By RAY KELLY
Dozens of unpublished Orson Welles scripts, reams of his personal and business correspondence and boxes of documents related to the making of his legendary films and stage shows have been acquired by the University of Michigan Special Collections Library in Ann Arbor.
The previously unseen materials – which have been in the possession of the late filmmaker’s youngest daughter, Beatrice Welles, since his death in October 1985 – span his remarkable 70-year life. They range from a program booklet for his 1928 childhood performance in Finesse the Queen to correspondence detailing the troubled production of the soon-to-be-completed The Other Side of the Wind.
Beatrice Welles, who oversees her father’s estate, said she doubted her father would have approved of her decision to preserve his works in an academic setting.
“I thought about this from my own point of view – and not my father’s. He was not enamored with ‘libraries and universities,’ but I personally felt it was time that my father’s items were in one place as much as was possible,” Beatrice Welles said. “I’ve seen the University of Michigan collection and believe that the one-of-a-kind items and rare documents I had belonged with all of the other treasures there.”
Wellesnet was first apprised by Beatrice Welles of the vast scope of the materials from her late parents’ Las Vegas home two years ago. After a perusal of the items, Wellesnet introduced her to Philip A. Hallman, curator of the Screen Arts Mavericks & Makers Collections at the University of Michigan, in hopes that Welles’ papers would find a proper home where they could be studied and appreciated.
Hallman and Vincent Longo, a doctoral student from the university, spent two days at Beatrice Welles’ home, where they opened cardboard boxes, sifted though various folders and cataloged seven decades worth of papers, photographs and personal effects. (Some early materials had been curated by Orson Welles’ childhood guardian, Dr. Maurice “Dadda” Bernstein, and given to Welles by Bernstein’s widow, Hazel, in the mid 1960s.)
“Every time we opened up a box, there was another treasure. There were no duds,” Hallman recalled.
Scholars and Welles enthusiasts will be intrigued with the previously unseen letters, which shed new light on Welles.
“It fills in a lot of the missing puzzle pieces of his career,” Hallman said. “I get tired of hearing about the ‘failed career.’ He was constantly working. This collection shows what a workaholic he was.”
The private side of the man is revealed in letters between Welles and his wife of 30 years, Paola Mori, as well as correspondence with friends and associates, Hallman said. Particularly enlightening is young Welles’ letters to “Dadda” Bernstein and handwritten diary excerpts, which reveal a “man on the cusp.”
Given the size of the collection and the need to catalog and digitally copy some materials, The Orson Welles – Beatrice Welles Collection will be rolled out in stages by the university, Hallman said.
Items that will likely enthrall fans, based on a review conducted prior the acquisition, are:
- Unfilmed scripts and story treatments – Authorship and exact titles will have to be verified, though they appear at first glance to be Welles original stories and adaptations. Titles include Operation: Cinderella, Two By Two (Noah’s Ark), Treasure Island, Great Leaders (aka Brittle Glory), Caesar, Christmas Shopping, Beware of Greeks, Saladin, The Big Question from Affair of Antol, The Honorary Counsel, The Heroine, The Cherry Orchard, The Little Prince, Because of the Cats, Inherit the Wind, Green Thoughts, Beatrice and Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing, Sirhan, The Bishop’s Beggar, Fair Warning, Mendelman Fire, China, Casanova, Ulysses, The Dreamers and Spain, which would have included parts for his wife and youngest daughter.
Page 1 of Orson Welles’ annotated copy of the Chimes at Midnight script. This version, used during the editing process, shows his hand in various deletions and cuts. Image courtesy the University of Michigan Library, Special Collections. - Movie and stage production notes, photos and/or scripts – The projects include Heart of Darkness, Citizen Kane, Lady From Shanghai, Othello, Mr. Arkadin (Confidential Report), Touch of Evil, Don Quixote, Chimes at Midnight, The Immortal Story, Dead Reckoning (The Deep), F For Fake, Merchant of Venice, Around the World, Portrait of Gina, Fountain of Youth, Green Thoughts, Marching Song, Lady on Ice, Rhinoceros, The Unthinking Lobster, Time Runs, Five Kings, Moby Dick Rehearsed and a proposed TV adaptation of that play. The breadth of the materials is often staggering. For example, the saga of The Other Side of the Wind is first glimpsed in 1962 character development notes and finally in legal correspondence written 20 years later as Welles struggled to see the film completed.
- Essays and short stories – These Welles-penned selections span his entire lifetime with some compositions written during in his childhood and others composed in his later years. Essay topics include bullfighting, politics and autobiographical bits reflecting on Hollywood. His short stories include Two Men Fishing, which he wrote as a youngster, and a much later piece, Yellow Panther.
- Personal papers – Childhood diary entries, numerous sketches, letters between his parents, early travel accounts, and correspondence with Bernstein and lifelong friend Roger Hill are plentiful. The collection includes a great many documents related to his years at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois. There are also notes on projects Welles considered, brainstorming on how to raise funds and contracts and receipts dating back to the 1930s. Christmas cards and letters from colleagues and admirers, like Vivien Leigh, Ronald Reagan, and members of the Mercury Theatre troupe are also included.
- Photographs – Personal and professional photographs, including unpublished images of Welles’ parents, his immediate family and close friends. The collection also includes negatives and slides.
- Scrapbooks – Approximately three dozen scrapbooks containing news clippings about his celebrated stage and Hollywood productions. The scrapbooks date as far back as 1933 and as late as 1946. Some of the books overlap, while other are set up by specific year or project. For example, one scrapbook is dedicated to Wellesian events taking place between late 1938 and early 1939, while another focuses on Five Kings. Sadly, some of the scrapbooks are in fragile condition and will require extensive preservation. There were also many loose newspaper clippings from events in the final three decades of Welles’ life.
Hallman, who hosted a Chimes at Midnight screening with Beatrice Welles at the Traverse City Film Festival last summer, said he looked forward to her working with the university on future Welles-related projects.
He said he was pleased he had gotten to know her and believes she has been misunderstood in her efforts to safeguard her father’s legacy. “I have a great deal of empathy for her.”
The University of Michigan Library Special Collections boasts the most extensive collection of Welles material in the world. (A second noteworthy repository can be found at the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington.)
Besides the recent addition of The Orson Welles – Beatrice Welles Collection, the University of Michigan’s impressive holdings includes The Orson Welles – Chris Welles Feder Collection, a gift from Welles’ eldest daughter, Chris Welles Feder; The Alessandro Tasca di Cutò – Orson Welles Collection from the personal papers of Welles associate Alessandro Tasca, which were purchased at auction in London; and The Orson Welles – Oja Kodar Collection and The Richard Wilson – Orson Welles Collection, both acquired by the university within the past 15 years.
“Orson Welles led a vagabond life and now all of this has been brought together in one place for the first time,” Hallman said. “Some of the pieces were never in the same place before. It’s like the final scene in Citizen Kane.”
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