Retired lawyer is the son of Vampira but is Orson Welles the father?
Maila Nurmi, who gained fame as Vampira in the 1950s, reportedly dated Orson Welles a decade earlier, but the jury is out as to whether he fathered her child.
‘Quijote Welles’ novel covers love of Spain, Cervantes
Spanish screenwriter Agustín Sánchez Vidal has just published Quijote Welles, a novel which delves into Orson Welles’ love of both Spain and the Cervante’s character Don Quixote. The 668-page novel utilizes interviews, diaries, confessions and even fragments of the Don Quixote script. Vidal, a professor of Film History at the University of Zaragoza, is the […]
‘Shoot ’em Dead’ – Book lauds ‘The Other Side of the Wind’
Slipping under the radar last summer was the publication of the first book to critique the completed release of Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind. Welles filmed his takedown of New Hollywood and machismo between August 1970 and early 1976, and fought to complete the movie until his death in October 1985. However, […]
Peter Bogdanovich looks back at career in new book
By RAY KELLY Serious movie fans know that before Peter Bogdanovich hit it big with The Last Picture Show, he directed the cult classic Targets with Boris Karloff. But Peter Tonguette’s new book on Bogdanovich is so exhaustive it delves into the footage Bogdanovich shot with Mamie Van Doren to be morphed with a Soviet […]
‘Orson Welles: Warrior of the Worlds’ graphic novel finds publisher
Scout Comics is set to publish a graphic novel series that finds a heroic Orson Welles defending the Earth from alien invaders. In Milton Lawson’s Orson Welles: Warrior of the Worlds, the October 30, 1938 radio show was no joke. Following his first run-in with aliens, Welles joins an organization that defends the Earth from […]
‘Touch of Evil’ part of relaunched BFI Film Classics book series
By RAY KELLY Richard Deming’s Touch of Evil — the latest offering in Bloomsbury Publishing’s relaunch of the BFI Film Classics series — looks at Orson Welles’ role as screenwriter, as well as director and star of the 1958 film. Deming, a senior lecturer in English and director of creative writing at Yale University, sees […]
Simon Callow busy at work on fourth Orson Welles bio
By RAY KELLY Noted author-actor and all-around Renaissance man Simon Callow is enduring the COVID-19 shutdown like the rest of us. But Wellesians will be delighted to know he is using this time to write the fourth and final installment in his Orson Welles biography series. Wellesnet has fielded more than a few queries in […]
Peter Bogdanovich study with extensive Q&A due this summer
Well, 2020 has just started and there is already something for Orson Welles fans to look forward to. Peter Tonguette, who wrote the highly informative Orson Welles Remembered: Interviews with His Actors, Editors, Cinematographers and Magicians back in 2007, will publish Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director this summer. Coming from University Press […]
Orson Welles fights alien invaders in planned graphic novel
By RAY KELLY Some engaged in the Martin Scorsese-led debate about the merit of Marvel superhero films have wondered what Orson Welles would have thought. Here is a more relevant question: How would Welles have felt about being a comic book hero? The premise of the forthcoming graphic novel Orson Welles: Warrior of the Worlds […]
‘Brothers Mankiewicz’ looks at achievements, relationship of Hollywood siblings
By RAY KELLY Herman J. Mankiewicz co-wrote Citizen Kane and his kid brother, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, scripted and directed All About Eve — not too shabby for the sons of a school teacher and seamstress who left Germany for the United States shortly before the start of the 20th century. Sydney Ladensohn Stern — author […]
Todd Tarbox: ‘Marching Song’ was first flowering of Orson Welles’ liberal social consciousness
By RAY KELLY For decades, Todd Tarbox has assisted Orson Welles biographers and scholars by providing them access to the archive of his late grandfather, Roger “Skipper” Hill, headmaster at the former Todd School for Boys. In 2013, Tarbox published Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts, a play recounting the two […]
Simon Braund, Beatrice Welles talk ‘Orson Welles Portfolio’
“Orson Welles Portfolio” offers a trove of many unseen paintings and drawings.