Then, at twenty-four, Welles signed a Hollywood contract granting him unprecedented freedom as a writer, director, producer, and star-paving the way for the creation of Citizen Kane, considered by many to be the greatest film in history.ĭrawing on years of deep research, acclaimed biographer Patrick McGilligan conjures the young man’s Wisconsin background with Dickensian richness and detail: his childhood as the second son of a troubled industrialist father and a musically gifted, politically active mother his youthful immersion in theater, opera, and magic in nearby Chicago his teenage sojourns through rural Ireland, Spain, and the Far East and his emergence as a maverick theater artist. After founding the Mercury Theatre, he mounted a radio production of The War of the Worlds that made headlines internationally. At twenty, he directed a landmark all-black production of Macbeth in Harlem, and the following year masterminded the legendary WPA production of Marc Blitzstein’s agitprop musical The Cradle Will Rock. By nineteen, he had published a book on Shakespeare and toured the United States. At the age of sixteen, he charmed his way into a precocious acting debut in Dublin’s Gate Theatre. No American artist or entertainer has enjoyed a more dramatic rise than Orson Welles. McGilligan’s Orson is a Welles for a new generation, in tune with Patti Smith’s Just Kids.”-A.
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