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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 number of listeners to panic. In the mid-1930s, his New York theatre adaptations of 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 he was voted as the greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute's poll of Top Ten Directors.^[1][2]

[edit] External links

• Orson Welles bibliography (via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)
• Orson Welles The Orson Welles OTR Archives
• War Of The Worlds history of the War Of The Worlds radio broadcast and additional historical material on War Of The Worlds
• Mercury Theatre on the Air website provides MP3 and Real Audio files of Welles' radio dramas
• Nazi Eyes On Canada, starring Orson Welles, 1942 CBC war loan series
• Wellesnet The Orson Welles Web Resource
• The Magnificent Ambersons a site that details the strange saga of Welles' second film
• The Unseen Welles a guide to Welles' unfinished and unreleased projects
• The Orson Welles collection at the Lilly Library, Indiana University
• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Orson Welles' Photo & Gravesite
• New York Times Obituary
• UBU Web's 365 Days Project Outtake from Welles' Frozen Peas commercial.
• Orson Welles - The One Man Band (German documentary, 1995) Full.avi download
• Orson Wells The Wisconsin Historical Society