What was wrong with Orson's beard?

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

I don't know why people had a fit when Orson Welles first grew a beard. He was a man, for crimany sakes.

What was he supposed to grow. BOOBS!

I guess that might the real reason that they shot president Lincoln.

And what was the deal when he got over weight. SO HE DID! And the problem was?

Many of other famous actors were over-weight too. That doesn't change who they were when they were not over-weight.

I think on the beard part. It was plain jealousy. He looked good, even better than some people did, in a beard. And he knew it. So, he kept it.

I don't know??? I guess that's why you guys are here.

Bye now!

[Jeff Wilson]

Welles was already unpopular in Hollywood due to his unprecedented contract with RKO, and beards weren't exactly hot fashion back then. How many stars can you think of with them back then? So it was part jealousy , and part Welles' fashion rebellion, I daresay. As for his weight gain, overweight people have been mocked for ages, so Welles, the former genius, being overweight, was seen to be just another sign of his "failure".

[Welles Fan]

I agree that beards were considered the province of professors and other "intellectuals". Since Welles was thought by many to be something of an over-intellectual elitist wunderkind in his younger days in Hollywood, that is probably why his beard annoyed some people.

Also, I have heard radio comedy broadcasts from the 40's in which Welles himself jokes about his constant weight battle.

[Jeff Wilson]

I've heard those broadcasts as well, and the sad thing was, he wasn't even that large at that point. A big guy, sure, but hardly obese, compared to the later years.

[jaime marzol]

i think it was in the frank brady book i read that when the beard controversy in the 40's was going on a group of beverly hills interior decorators voted him ham of the year and sent him a ham with a beard.

even the gays hated him!

[R Kadin]

As we know, slagging Welles had grown to become a fairly popular pasttime; so, almost anything he did became fodder for his critics. One probable reason the beard and the girth excited specific comment was that Welles had been marketed not only as a wunderkind initially but also as a bona fide "glamour puss", an image there is reason to believe made him uncomfortable (pretty evident in Citizen Kane, for example, where he appears at his most self-conscious portraying the character unblemished and close to his own chronological age). Let's also remember we're talking the man who landed no less than Rita Hayworth; so the glamour connection was very much a part of OW's overall aura.

Both the physical changes you mention were such a marked departure from all this that they were bound to prompt unfavourable reactions. But Welles was always struggling to break free of the image of the baby-faced, overgrown kid that been dogging him since his early days. He often referred to himself as having been born a middle-aged male in an infant's body. A beard and a spreading waistline would sure help project a more mature profile - and they would hardly get in the way of that legendary appetite.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Was he ever as disgustingly fat as, say, his Hank Quinlan and Falstaff characters? Or Marlon Brando? Judging by F for Fake, he seemed to carry his weight in a rather dignified, Ernest Hemingwayish kind of way. Plus he was pretty tall, and the Naremore book notes that he was never the most graceful person to begin with (qv the "dancing" in the Citizen Kane party scene).

His roles may have given people a counter impression, but Welles "the man" always seemed like a really classy guy.

[R Kadin]

Jaime, on the matter of OW's own size versus that of the characters he was playing, here's an exercise you might find interesting: take a look at him in "The Long Hot Summer" and "Touch of Evil" which both have a 1958 release date. Big apparent difference.

[jaime marzol]

rkadin:
i haven't seen the long hot summer in years, i just remember welles having a sort of wax figure complexion, and doing a lot of yelling. will have to check it out again.

in touch of evil he was padded, i have read in several publications, the number of pounds the padding was supposed to add was 80. he had a hump on his back, add-on double chin, pads over cheecks, puffy eye stuff, belly padding, etc. i have some TOE behind the scenes pics, and some pics of him directing DON Q. he was still quite distingushed looking, quite handsome.

in MAN IN THE SHADOWS he was of normal size. though his weight did seem to ballon over short periods of time.

however, the book as i handed it to mike (steeler on this board), and i'm sure he's following the same path, i took our english friend's road, the anti-american path of not focusing on his problem with size. in america we (they) seem to associate his size with failure.

i greatly admire thames, the bbc, american masters. lesley megahey is a god. bbc did 3 hrs on welles and never once mentioned food.

the american made documentary, WHAT WENT WWRONG, had, what is it, 48 minutes with commercial time taken out? they had 48 minutes to present the life of one of the most dynamic men of the 20th century, who's career spanned six decades, made history in the theater, in radio, and in films. 48 minutes to cover 6 decades, and they spent about 8 minutes discussing his eating habits.

and then of course, joan rivers made a healthy living for a few years kicking around welles, and elizabeth taylor. and the public tuned in every night and laughed and cheered.

nothing is sacred.

at this moment, mike desperately needs a source where they go into some detail about what was used make-up wise to create quinlan. does any one know of such a source?

