Booked into the Auditorium Theater in Chicago in the 1930s, Orson Welles was confronted by a snowstorm of historic proportions. Most of his audience couldn’t make it to the theater.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you?”
Welles explains how psychics tell fortunes
Transcript of his famous radio broadcast about Martians landing in New Jersey. It was structured to sound like real news bulletins, and many listeners believed it lock, stock and barrel.
A drunken Welles does a wine commercial
Here is the famous audio recording of Welles working with a British advertising agency to record a commercial for Frozen Peas. The animation isn’t needed. All you need to do is listen.
Click here for Orson Welles.org. a magnificently well-presented site on Welles’ life and career. That’s where I found the image at top, of a 16-year-old Welles having talked his way into a theatrical career in Dublin. On his opening night, he recalled, “I received all the applause I needed for a life.”
