By RAY KELLY
Hollywood filmmaker Stanley Sheff is serving up a slice of cinema history with a special showing of Citizen Kane in Beverly Hills followed by personal stories from his time working alongside Orson Welles.
The screening at The Fine Arts Theatre at 8556 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills is set for Wednesday, October 8, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 and more information may be found at stanleysheff.com
“I’ll be sharing some of my own experiences working with Orson, including our conversations about Citizen Kane,” Sheff told Wellesnet. “I’ll also be talking about my role as a collaborator and editor on his unsold TV pilot, The Orson Welles Show — a project that offered me a rare perspective into his creative process.
Sheff served as an as editor and uncredited co-director on The Orson Welles Show. He later directed and co-wrote the cult sci-fi movie Lobster Man from Mars starring Tony Curtis with its title suggested by Welles.
“Working with Orson Welles was like having my own private film school with him as my teacher,” Sheff recalled. “We’d go to lunch at Lucy’s El Adobe, a Mexican restaurant right across from Paramount Pictures. That part of the lot used to be RKO, where he shot Citizen Kane. At first it felt surreal, sitting there with this legend, but after a while it just felt normal, just lunch with Orson.”
He added, “He loved telling stories while we enjoyed barbequed chicken tacos with a pitcher of margaritas. One time he was laughing about something from the late ’30s, when he was hanging around the set of Bringing Up Baby. Katharine Hepburn was terrified of the leopard they were using, she wouldn’t go near it. So Orson grabbed this stuffed leopard they used to set up the lighting, and from just out of sight he screamed, ‘The leopard’s loose!’ Then he tossed the stuffed leopard through the open ceiling of Hepburn’s dressing room. She ran out shrieking and didn’t come back the rest of the day. That was Orson, always pulling something. Nobody ever knew it was him.”
“When we first started working together, he was very specific, giving me detailed instructions as an editor,” Sheff said. “But as time went on and we got to know each other better, he started saying, ‘Well, you know what I want, go ahead, cut it together.’ Sometimes, on days when he wasn’t feeling well, he’d send his messenger with a note asking me to shoot the day’s scenes. That’s how I went from being just his editor to an uncredited co-director, and more than that, a real collaborator and a friend. And I still have those notes.”
Sheff, Welles, cinematographer Gary Graver, assistant cameraman Michael Little and key grip Michael Stringer began shooting the unsold talk show TV pilot in September 1978 at KCOP-TV in Hollywood and 1041 Production Studios. It was completed the following year.
Sheff’s work in television as director and editor includes the NBC-TV special TV – The Fabulous Fifties with hosts Red Skelton and Lucille Ball; Amos ‘n’ Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy; the Emmy Award winning Motown Returns to the Apollo; and Vincent Price: The Sinister Image, an hour-long interview with Vincent Price that aired on the A&E Channel as part of its popular Biography series.
In the early 1980s, Sheff produced, directed, and performed a popular comedy radio show for KROQ-FM radio in Los Angeles called The Young Marquis and Stanley. He has appeared as master of ceremonies on stage and at live vintage dance events as his character Maxwell DeMille.
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