooney continued to star in movies while appearing in ER, his first major Hollywood role being From Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez. He followed its success with One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer and The Peacemaker with Nicole Kidman, the latter being the initial feature length release from Dreamworks SKG studio. Clooney was then cast as the new Batman in Batman & Robin. In 1998, he starred in Out of Sight, opposite Jennifer Lopez. This was the first of many collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. He also starred in Three Kings during the last weeks of his contract with ER.

In 1999, Clooney left the cast of ER to pursue his film career full-time. He mentioned a few times that he would like to do a few cameos; to date, he has only done one.


Movie star

After leaving ER, Clooney starred in major Hollywood successes, such as The Perfect Storm and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. In 2001, he teamed up with Soderbergh again for Ocean's Eleven, a remake of the 1960s Rat Pack film of the same name. To this day, it remains Clooney's most commercially successful movie, earning approximately US$ 444,200,000 worldwide. The film spawned two sequels starring Clooney, Ocean's Twelve in 2004 and Ocean's Thirteen in 2007. In 2001, Clooney founded the production studio Smoke House with Steven Soderbergh.

He made his directorial debut in the 2002 film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, an adaptation of the autobiography of TV producer Chuck Barris. Though the movie didn't do well at the box office, Clooney's direction was praised among critics and audiences alike.

In 2005, Clooney starred in Syriana, which was based loosely on former Central Intelligence Agency agent Robert Baer and his memoirs of being an agent in the Middle East. The same year he directed, produced, and starred in Good Night, and Good Luck, a film about 1950s television journalist Edward R. Murrow's famous war of words with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Both films received critical acclaim and decent box-office returns despite being in limited release. At the 2006 Academy Awards, Clooney was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Syriana. He became the first person in Oscar history to be nominated for directing one movie and acting in another in the same year. He would go on to win for his role in Syriana. More recently, he appeared in The Good German, a film-noir directed by Soderbergh. The film is set in post-World War II Germany.

Clooney is one of only two people to have been given the title of "Sexiest Man Alive" twice by People Magazine, first in 1997 and again in 2006.[10] Clooney also received the American Cinematheque Award in October 2006, an award that honors an artist in the entertainment industry who has made "a significant contribution to the art of motion pictures".[11] On January 22, 2008, Clooney was nominated for Best Actor for his role in Michael Clayton, but lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood.

Clooney is self-deprecating in interviews, telling STV in April 2008 that Leatherheads, one of his lightest movies, is a "cry for peace"[12]. In the same interview, when asked about reconciling George Clooney the actor and George Clooney the director he said "there's a lot of ego there... so I just take it out on the actors."[13]

Clooney is represented by Bryan Lourd, Co-Chairman of Creative Artists Agency (CAA).


Other ventures

On July 8, 2005, news reports said that Clooney would be working with Cindy Crawford's husband Rande Gerber to design and build a new casino hotel in Las Vegas. On August 29, the same year, Clooney officially announced his involvement with the Las Ramblas Resort project.[14] However, the project never came to fruition, and the property on which the resort was to be built was sold in June 2006.

After serving as pitchman outside the U.S. for products like Fiat and Martini vermouth, Clooney lent his voice to a series of Budweiser ads beginning in 2005 (which were still running as of September 2007).[citation needed] In September 2007, Clooney was asked by an Italian journalist how he reconciled working in a Nestle advertisement for Nespresso with his criticism of multinational companies.[15]

After the success of Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney said, he plans to devote more of his energy to directing. He has said that the directing industry is "a great industry to grow old in."[cite this quote] Clooney directed the film Leatherheads, in which he also stars.


Personal life

Romantic relationships

Clooney has been married once, to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1993. He says he will never get married again nor have any children, but Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman each bet him $10,000 that he would be a father before he turned 40. They were both wrong, and each sent him a check. He returned the money, betting double or nothing that he won't have kids by age 50. [16] Clooney's girlfriend since mid-2007 is Fear Factor winner Sarah Larson.[17]


Clooney's father

Clooney's father, Nick Clooney, a politician, is noted for saying about himself:[cite this quote]

" I spent the first part of my life being referred to as Rosemary Clooney's brother, and now I am spending the last part of my life being referred to as George Clooney's dad. "


Illness and injury

Clooney suffered from Bell's palsy for a time while he was in high school.[18]

