Vintage Hunk: Orson Welles

Orson Welles is a legendary name in film history. He was a great director whose first film Citizen Kane is often listed as the greatest American film ever made. Unfortunately many people only remember the later fat Welles hawking wine on TV. As Vanity Fair put it in their 2002 article on the making of the great Welles film maudit The Magnificent Ambersons: "...rotund raconteur of Merv Grffin appearances and Paul Masson wine commercials, an entertaining has been, forever trying to scrounge up financing from European film companies and individual investors for some pet project that, in the end, wouldn't come off."

But Orson Welles the movie actor is often forgotten. The decade of the '40s not only saw Welles as brilliant director but a sexy leading man who also happened to be married (for a while) to the reigning cinema love goddess Rita Hayworth - Gilda herself. He was a wildly uneven actor whose bravura often overshadowed his co-stars and the films themselves. When he was on screen you could not take your eyes off him—and for more than just his visual appearance. His melodious voice alone was sexy as hell and until he became grotesquely overweight and resigned to character roles, Welles was a very credible vintage hunk.

Born in 1915, Welles blazed an amazing career on Broadway and radio, including the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast that genuinely frightened listeners who believed it was really happening. So at age 26 Welles was given carte blanche from RKO to make his first film with control over everything including the final cut. This rarely happens today but in 1941 it was a miracle. Welles not only directed Citizen Kane but starred in the title role and received co-credit with Herman J. Mankiewicz for the script. Unfortunately, as Kane was a thinly-veiled study of newspaper tycoon William Randolf Hearst, the film ran into an maelstrom of controversy with Hearst even offering RKO one million dollars to burn the negative. With its brilliant acting, cinematography, and direction Citizen Kane did receive rapturous reviews even though it did not make much money. As Charles Foster Kane, Welles ages from young man to a balding old man. It was a brilliant performance. He was nominated for Best Actor and Director, and the picture was the favorite to win all the other major awards. But the Hearst backlash kicked in and John Ford's lovely sentimental How Green Was My Valley won all the awards Kane should have won. Mankiewicz and Welles did win the Best Original Screenplay but the Academy was honoring Mankiewicz, not Welles.

Welles followed Kane with perhaps his greatest film, the much maligned The Magnificent Ambersons. He directed and narrated this classic story of the rise and fall of a mid-western family at the turn of the century. But after a disastrous preview in Pomona, RKO took the film and hacked chunks of it (now lost forever) and shot a phony happy ending. The 88-minute result still contains a number of great set pieces and the brilliant performance by Agnes Moorehead who won the New York Film Critics Best Actress Award, but the film was a financial disaster and RKO cancelled the Welles' deal.

For the next 5 years Welles only appeared as an actor but his florid performances (okay, almost "hammy") in Jane Eyre with Joan Fontaine and Tomorrow Is Forever with Claudette Colbert made him a credible popular leading man. Welles was brilliant with the young Natalie Wood playing his German ward in Tomorrow Is Forever. It was 7-year-old Wood's first real movie role and Welles later stated, "She was so good she was terrifying."

In 1943 Welles married superstar Rita Hayworth. "Beauty and the Brain" was the typical headline of this tempestuous romance, and their marriage would lead to one of the greatest films in Hollywood history: Lady from Shanghai. Welles had previously been allowed to direct 1946's The Stranger, which had been a commercial hit, and convinced Harry Cohn of Columbia (where Hayworth was under contract) to let him star and direct Lady from Shanghai. Now estranged from Hayworth, Welles deconstructed the Hayworth image by cutting off her long tresses, dying them blond, and making her a calculating murderess. Lady from Shanghai was a commercial disaster and lots of it was cut and reedited, but it is the best film Hayworth ever made and the shootout in the fun house hall of mirrors is one of the greatest set pieces in film history. As a leading man Welles was already getting a bit heavy and his Irish accent was more than a bit overdone, but Lady from Shanghai is still a masterpiece.

A few more flops like his low-budget Macbeth and his brilliant Othello followed. Then Welles' last great role as a sexy leading man came in the Carol Reed classic The Third Man. Filmed in the post-war rubble of Vienna, Welles was spellbinding as the evil Harry Lime. He has even been credited as writing his own great set piece, which is the best scene in the film: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!"

Unfortunately, the 1950s brought Welles money problems and he was getting fat. Really fat. He was forced to take any number of supporting roles to pay the bills. One last great chance at directing a Hollywood mainstream film came when star Charlton Heston insisted Welles not only co-star in Touch of Evil but also direct. The film is considered a noir classic but it was not a great hit when released, and a lot of editing was done without his permission. Plus, he was so grotesquely overweight that Marlene Dietrich (in a cameo role) states, "You're a mess honey, you should lay off those candy bars!"

The rest of Welles' career was filled with unrealized projects and attempts to get movies made. He did direct two late masterpieces, The Trial and Chimes at Midnight, in the '60s but few saw them. Welles' final years were spent doing TV commercials and being lionized by young directors who were quick to latch onto Welles the legend, but not too quick to help him with any real financing.

Welles died in 1985. He was only 70 years old. There is so much regret in looking at the long career of this icon. What if Kane had been a giant hit and won all the Oscars? What if Ambersons had not been butchered by the studio? What if Welles could have made the movies he wanted? To these we have know answers, but it's clear that what remains are five of the greatest films ever made plus the presence of a man who had charisma to burn as an actor. In the 1940s there was no actor more mesmerizing than Orson Welles. Maybe not the greatest, but he was certainly the most watchable.