Orson Welles and the FTPJon Zellar
When becoming familiar with the life of Orson Welles, one should not take Welles’s own autobiographical history as set truth. Welles was well known for exaggerating accounts of his own life. Many of these fictional accounts of his life that he helped create tend to surface in the many books written recounting his life. Like other famous actors and directors before him, Welles felt the need to put forth an air of mystery around all that he did. He wanted to appear larger than life. All of this considered, Welles did lead nothing short of an extraordinary life. George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1915. His father, Richard Head Welles was a wealthy factory owner. Welles’s mother, Beatrice Ives Welles, was a woman of high society at the time. Not only was she beautiful, but she was also greatly involved in society and the arts. Welles’s parent were well know travelers who made many affluent friends around the world (Encarta, 1). Under the glossy exterior, however, the Welles family had many problems. Orson Welles had a younger brother whom is very seldomly mentioned in recounting Welles’s life. His brother was said to be considered a disappointment within the family, and he would go on to be expelled from the Todd School, where Welles would later attend, before spending time in and out of mental institutions for the rest of his life. Welles’s father would later turn to alcoholism, and in the end Beatrice had nothing of hope left in the family but Orson. Starting at a very young age Beatrice would read Shakespeare to Orson and teach him to play the piano, giving him many creative outlets as a very young man. In school, Welles began to write, direct, and star in his own plays. After some time, this behavior began to catch the attention of local newspapers who were quick to dub Welles a prodigy (McBride, 34). When Orson Welles turned six, his parents divorced and his mother took him and moved to Chicago where she continued to immerse him in opera, theatre and the arts. A few years later, Beatrice would die unexpectedly and leave Orson in the care of a family friend, Dr. Maurice Bernstien. At the age of fifteen Welles’s father would die of complications of his alcoholism. With no direct family left, Bernstien packed Orson’s bags and sent him off to school at the prestigious Todd School. Welles’s immediately fell under the direct tutelage of his headmaster, Roger Hill, and would spend much of his time at the school writing, producing, and starring in his own plays with the encouragement of Hill. Bernstein didn’t, however, approve of Welles’s growing interest in the theatre, and, in turn, took him out of the Todd School to pack him off to Ireland, hoping Welles would get a taste of the world and forget all about the theatre (Sicker, 2). Upon reaching Ireland, however, things would not go as Bernstien had planned. Welles, upon reaching Dublin, would gravitate immediately towards the Gate Theatre. Posing as a famous Broadway actor, Welles auditioned at the Gate for Hilton Edwards and Michael MacLiammoir. Although these men saw through his ploy and Welles himself was unimpressed with his audition, the men were impressed with his bold manner and self assured style. That day Welles became a member of the Gate Theatre. For the next few years Welles would act in Ireland and England, but after some time began to have troubles obtaining a work permit, and he was forced to return to the Midwest (Encarta, 2). After returning to the Midwest, Welles
would spend some time making a name for himself while touring with a road
company under the leadership of Katherine Cornell. After a brief
stint with this road show, Welles would team up with John Houseman on the
Federal Theatre Project in New York. Welles work within the FTP held
many wild successes, including the staging of the Negro version of Macbeth
that won much critical acclaim. Soon, however, right-wing political
figures began to protest the project, even though the plays at the time
had very little political bearing. In 1937, Welles and Houseman would
meat Marc Blitzstein during some open auditions and subsequently decide
to stage his new play. A contemporary folk style opera, The Cradle
Will Rock, is set amidst a steel strike characterizing greedy capitalists,
crooked policemen, idyllic unioneers, and a good natured prostitute.
During rehearsals, a violent labor strike began to spread about parts of
the Untied States, while members of congress began to attack the patriotism
of the WPA. WPA director, Henry Hopkins, fearing the political repercussions
of the production, shut down The Cradle Will Rock. Welles rushed
to Washington to plead for a reversal of the decision to ban the production,
but he met with no success. Upon returning to New York, Welles and
Houseman secured a new theatre to stage the play, the Venice Theatre.
The entire cast and audience marched the twenty blocks to the new forum.
There, Blitzstein sits alone at a piano and begins the performance, for
union rules prohibited the Equity performers from taking part in a non-sanctioned
performance. In the end, however, most of the actors would begin
to voice their parts from their seats and the entire production would be
a hit (Sicker, 2).
Encarta. “Welles, (George) Orson”
Encarta Encyclopedia (1999)
McBride, Joseph. Orson Welles. Viking Press: New York, 1972 Naremore, James. The Magic World
of Orson Welles. Oxford University Press: New York, 1978
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