Jim Steinmeyer and Welles

[Peter Tonguette]

As it happens, another several months in-the-works piece of mine on Welles was published this week. Last May, I interviewed Welles' good friend Jim Steinmeyer, a magician who knew him well during the last four years of his life. The only mention I ever saw of Steinmeyer was in Jonathan Rosenbaum's afterward to "The Cradle Will Rock," so I set about tracking him down and getting his memories on the record. The interview is below:

http://thefilmjournal.com/issue6/steinmeyer.html

I found him to be really, really insightful and I hope everyone here does too.

Cheers,

Peter

[Cole]

Thanks, Peter. Interesting stuff. We forget sometimes about Welles the magician.

[dmolson]

Great interview, Peter. It's an interesting observation of his need to do magic on those chat shows -- wanting to be more than an old storyteller, but present something that will leave the audience a little in awe and amazed. That's a nice way to remember him, too.

[Lance Morrison]

wonderful.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Magical!
Sorry, Peter, I couldn't resist.
It's nice to know that Orson was in fairly good spirits and keeping his hand in, as it were, right up to the end.
Peter Ustinov used to appear on talk shows quite often a few years back, and as I recall, he didn't feel the need to push any current project. Ustinov's artful blend of serious conversation, droll observations and hilarious imitations was enough to warrant his presence in the studio.
Not to dismiss Welles' feats of prestidigitation (which were always fun to watch), but I wonder why he didn't discuss and show clips from his more personal projects (like The Dreamers) on The Tonight Show, Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, Merv Griffin, Good Morning America, etc...

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Peter: On the subject of Welles' TV interviews, Merv Griffin said on the "Tom Snyder Late Night Show," toward the end of its last run, that he had hundreds of hours of Welles on tape, much of it never aired. I think he said, precisely, 600 hours. He hoped to make something of the footage one day.

That would be much grist for our reel mills!

Glenn

[Peter Tonguette]

Thanks very much, guys. I think we do sometimes forget about Welles the Magician and, consequently, that his network of friends went far beyond the film world. I found it really fascinating the way Jim talked about how the basis of his friendship with Orson was their love for magic and, consequently, how he didn't feel intimidated talking to this legendary filmmaker.

600 hours of Merv footage! This stuff needs to be released. I've seen a very limited sample of Welles on Merv, but it's usually pretty captivating. You know, he apparently did not talk about projects he had in the works too much (if at all), but during the last Griffin appearance he quoted de Gaulle on old age: "It's a shipwreck." I think this indicated how much "King Lear" was on his brain, as that's the exact same quote he used in his filmed "pitch" of "Lear" for producers. Kind of a strangely sad moment.

Peter

[Glenn Anders]

Dear Peter: A sad comment indeed. At least, he died working on something, unlike Alfred Hitchcock, five years before, who was half-crazed, groping secretaries from the typing pool. He, too, invoked sea imagery. In dismissing his longtime personal secretary, he said, ". . . I am a sea of alone."

We all come to it, one way or another.

Thank you for bringing up the subject of magic, which fascinated Welles his whole life.

Glenn

[71-1045893605]

I remember a few years ago THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER ran a small article about Merv Griffin Productions plan to put out the complete Orson Welles interviews (over 60 of them, I believe) on the home video market. Merv was a big OW fan and considered him his favorite guest. It's been a few years now, so where are the frikkin' tapes? Merv owns them, Merv edited them, Merv's the distributor. There's no legal roadblock holding it up. So what's the deal, Merv?...Oh, I forgot, you decided to re-launch DANCE FEVER instead.

GA