Orson Welles

Orson Welles


     The term 'genius' was applied to him from the cradle, first by the man

who would vie with Orson's father to nurture the talent all agreed resided in

the fragile boy.(Leaming, 3)

     George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin on May 6, 1915. He

was the second son of Richard Head Welles, an inventor, and his wife Beatrice

Ives, a concert pianist.  His mother was the child of a wealthy family.  She had

been brought up to revere artistic achievements, and began playing the piano,

professionally, only after her marriage broke up when Orson was six.  A local

doctor, Russian-Jewish orthopedist named Maurice Bernstein, who was a passionate

admirer of Mrs. Welles, on first sight of the infant Orson declared him to be

without a doubt a genius.  Bernstein showered Orson with gifts and virtually

took over the direction of his life, to such an extent that Orson called him

'Dadda'. When Orson was four, his father moved his family to Chicago, possibly

to get away from Bernstein's attentions.  This plan failed when Bernstein almost

immediately followed them.  Through Bernstein who was always forcing him to

perform, and through his mother musical talents, the young Orson quickly came

into contact with Chicago's musical society and walked on in the Chicago Opera's

production of 'Samson and Delilah', then in a more important role of Butterfly's

love-child Trouble in 'Madame Butterfly'.  He also got a temporary job dressed

up as a rabbit at Marshall Fields.

     Shortly after Orson's sixth birthday his parent's formally separated,

his father taking off and his mother remaing to pursue her music ambitions in

Chicago.  Welles live most of his time with his mother and Dadda Bernstein, but

regularly traveled with his father on holidays.

     His health effectively kept him out of school until he was eleven, so he

had acquired a lot of cultural groundings at home with his mother and the doctor.

 Fears that he might prove ungovernable like his brother Richard, who had been

expelled from school by the age of ten and subsequently banished from home,

brought him in 1926 to enrollment in the Todd School for Boys at Woodstock,

Illinois, a few months after his mothers death from a liver condition at the age

of forty-three.  The school was ideally equipped for the nurturing of a young

wayward genius.(Taylor)  It was run by the proprietor, a terror rejoicing in the

name as 'the King'.

     Todd School had something of a tradition in drama, though mainly

lightweight revues, nativity plays and such.  In this department Orson soon got

his own way.  He was before long adapting, directing and starring in:  'Doctor

Faustus', 'Everyman', 'Le Medicin Malgre Lui', 'Julius Caesar' with Orson as

Cassius, 'Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde', with OThis is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now!


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