George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wis., on May 6, 1915, the son of Richard Head Welles, an inventor and manufacturer, and of the former Beatrice Ives. His mother was dedicated to the theater, and Welles said he made his debut at 2 as the child of ”Madame Butterfly” in an opera performance.

Chiefly to provide its actors with steady income, the company signed up with CBS Radio as the Mercury Theater of the Air. Its acting, dramatic tension and inventive use of sound effects set new highs in radio theater.

On Oct. 30, 1938, the Mercury Theater of the Air presented a dramatization of H. G. Wells’s ”War of the Worlds,” in the form of news bulletins and field reporting from the scene of a supposed Martian invasion of New Jersey. It was an event unique in broadcast history, frequently recalled in books, magazine articles and repeat performances.

Many thousands of listeners tuned in after the introduction, heard the music interrupted by flash bulletins and panicked. Some armed themselves and prepared to fight the invaders; many more seized a few belongings and fled for the hills. Police switchboards around the country were flooded with calls.

Despite the feeling of many that his career – which evoked almost constant controversy over its 50 years -was one of largely unfulfilled promise, Welles eventually won the respect of his colleagues. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Film Institute in 1975, and last year the Directors Guild of America gave him its highest honor, the D. W. Griffith Award.

His unorthodox casting and staging for the theater gave new meaning to the classics and to contemporary works. His Mercury Theater of the Air set new standards for radio drama, and in one performance panicked thousands across the nation.

By age 24, he was already being described by the press as a has-been – a cliche that would dog him all his life. But at that very moment Welles was creating ”Citizen Kane,” generally considered one of the best motion pictures ever made. This scenario was repeated several times. His second film, ”The Magnificent Ambersons,” was poorly received, but is now also regarded as a classic, although the distributors re-edited it and Welles never liked the result. ”Falstaff” and ”Touch of Evil,” two of his later films, were also changed by others before their release.

For his failure to realize his dreams, Welles blamed his critics and the financiers of Hollywood. Others blamed what they described as his erratic, egotistical, self-indulgent and self-destructive temperament. But in the end, few denied his genius.

Welles inspired harsh criticism, yet most people felt that even his most unsuccessful, most self-indulgent works all had some feature, some turn that was memorable. There were no dissenters when, at the dedication of a Theater Hall of Fame in New York 1n 1972, his name was among the first to be chosen.

SOURCE: New York Times