New York Post Film Editor Lou Lumenick has written a retrospect marking the 70th anniversary of Orson Welles’ brief career as a columnist for that veteran daily tabloid.
Welles wrote for the New York Post for 11 months in 1945, when the newspaper was owned by wealthy liberal Dorothy Schiff, whose political views were close to Welles’ own.
Lumenick’s column does not delve into Welles’ politics, instead noting how Welles had numerous distractions that prevented him from applying himself fully and how his style did not sit well with his editors.
Orson Welles’ Almanac, later called Orson Welles’ Today, began on January 22, 1945 as a daily offering, “but by spring, Welles’ editors at The Post were losing patience with his column, which was mostly given over to lengthy digressions about domestic and international politics written in grandiloquent style,” Lumenick writes.
Topics ranged from FDR’s inaugural to Welles potentially playing John Barrymore in a biopic.
Lumenick says Welles ignored a letter from Schiff’s husband, Post Editor Ted Thackrey, asking him to keep in mind he was not writing for “a small, specialized audience of intellectuals.” He was also asked by the newspaper’s syndication editor to focus his columns on entertainment, or face a pay cut.
The column was syndicated to a dozen newspapers, many of whom dropped it during its nearly 11-month run.
Welles eventually quit. His last column ran on November 4, 1945. It was a humorous piece about getting lost with his new car on the studio lot where he had resumed his movie-directing career with The Stranger.
Orson Welles' Post columns
Orson Welles' Post columns
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