In 2004, Clooney injured himself on Syriana's set during a torture scene. He had some excruciating headaches and suffered short term memory loss. It took a few weeks for his doctors to find the reasons for his health problems. During The Good German's promotion (two years afterwards), he revealed that he still had to wear a back brace due to this injury.[19]

Never a heavy smoker, Clooney quit the habit at a very early stage. He says that at least eight or nine of his great-uncles and great-aunts died because of it.[citation needed]


2007 motorcycle accident

On September 21, 2007, Clooney and Sarah Larson were injured in a motorcycle accident in Weehawken, New Jersey. Clooney's motorcycle was hit by a car. The driver of the car reported that Clooney attempted to pass on the right,[20] while Clooney stated that the driver signaled left and then decided to make an abrupt right turn and clipped the motorcycle. Clooney suffered a broken rib and road rash; Larson broke two toes. Both were treated and released from the Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, New Jersey.[21] Then on October 9, 2007, more than two dozen hospital staff members were suspended without pay for looking at Clooney's medical records in violation of federal law.[22] Clooney himself quickly issued a statement on the hospital records matter, saying no one should be punished. He said "This is the first I've heard of it. And while I very much believe in a patient's right to privacy, I would hope that this could be settled without suspending medical workers."[23]


Pets

Clooney had a 280 pounds (130 kg) Vietnamese black bristled, pot-bellied pig, named Max, that had lived with him for eighteen years. Max died on December 1, 2006.[24] He also had two bulldogs, named Bud and Lou, after the famous comedy team Abbott and Costello. Both of the dogs have since died, one from a rattlesnake attack.[25]


Leatherheads Controversy

It was reported on April 4, 2008 in Variety Magazine that George Clooney had quietly resigned from the Writer's Guild of America over controversy surrounding Leatherheads. Clooney, who is the director, producer, and star of the film, stated that he had contributed in writing, "all but two scenes," of the film and requested a writing credit, along Duncan Brantley and Rick Reiley, who had been working on the project for 17 years. In an arbitration vote, Clooney lost 2-1 and ultimately decided to withdraw from the union over the decision. Clooney is now technically a "financial core status" nonmember, meaning he loses his voting rights, and cannot run for office or attend membership meetings, according to the WGA's constitution. He must continue to pay his dues, but gets a break on "non-germane" WGA activities, such as political and lobbying efforts. His decision is also irrevocable. Beforehand, Clooney was an active member of the WGA, even receiving an Academy Award-nomination for writing Good Night and Good Luck. It is unclear what Clooney's future will hold as far as screenwriting goes.[26]


Politics

Clooney is a self-described political liberal. Speaking about the Iraq war: "You can't beat your enemy anymore through wars; instead you create an entire generation of people seeking revenge. These days it only matters who's in charge. Right now that's us ?- for a while at least. Our opponents are going to resort to car bombs and suicide attacks because they have no other way to win.... I believe (Rumsfeld) thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can't beat anyone anymore."[27]

Clooney is noted for his public criticisms of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. On January 16, 2006, during his acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Syriana, Clooney paused to sarcastically thank Abramoff before adding, "Who would name their kid Jack with the word ?'off' at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up!"[28]

There has been movement to try to convince Clooney to run for political office in his home state of Kentucky, including talk of a Clooney candidacy for US Senate against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2008.[29] In response, Clooney has said: "Run for office? No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties."[30]

Clooney supports Barack Obama for a 2008 presidential run.[31]


Save Darfur

Clooney is active in advocating a resolution of the Darfur conflict.[32] His efforts include an episode of Oprah and speaking at the Save Darfur rally in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2006.

In 2006, he was involved in several events to highlight the issue. In April, he spent ten days in Chad and Sudan with his father to make a film in order to show the dramatic situation of Darfur's refugees. In September, he spoke in front of the Security Council of the U.N. with Nobel Prize-winner Elie Wiesel to ask the U.N. to find a solution to the conflict and to help the people of Darfur.[33] In December, he made a trip to China and Egypt with Don Cheadle and two Olympic winners to ask both governments to pressure Sudan's government.[34]

Clooney is involved with Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities, along with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub.[35] He narrated and was co-executor producer of the documentary Sand and Sorrow.[36]

On March 25, 2007, he sent an open letter to German chancellor Angela Merkel, calling on the European Union to take "decisive action" in the region in the face of Omar al-Bashir's failure to respond to the U.N. resolutions.[37]

Clooney also appears in the documentary film Darfur Now, a call to action film for people all over the world to help stop the ongoing crisis in Darfur. The film was released on November 2, 2007.

