Welles, (George) Orson

Welles, (George) Orson (1915–85), American actor and director, a forceful and idiosyncratic personality who had a stormy and spectacular career in both the theatre and the cinema. He made his first professional appearance at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 1931, playing the Duke of Württemberg in Feuchtwanger's Jew Süss, and in 1933–4 was with Katharine Cornell, playing Mercutio and later Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Marchbanks in Shaw's Candida, and Octavius in Besier's The Barretts of Wimpole Street. He next collaborated with John Houseman, first as an actor in Archibald MacLeish's Panic (1935) and then in the Federal Theatre Project, for which he directed several controversial productions including the ‘voodoo’ Macbeth in 1936 and Marlowe's Dr Faustus in 1937, in which he also appeared. Finally he partnered Houseman in the running of the Mercury Theatre (see COMEDY THEATRE, New York). In 1939 he was seen as Falstaff in his own adaptation of Shakespeare's historical plays under the title Five Kings. He then turned his attention to the cinema, but returned to New York in 1941 to direct Paul Green's Native Son and in 1946 to direct and play in Around the World, his own adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, with songs by Cole Porter. He made his first appearance in London as Othello in 1951, and was seen there again in 1955 in Melville's Moby Dick, which he adapted, directed, and designed. In 1956 he directed and played the title-role in King Lear in New York, and in Dublin in 1960 re-created the role of Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, his own adaptation of Henry IV and Henry V. He also designed and directed the London production of Ionesco's Rhinoceros, with Olivier, in the same year, and in 1962 his adaptation of Moby Dick was seen in New York. He then concentrated on films.