Chris Welles Feder, the eldest daughter of Orson Welles, is sharing her thoughts on her father’s “The War of the Worlds” radio broadcast as the media notes the 75th anniversary on October 30.
Feder has been interviewed for public television, syndicated newspaper and national magazine retrospectives. And she has been kind enough to share her thoughts on the impact “The War of the Worlds” had on the nation and her father’s career with Wellesnet.
“The broadcast was a phenomenon in its day, and I believe laws were passed to ensure that it would never be replicated. The national panic caused by the radio drama made my father internationally famous and led to his leaving the theater and becoming a movie director in Hollywood,” Feder said.
She added, “My mother (Virginia Nicolson) deplored this move as she believed my father’s true genius lay in the theater, but fortunately he didn’t listen to her or we wouldn’t have ‘Citizen Kane.'”
Feder was an infant when CBS aired the Mercury Theatre On the Air production on October 30, 1938 and did not hear it until many years later.
“I first heard ‘War of the Worlds’ on a set of old LP’s when I was in my teens. I found it very tame because I was listening to it in a different era when households had television sets and the nation was not on the brink of World War II,” Feder said.
She added, “It is hard for us to imagine in 2013 the enormous power that radio had in 1938 when it was the main source of news. In 1938, there was no way to ‘Google’ the broadcast: Did Martians really land in New Jersey?”
Feder has shared her thoughts with PBS for its upcoming “War of the Worlds” documentary, which will air on “American Experience” on October 29. It will be narrated by Oliver Platt and include interviews with Feder, director and Welles friend Peter Bogdanovich, and historians.
“In an era when the public can still be fooled or mislead by what is read online, in print, or seen on TV, ‘War of the Worlds’ is a timely reminder of the power of mass media,” said “American Experience” Executive Producer Mark Samels.
In addition to her appearance on “American Experience,” Feder has also been interviewed about “The War of the Worlds” for the October issue of AARP magazine and by Tribune Media for a syndicated newspaper article.
For those looking for a “War of the Worlds” fix, the original Mercury Theatre On the Air production can be heard on the Wellesnet radio page.
You can preview the upcoming PBS documentary below:
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