In Memoriam links of interest

[Wellesnet]

FROM WELLESNET FACEBOOK:

Renowned film critic Roger Ebert has died. A great Welles admirer, he did one of the commentary tracks for the CITIZEN KANE DVD.

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=6329

[RayKelly]

Roger Ebert wrote often about "Citizen Kane," but does any one know his views on other Welles films?

[Le Chiffre]

Here's his review of CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, which he put in one of his "Great Movies" books:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/we-have ... at-mi.html

Also, his review of THE TRIAL, which he considered one of Welles's best films:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... 50302/1023

[Wellesnet]

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=7625

[Wellesnet]

Emmy Award winning write-producer Rift Fournier died October 7, 2013 after a long battle with cancer. He was believed to be 77 years old.

A longtime friend of Orson Welles, he assisted in the production of the unfinished "The Other Side of the Wind." He shared his recollections of Welles with Josh Karp, author of the the upcoming book "An Adventure Shared By Desperate Men."

Fournier co-produced the initial syndicated version of The Mike Douglas Show ; wrote episodes for such shows as Highway to Heaven, Charlie’s Angels, Kojak, NYPD Blue and Matlock. He wrote, directed and produced the Emmy-winning children’s series Go! for NBC in the mid 1970s.

An Artist in Residence at Lindenwood University, in St. Charles, Missouri, since 2007, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree there in May.

He is survived by his children Noel, Jolene, Jackee and Clarissa, a brother, J.B., and six grandchildren.

[Wellesnet]

Jean-Michel Damase, the French composer who wrote the music for Orson Welles's only ballet, "The Lady In the Ice", died this past April.
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/ ... poser.html

Unfortunately, his score for "Lady" is still unavailable, but there are several performances of his works available on Youtube, including this Piano Concerto, written in 1949, just prior to his working with Welles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdhghrlBBAg

Choreographer Roland Petit, Welles's other collaborator on the "Lady" ballet, passed away in 2011.

[Wellesnet]

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=8766

[Wellesnet]

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=8754

Nice discussion between O'Toole and Roger Ebert, who also passed away this year. From the Telluride Film Festival 2002:
https://vimeo.com/82113085

[Wellesnet]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2jiWNmA0_g

[Wellesnet]

Hollywood legend appeared in "Orson's Bag" (Vienna segment). Was also said to have appeared in Welles's unfinished "The Magic Show":
https://www.facebook.com/WoodstockCeleb ... =1&theater

[Wellesnet]

http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=10241

[Wellesnet]

Joan Rivers, "comic stiletto", and most famous perpetrator - along with Johnny Carson - of Orson fat jokes, died last week at 81-

Joan Rivers: “What’s Orson Welles’s favorite food? Seconds!”

Johnny Carson (as Carnac):
Answer: A full moon.
Question: What do you see when Orson Welles drops his pants?

Orson Welles on Johnny Carson and Joan Rivers,
From “My Lunches With Orson” by Peter Biskind and Henry Jaglom:

OW: …Ken Tynan wrote a profile of Johnny (Carson) in The New Yorker in which he quoted one of Johnny’s assistants as saying the only guest Johnny was visibly in awe of was Orson Welles. Since then, I haven’t been on the show. For five years. There goes two million copies of my autobiography when I publish it, because I can’t even get on to publicize it!

HJ: Well, you can if somebody else hosts. Joan Rivers.

OW: I did go on (The Tonight Show) with ‘John Rivers’, as she ought to be called, when she was replacing Carson. After four-and-a-half years. Obviously, just so I couldn’t go around Beverly Hills saying I was being blackballed by Carson. And I knew she was all set for me; I knew. Before I even sat down I began by telling her that my wife thought she was the best dressed woman in show business. And so on. Cut her right off at the knees. She couldn’t do a fat joke to save her life.

HJ: So she was on good behavior.

OW: She had to be, after that. How could she sail into me?

HJ: She runs on impulse. God knows, she’s got balls. And talent. Very, very bright and talented.

OW: Yes, I’m sorry to say. In her terrible way, she’s very talented.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Jj5m9ce9feI/0.jpg

[Wellesnet]

Mike Nichols, director of The Graduate and Catch-22, died last week at the age of 83. Nichols would shrug off questions that sought to link his far-flung body of work:: "What I sort of think about is what Orson Welles told me, which is: Leave it to the other guys, the people whose whole job it is to do that, to make patterns and say what the thread is through your work and where you stand. Let somebody else worry about what it means."

Here's an account of Welles's appearance on the Catch-22 set:
The arrival of Orson Welles, for two weeks of shooting in February, was just the therapy the company needed: at the very least, it gave everyone something to talk about. The situation was almost melodramatically ironic: Welles, the great American director now unable to obtain big-money backing for his films, was being directed by 37-year-old Nichols; Welles, who had tried, unsuccessfully, to buy Catch-22 for himself in 1962, was appearing in it to pay for his new film, Dead Reckoning. The cast spent days preparing for his arrival. Touch of Evil was flown in and microscopically reviewed. Citizen Kane was discussed over dinner. Tony Perkins, who had appeared in Welles’s film, The Trial, was repeatedly asked, “what Orson Welles was really like.” Bob Balaban, a young actor who plays Orr in the film, laid plans to retrieve one of Welles’s cigar butts for an admiring friend. And Nichols began to combat his panic by imagining what it would be like to direct a man of Welles’s stature. “Before he came,” said Nichols, “I had two fantasies. The first was that he would say his first line, and I would say, ‘NO, NO, NO, Orson !'” He laughed. “Then I thought, perhaps not. The second was that he would arrive on the set and I would say, ‘Mr. Welles, now if you’d be so kind as to move over here…’ And he’d look at me and raise on eyebrow and say, ‘Over there?” And I’d say, ‘What? Oh, uh, where do you think it should be?'” —An excerpt from Nora Ephron’s article on the filming of Mike Nichols Catch-22, that appeared in the New York Times on March 16, 1969

[Roger Ryan]

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/d ... w-tributes

Apart from her many notable screen and stage performances, Ms. Whitelaw provided the voice for "Raina" in Welles' MR. ARKADIN.

[Wellesnet]

Passed away in August of 2013 at the age of 85.
http://geniimagazine.com/magicpedia/Bart_Whaley

His eBook on Welles, "Orson Welles, The Man Who Was Magic", can be ordered for Kindle in three parts from Amazon.com:
Part 1:
http://www.amazon.com/Orson-Welles-The- ... B005HEHQ7E
Part 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Orson-Welles-The- ... /B005HEHQ7
Part 3:
http://www.amazon.com/Orson-Welles-The- ... B005HEHRQY