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003 - Orson Begins (1915-1926)
10 Plays28 days ago
“Have you ever wanted to return?”
“To childhood? I’ve been back there ever since I left.”
With all the pomp and circumstance we’re capable of mustering for an episode recorded in the wake of the 2024 US presidential election results, we finally arrive at the advent of the man himself - Orson Welles is born! We talk about the early years of his life growing up in Kenosha and Chicago, the formative death of his mother when he was just nine-years-old, and the travels, arts, and influences that began to form his own auteurist visions.
Follow us on our (admittedly limited) socials to keep up with assignments and other exciting Welles-related news:
- @wellesupod on Bluesky and YouTube
- Read Hope’s blog at highimhope.com
- Listen to Hope’s other podcasts - High on Cartoons Presents DuckTakes! and The Matrix Reclamations
- Follow Stephen at @chewywalrus on Bluesky and Letterboxd
- Listen to Stephen’s other podcasts - Disenfranchised Podcast and The Pod and the Pendulum
- Check out Stephen’s novel - Check In, Check Out - on Amazon, now available in paperback or ebook: https://amzn.to/44idk8y
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Orson Welles
00:00:01
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction... I don't think any words can explain a man's life....the broadcasting system and its affiliated station presents... Columbia Network takes pride in presenting......Rogspot.
00:00:12
Speaker
We take you now to Grover Mills, New Jersey. Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts......was a voice. Just a voice. I never really saw him.
00:00:26
Speaker
He was only......the hero. Orson Welles. A great lover. Orson Welles. And a dirty door. Orson Welles. Good morning, this is Orson Welles speaking. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Orson Welles. This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen. This is Orson Welles speaking.
00:00:39
Speaker
A Unicron. Well, here it is. anybody wants to see it. All right, class, everybody come on in. Simmer. Simmer down. Take your seats, please.
00:00:51
Speaker
Okay. All right. All right. Right off the bat, who changed my name on the board to ah Lick Her? That's not even creative. Come on. Come Although I will take credit for writing. I hardly know her underneath. That was you. you Son of a bitch.
00:01:05
Speaker
Whatever. um Welcome back, class, to Wells U. um I don't really have a solid intro for this thing yet, but we're the we're the podcast that is taking as deep a dive into the life of the great filmmaker Orson Welles as any podcast has ever done. Could someone do it better? Probably, but they're not doing it, so you just got us for right now.
00:01:30
Speaker
So by default, we're the best. there Also, are we a podcast? Because I'm into maintaining the kayfabe that this is a college class. That too. yeah We are pod class.
00:01:42
Speaker
A pod class. There it is. There it is. found it. at Three episodes in, we found it. All right. We can all go home now. And yet we're still calling these lectures podcast. What the fuck are we doing? ah So as we mentioned last week, we are here to discuss the life of young George Orson Welles, born into this world 1915. However, hope.
00:02:08
Speaker
yeah a point of A point of business that we... I don't know if we avoided or just forgot about last week. I mean, I know my reasoning, which is I completely just didn't read that far down on the page. What's your excuse?
00:02:23
Speaker
i i that was your That was your part to research, is my excuse
00:02:30
Speaker
excuse. Well, then I accept the fault slash blame. um Yes, so 1915...
Early Life and Family Influences
00:02:38
Speaker
we got into some historical events last time. They weren't, they weren't really great besides the besides what was it? It was Babe Ruth's first ruth a home run. Let's cling on to that. Good news. A little bit on Orson's birthday too. On May 6th.
00:02:53
Speaker
look at that. I call it Providence. Um, because we were just getting so mired down and all of the bad news, like the Germans first using, using, using Jesus, using poison gas as a weapon at the,
00:03:08
Speaker
During a battle of World War one Holy shit. But other bad news. um If you're... Bad news if you're into the optics. Good news if you like technical film achievement.
00:03:23
Speaker
And even if you do, not that great news. Still not that great. D.W. The Griffith's ah Civil War epic, The Birth of a Nation, was released in 1915. ah do we have an actual release date on that? No.
00:03:36
Speaker
January 1 and 2 were the premiere dates. So I'm not sure. Starting off 1915. Right. Just right off the bat. I think I mentioned you earlier, the very first thing that happened in 1915 was the birth of a nation, which you can find in its entirety on Wikipedia.
00:03:54
Speaker
That movie just exists in, in totality on Wikipedia. So, I mean, it is in the public domain. is. Which means that we welcome techno remixes. Right. Do we welcome them or do we accept them?
