HarperCollins will publish Patrick McGilligan’s Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane on Aug. 25.
McGilligan has penned several notable film biographies, including Clint: The Life and Legend and Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast. His upcoming look at Orson Welles’ early days covers the period from his childhood to the release of his first Hollywood film, Citizen Kane.
HarperCollins describes its Aug. 25 release as a work that will be provide fresh insight into Welles’ life:
Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before. He chronicles Welles’s early life growing up in Wisconsin and Illinois as the son of an alcoholic industrialist and a radical suffragist and classical musician, and the magical early years of his career, including his marriage and affairs, his influential friendships, and his artistic collaborations.
The tales of his youthful achievements were so colorful and improbable that Welles, with his air of mischief, was often thought to have made them up. Now after years of intensive research, McGilligan sorts out fact from fiction and reveals untold, fully documented anecdotes of Welles’s first exploits and triumphs, from starring as a teenager on the Gate Theatre stage in Dublin and bullfighting in Sevilla, to his time in the New York theater and his fraught partnership with John Houseman in the Mercury Theatre, to his arrival in Hollywood and the making of Citizen Kane. Filled with intriguing new insights and startling revelations—including the surprising true origin and meaning of “Rosebud” — Young Orson is a fascinating look at the creative development and influences that shaped this legendary artistic genius.
The hardcover carries a $27.99 suggested list price.
McGilligan’s other biographies include the acclaimed Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only; the Edgar-nominated Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light; and George Cukor: A Double Life. The author of several New York Times Notable Books, he has also penned biographies of Jack Nicholson, Robert Altman, and James Cagney, along with the oral history Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist with Paul Buhle.
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