[jaime marzol]

in falstaff welles was already large, then couple it with his mania for hiding himself under padding, he bacame a huge falstaff.

all the pictures , and documentaies i have he was always quite dashing, and dignified looking. quinlan was a greasy, ugly pile of goo. welles never became quinlan.

[Jaime N. Christley]

I knew he never "became" Quinlan or anything like that. It was more or less a rhetorical question.

[R Kadin]

Jaime M... while this is hardly a final solution to what your bud is looking for re makeup for TOE, the link below takes you to a brief bio for Bud Westmore, the makeup artist who really helped pull "Quinlan" off. Fascinating artist in his own right, really, with credits the spanned the classic Universal monster flicks through The Creature from the Black Lagoon and even TV's the Munsters.
Hollywood.com

Maybe he can use the info there to lead him closer to what he needs?

[jaime marzol]

thanks rkadin, will check out the link.

yeah, the westmores worked for one of the studios for years. there was a whole dynasty of them. bud westmore, then there was perc westmore. then i think there was abraham, martin, and john westmore.

yeah, alot of those guys were artists in their own right. working for a system that offered them a steady paycheck, but no riches. like jack pierce, who came up with frankenstein, the mummy, the wolfman, and countless others

a lot of people don't appreciate what it takes to make a monster. i was involved once in the creation of a monster. actually i photographd the process; those guys that made the monter had to be artists, they had to sculpt in clay, pour plaster to make molds (the negative), pour latex to make body panels (the positive), work with fiberglass, had to have machine shop experience, had to weld, shape things with hammers and tin snips. had to work with lots of plastic tubing, syringes, raw liver, cottenballs dipped in goober jelly peanut butter mess, eggwhites, gatorade, imported slyme, karo syrup. they had to know how to work with rc engines, soder, do electical wiring, just to name a few of the elements that were involved. and work pleasently with irrrate actors.

these guys, before this job, had designed the special effects for the film, The Unholy. One of the monsters they made for The Unholy was 24 feet tall, it was like a puppet. The Unholy had production problems, and that great looking monster didn't make the cut. where do you get parts for a 24 foot monster?
sorry, jaime n. c., i thought you were asking a question.

[R Kadin]

Jaime M, more on this Westmore/TOE thing and the monster connection:

Looking in on the man's life and work, I think it's fair to say that, in order for something to resonate with Welles, it generally had to work on multiple levels. It was an intuitive thing with him, like an audible "click", when the fit was right.

One of OW's passions was stage/movie makeup. As with his cinematographers, Welles would have been apt to choose his makeup collaborators knowledgeably and with care. So, why Bud Westmore for TOE? Because the studio assigned him? Uh, no; I doubt that.

How's this for a thought, instead? In 1954, Welles's Mercury Theater ally, William Alland, produced that Universal classic, "The Creature from the Black Lagoon". Who "created" the creature? Bud Westmore, by then also well-known for his other work, as noted above.

Now, let's remember that, with TOE, we're talking Universal studios, a place that owed much to its monster movies. And we're also talking the 1950's, infamous for another generation of monster flicks, courtesy of American International Pictures and the like ( "I Was a Teenage Werewolf", etc.). Think Welles, with his penchant for lurid, scary stories (by one account he even believed his paternal grandmother to have practised the occult), do we think he would have been too high-flown to have seen all these goings on? Was he oblivious to his (once very close) colleague's success a few years earlier with "The Creature"? Nuh-uh.

Which, then, brings me (finally!) to my point. Imagine Welles taking all these things in and, as a direct result, choosing Bud Westmore for TOE with great deliberation. "Click"! If so, then perhaps TOE was meant to be far more than just a film noir tour-de-force; maybe, just maybe, it was to be OW's own little 50's monster movie, as well, starring a great white monster named Quinlan.

As I said, with Welles, things had to work on a lot of levels; so, why not let's have some fun with this one, too?

[jaime marzol]

rkadin wrote:
Looking in on the man's life and work, I think it's fair to say that, in order for something to resonate with Welles, it generally had to work on multiple levels. It was an intuitive thing with him, like an audible "click", when the fit was right.\

This is right on the money. it seemed the more levels something stretched across the more of welles' interest it got.

but now, according to zugsmith in KING OF THE B's, welles insisted on makeup man, maurice seiderman, who had worked on kane, and ambrsons. quinlan might have been a joint creation by seiderman, and westmore.