BITS & PIECES ON WELLES - quotes straight from the horses mouth

[jaime marzol]

If any of you get a chance to pick up on the dean martin celeberty roast for frank sinatra, get it. It’s excellent. Not only an all star cast, but the producer/director, greg garrison is on the commentary track. He had some interesting things to say about welles.

This guy garrison is in the brady bio, he told the same story that is in the brady book. He was a kid and working on around the world in 80 days. Welles had a fit and threw a cane, the cane flew across the stage and hit him. He picked it up and threw it back hitting welles with it. Welles fired him. At 1:00 am there was a knock on his door, it was welles, he said he didn’t know that the cane had hit him, he said he was sorry and asked garrison to come back. Garrison was just a flunky stagehand then, that later became a big shot tv producer, and no doubt helped welles earn money when he returned to america in the 70s.


Garrison claims welles became like a father figure to him, they had a life long friendship, and garrison said he was the executor of welles’ estate.

Garrison also dropped a little tib-bit that he said no one knows. When sinatra was acting in from here to eternity, he was nervous, he had not done any dramatic roles. Welles was vacationing in hawaii at the time and every night when sinatra left the set he would go to welles’ hotel room where welles directed sinatra’s performance for the following day. Garrison said he did not hear this from sinatra, or from welles. Sinatra told dean and dean told garrison.

Pretty interesting.

Also, in the catch-22 commentary track, mike nichols said of welles – “he had no patience.” He also said that when perkins asked him how to play his role, nichols told him to watch how he is when he’s around welles. Perkin’s role was a nervous wreck that fumbled everything.

Another interesting tid-bit, though not welles related. On the sinatra roast, Peter falk appeared as columbo, and was fabulous. Neither dean or frank knew him and didn’t know what he was going to do. Falk had them in stitches, he must have been on for 9 or 12 minutes and never got boring. Garrison said that while falk is on stage thinking, “wow, I’m on stage standing between martin and sinatra, martin and sinatra were fans of colunmbo and were thinking, “wow, I’m on stage with columbo!" before i heard the commentary track, while falk was on, i saw sinatra put his head down and his fingers to his forehead like columbo does when he’s thinking out loud, i knew frank had been watching columbo!

any of you have any first hand quotes? would be cool to have a thread of first hand quotes on welles.

harvey's post about rich little would be cool here, if i can find it i will post it here, and the quote from rick jason

[Harvey Chartrand]

Jaime,
I interviewed Rich Little back in October 2000. Here is what he had to say about Orson Welles:

In the early seventies, I worked with Orson on an ABC show called KOPYCATS, done over in England. He was one of the guests. We just hit it off, spent a lot of time talking and getting to know each other. Orson was a fascinating guy. He'd already started the movie in Spain, three years before I came aboard. Orson didn't have any studio backing. He was paying for THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND out of his own pocket. He would run out of money, then go put a nose on and play in some Italian epic to make money, and then go back and try to finish his movie.

When I met him, Orson had already abandoned the project and picked it up again. Some of his cast had died and he had to recast. He asked me if I wanted to play a part in THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND and I said: "Of course!" So I went to Phoenix, where they were shooting this picture, and worked for about five weeks and never finished my part. I had to leave. I had commitments. Orson was so upset. I remember he was shooting me going to the airport from in back of the car. I said: "Orson, what are you shooting?" He said: "I'll find a way to put it in the picture!" (laughs) The shooting was very open-ended. I think Peter Bogdanovich took over my part after I left.
____

It sounds to me like Welles' life had become unmanageable by the early seventies, that he thrived on chaos a bit too much. While he was shooting this picture all over Europe and the American Southwest, he was a regular guest on THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW, narrated Eastern Airlines commercials and TV shows like THE NAME OF THE GAME and NIGHT GALLERY, and appeared in crap films like Bert Gordon's THE TOY FACTORY. He was a very busy fiftysomething guy. What an incredible burst of energy before his health started giving out a few years down the road.

I have another first-hand account by actor Edmund Purdom, who co-starred with Welles in LAFAYETTE in 1961. I will find Purdom's quote and post it later.

I once interviewed a local broadcaster by the name of Gord Atkinson. He knew Welles through his buddy Rich Little. Atkinson recalled an incident in which frequent flyer Welles (who then tipped the scales at something like 425 pounds) had tremendous difficulty getting on and off airplanes. Upon landing, he had to wait to be transported by baggage cart to the terminal. In the baggage claim area, he waited again, alone and perched on his cart, for an attendant to bring him a wheelchair. Welles could no longer walk very far due to weak ankles and chronic back pain.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the Atkinson interview on tape.

[Chirpy_Sabz]

thanks for those tidbits