Freddie Gillette, chauffeur for Orson Welles in his final years, has died. He was 89.
Gillette was a devoted patron of Los Angeles’ New Beverly Cinema, which announced his passing on Twitter today.
“Sending our love to the friends and family of longtime New Beverly patron Freddie Gillette, who has passed away at the age of 89,” the theater tweeted.
It was Gillette who discovered Welles’ body at his Hollywood home on the morning of October 10, 1985. He had worked for the late director for several years.
He is referenced in a number of Welles-related books, including Joseph McBride’s What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career and Todd Tarbox’s Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts.
In recent years, Gillette shared his memories of Welles at showings at New Beverly and appeared in the Morgan Neville documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead.
He was featured in the Michael Maneykowski short F for Freddie. which can be viewed on YouTube.
Gillette was among the patrons at an AFI Master Class on Citizen Kane led by Beatrice Welles and Peter Bogdanovich at the Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles on November 13, 2016.
Reached by telephone at her Nevada home, Beatrice Welles said of Gillette, “I always appreciated his devotion to my father and how much he truly cared for him. He was there when my father needed him.”
She said she last saw Gillette in October when the two met for lunch while she was in Los Angeles, but they had talked by telephone since.
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