Michael Parkinson on Orson Welles

[Jim Spriggs]

Hello, first time poster.
Just read an article by the English chat-show king Michael Parkinson who interviewed Welles and mentions him in today's British newspaper "Daily
Mail". Here is an excerpt.

Booking the show grew easier as word got around, but we were still searching for the big star to impress the agents. Our ideal was Orson Welles, then a man of towering reputation in the world of movies and theatre.

We were certain he would deliver a performance that would impress the critics, delight the audience and, most of all, convince our bosses to give us another series.

Richard Drewett, a tenacious booker, finally managed to persuade him to come on the show and I spent a week or more worrying and fretting over the structure of the interview. It was our first one-man show and it had to work.

Come the day, I was still fussing over the interview when there was a knock on my dressing-room door. I opened it and came face to face with Orson Welles - an enormous figure, blocking out the daylight.

'Mr Parkinson?' he said, as he swept past me into the room. He was dressed entirely in black - including a black shirt, black bow tie and a black fedora.

He looked around the room and saw my questions on the dressing table. 'May I?' he asked, and gave them the brief sweep of his gaze. Then he looked at me and said: 'How many talk shows have you done?'

I told him this was the eighth. 'I've done rather more than that,' he said. 'That being the case, would you mind a little suggestion?'

I nodded. He indicated the questions. 'Throw those away and let's just talk.'

And we did. Everything from the making of Citizen Kane to the innate good manners of peasants in a remote part of Spain. He was exceptional, not just in the scope of his intellect and knowledge, but in his use of language.

[Glenn Anders]

Welcome, Jim.

And thank you for Michael Parkinson's memoir of his first meeting Orson Welles. What he tells us adds to the impression that Welles, from early on in his career, preferred to appear casual, both in his best work, and in his public appearances, in order to modulate the heavy weight of his voice, appearance and style. Certainly, by the 1970, all three qualities were no longer so appreciated as they had been in the 1930's and 1940's.

Glenn