Welles' Religion?

[jbrooks]

I recall that Bogdanovich somewhere writes (I think it is in the introduction to the paperback version of This is Orson Welles) that Welles was raised Catholic. I think I tried to see if this fact was corroborated by any of the Welles bios, and I think I found that none of them discussed his religious upbringing. And I seem to remember that the Higham bio gave information suggesting he was not raised Catholic.

Does anyone know if any of the bios (or any other source) disscuss this?

[Eve_h]

Here's an excerpt from the Playboy interview with Kenneth Tynan published in the 'Orson Welles: interviews' book edited by Mark W. Estrin (p. 142):

PLAYBOY: Did you have a religious upbringing?
WELLES: Quite the contrary. My mother was born a Catholic but then became a student of Oriental religions, in which she later lost interest. She taught me to read the Bible as a wonderful piece of literature. My father was a total agnostic, and Dr. Bernstein - the guardian who loooked after me when my parents died - always made fun of the Bible stories. That shocked me as a child. I have a natural sense of veneration for what man has aspired to beyond himself, in East or West. It comes easily and instinctively to me to feel reverence rather than a gleeful skepticism. I read the mystics, though I'm not a mystic myself.

[Orson&Jazz]

I find it very unlikely that Orson would have been a devout Catholic. Just his life and his free lifestyle would be contradictory to the beliefs of a Catholic. Them seem rather oppressive to me, and I think Orson was against oppression in any form.


Plus, devout catholics are not allowed to divorce are they? And didn't Orson have two, plus a long relationship with a mistress?

[Glenn Anders]

Orson Welles' was married three times: to Virginia Nicholson, to Rita Hayworth and to Paola Mori. And as he says, his religious beliefs tended to be spiritual and eclectic, but in terms of temperment, Welles indeed may have been Catholic. He resided a lot of his adult life in Catholic countries like Italy and Spain, seemed happiest in them, and at least two of his wives, Rita Hayworth and Paola Mori, would have been born into the Catholic faith.

Glenn

[Nate H]

in TIOW he says that his mother raised him Catholic and "you know what they say, once a Catholic..." or something along those lines. while he was not a devout believer I think that it was in some way a part of him, at least in the sense of his roots/upbringing/ancestry?

what he says about having reverance makes sense given his recordings of bible selections, The Life of Christ, etc

[GM]

Welles also had his youngest daughter Beatrice baptized as a Roman Catholic, with Frank Sinatra as The Godfather. But he's also on record as saying the Moon was central to his religious beliefs, which would seem to have vaguely pantheistic or pagan implications, possibly related to his fascination with Robert Graves's book The White Goddess. Perhaps Welles's spiritual beliefs reflected a worldview that no one faith could satisfy.

[Orson&Jazz]

I agree with GM.

Maybe his beliefs are the amalgamation of all the various countries he has visited in his lifetime.

He's been all over the world hasn't he? So, there could be the possibility that he has learned the various beliefs of all these countries, and sort of adopted one of his own from his various experiences.


Plus he was a voracious reader, and very knowledgable on just about any thing. I would assume that he read up on religions of all kinds.

[Christopher]

Orson Welles was not a Catholic and did not belong to any organized religion. When questioned about whether or not he believed in God, he replied that he was "an agnostic." While he was certainly knowledgeable about all religions and interested in reading about them, he remained, to the end of his life, a free spirit.

About his three wives. The correct spelling of his first wife's maiden name is Nicolson -- not Nicholson. (This error occurs again and again, and it would be nice to clear it up once and for all.) Wife Two, Rita Hayworth, was not a Catholic. Wife Three, Paola Mori, was raised as a Catholic, but she was not a practising one as an adult, even if she did baptize her daughter in her faith. And do we know this for a fact? In any event, Paola's religion had no effect whatsoever on Welles's own beliefs.