Orson Welles’ final TV appearance, taped hours before his death on October 10, 1985, has resurfaced online.
Welles and biographer Barbara Leaming were guests on The Merv Griffin Show.
Welles, who had lost considerable weight, looked pale when he walked out on stage with a cane. He opened his Merv appearance with a card trick he had worked out with magician Jim Steinmeyer; and then took an uncharacteristic stroll down Memory Lane, lavishing praise on second wife Rita Hayworth and longtime friend Marlene Dietrich. He was less enthused talking about his recent 70th birthday. Quoting Charles de Gaulle, he told Griffin that “old age is a shipwreck.”
In an updated edition of her Welles biography, Leaming wrote that Welles was in considerable pain; his legs ached and he had not slept well the night before. However, he was excited by the receptive audience. “Do you know how well that went?,” he said to Leaming in the car ride to Ma Maison, where they would meet up with longtime friend and Chimes at Midnight producer Alessandro Tasca di Cutò. “Did you see how much they liked me?”
Leaming left for the airport to catch a flight to New York and Tasca drove Welles to his Stanley Avenue home, where the two talked for awhile. Welles’ companion, Oja Kodar, was away in Europe
The episode has been posted elsewhere but taken down. It can be seen at https://youtu.be/AV21RjVmQPc?si=GZ4Hwx6wxCfy2l9r
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