On December 13, 2007, Clooney and fellow actor Don Cheadle were presented with the Summit Peace Award by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates at the 8th Annual Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome. In his acceptance speech Clooney said that he and Cheadle "Don and I…stand here before you as failures. The simple truth is that when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur…those people are not better off now than they were years ago."[38][39]

On January 18, 2008, the United Nations announced Clooney's appointment as a United Nations messenger of peace, effective from January 31.[1][2]


Environmentalism

Clooney is an environmentalist, owning the first Tango car to be sold.[40] Clooney made a deposit on a Tesla Roadster from Tesla Motors. It is a battery electric sportscar with a 250-mile (402 km) range. He will be among the first 100 owners.[41]


Charlton Heston controversy

Clooney stirred up controversy for remarks he made about Charlton Heston at a 2003 National Board of Review event. "Charlton Heston announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's." (Heston had publicly announced his diagnosis the previous year.[42])

When asked if he went too far with his remarks, Clooney responded, "I don't care. Charlton Heston is the head of the National Rifle Association; he deserves whatever anyone says about him." [43]

Heston himself commented, "It just goes to show that sometimes class does skip a generation," referring to Clooney's late aunt, Rosemary Clooney. [44]

Heston further commented on the Clooney joke: "I don't know the man ?- never met him, never even spoken to him, but I feel sorry for George Clooney ?- one day he may get Alzheimer's disease. I served my country in World War II. I survived that ?- I guess I can survive some bad words from this fellow".[45]

Clooney said he subsequently apologized to Heston in a letter, and that he received a positive response from Heston's wife.[5]

Smart Dog


A butcher is working, and really busy. He notices a dog in his shop and shoos him away. Later, he notices the dog is back again. He walks over to the dog, and notices the dog has a note in his mouth. The butcher takes the note, and it reads, "Can I have 12 sausages and a leg of lamb, please."

The butcher looks, and lo and behold, in the dog's mouth, there is a ten dollar bill. So the butcher takes the money, puts the sausages and lamb in a bag, and places it in the dog's mouth. The butcher is very impressed, and since it's closing time, he decides to close up shop and follow the dog.

So, off he goes. The dog is walking down the street and comes to a crossing. The dog puts down the bag, jumps up and presses the crossing button. Then he waits patiently, bag in mouth, for the lights to change. They do, and he walks across the road, with the butcher following.

The dog then comes to a bus stop, and starts looking at the timetable. The butcher is in awe at this stage. The dog checks out the times, and sits on one of the seats to wait for the bus.

Along comes a bus. The dog walks to the front of the bus, looks at the number, and goes back to his seat. Another bus comes. Again the dog goes and looks at the number, notices it's the right bus, and climbs on.

The butcher, by now open-mouthed, follows him onto the bus. The bus travels thru town and out to the suburbs. Eventually the dog gets up, moves to the front of the bus, and standing on his hind legs, pushes the button to stop the bus. The dog gets off, groceries still in his mouth, and the butcher still following.

They walk down the road, and the dog approaches a house. He walks up the path, and drops the groceries on the step. Then he walks back down the path, takes a big run, and throws himself -whap!- against the door. He goes back down the path, takes another run, and throws himself -whap!- against the door again!

There's no answer at the door, so the dog goes back down the path, jumps up on a narrow wall, and walks along the perimeter of the garden. He gets to a window, and bangs his head against it several times. He walks back, jumps off the wall, and waits at the door. The butcher watches as a big guy opens the door, and starts laying into the dog, really yelling at him.

The butcher runs up and stops the guy. "What the heck are you doing? This dog is a genius. He could be on TV, for God's sake!"

To which the guy responds, "Clever, my ass. This is the second time this week he's forgotten his key!"

Thanks, Bob. Good bio's today.

Love this one by George, and it's the best lip sync that I have ever seen, folks.

(just ignore the glitches)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krwywj_gIjk&feature=related

Incidentally, all. Only Raggedy will know why I am playing this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A30UXHw2Y40