00:04:07
Speaker
I would be interested to see what people could come up with. Certainly. i would, i would, I think I'd rather see a ah ah Kung Pao enter the fist style edit of that film. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
00:04:23
Speaker
Okay. All right. I'm into that sales pitch. ah Hey, great news. Three episodes in, we've fixed Birth of a Nation. We did it. Hooray! Yeah! Setting the bar low. Historic for so many reasons in this podcast. Class. Pod class.
00:04:39
Speaker
Pod class-ts. Uh, good God in heaven. So yeah, that's, that's the big news coming fresh out of the gate in 1915, the year of Orson's birth. And you might wonder if the man himself had any thoughts on DW Griffith and his film, his, what is considered by many to be his masterwork achievement. And the answer is yes. Yes.
00:04:59
Speaker
Oh, man, I was so ready to say I'm prepared to say no and stake my entire life and savings on it. Oh, glad you didn't do that. I'm very glad I didn't do that, especially because I have the tab of your notes open here, which opens with that.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I mean, it's like I said, the first thing that happens in 1915. um It's not until like halfway down the page that we get to the less auspicious birth of Orson Welles.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. Wells on Griffith. He says in conversation with Peter Bogdanovich, these quotes are all taken from the book This is Orson Welles, which is a masterwork. Read it.
00:05:37
Speaker
um Oh, wow. You've you've added citations. well I've added citations for everything. This is horrifying. this i am In case I need to make any mid-class references, I have my page numbers secured.
00:05:51
Speaker
Steven, I'm glad I drunk texted you because I am such a burnout. You terrify me. This is incredible. I used to be an educator. Like, this is this is not... This is not new to me. I've done this many times before.
00:06:05
Speaker
I used to be educated, and here we are. So... I mean, one one could probably debate how well that that took, but... yeah I kid. Oh, we didn't introduce ourselves. We should probably introduce ourselves.
00:06:23
Speaker
T.A. Hope Lichner, she, her. T.A. Stephen Foxworthy, he, a him. And this is, once again, Wells you Now, what did Orson have to say about D.W. Griffith? I'm so glad you asked. Oh, shit, that. God damn it. He says, I have never really hated Hollywood except for its treatment of D.W. Griffith. Orson.
00:06:43
Speaker
No town, no industry, no profession, no art form owes so much to a single man. Or is that? Every filmmaker who has followed him has done just that. Followed him.
00:06:55
Speaker
He made the first close-up and moved the first camera. But he was more than a founding father and a pioneer. His works will ensure his invention. Well, I typed something wrong there.
00:07:06
Speaker
His works will ensure his inventions. The Griffith films are far less dated today than they were a quarter of a century ago.
00:07:15
Speaker
When we drank together under the pink Christmas tree and I failed so dismally to express what he means to me, to all of us. I have failed again. he is beyond tribute.
00:07:27
Speaker
ah That paragraph took a turn. I wasn't expecting, certainly. Yeah, endure was the word, not ensure. I ah typed all these notes on my phone, so the spelling and grammatical errors are just going to be something I'm going to have to work through.
00:07:41
Speaker
Shame on you for taking seven pages of notes. It really is shame. Christ alive. That's Garamond size 11 for those curious at home.
00:07:54
Speaker
And because Hope gave me such shit last week, they are all chronological by year, a month,
00:08:05
Speaker
i'm I'm glad I'm having some sort of influence over this podcast. ah I mean, it was your idea. I would hope so. and Was it my idea or my fault? I think we're leaning into the latter. leave it to our students to ah to decide the answer to that question.
00:08:24
Speaker
We have not posted any of these episodes yet, so remains to be seen. We'll find out. Bye. It's going to it's going be grisly. ah So following that exchange, Bogdanovich asks Wells if D.W. Griffith is the best director in history, to which Wells says, well, best is a bad word.
00:08:42
Speaker
There are only a few artists in all the arts who can be called the best without any argument. I can think of I can only think of two Mozart and Shakespeare. Diego Velasquez for my money, but there you get arguments.
00:08:54
Speaker
The best is a very dicey kind of thing to decide. But if you're backed up against the wall on the matter of directors, isn't it going to have to be the founding father? To which Bogdanovich says, well, he's very sentimental. To which Will says, there's no defense against that charge, of course.
00:09:11
Speaker
He was very much of his epoch. He was an actor from Belasco's kind of theater. And in that tradition, sentimentality was a big ingredient. Then says, he's influenced everyone who's ever made a movie.
00:09:25
Speaker
Which is a similar kind of praise to the one Truffaut would eventually give Wells, which is that everyone will always owe him everything. Yeah. Very similar kind of praise from Wells to Griffith in this point.
00:09:38
Speaker
It is very much a ah standing on the shoulders of giants sort of industry. Right. and Absolutely. i mean, there are always, there are the innovators and there are the the entertainers and then there are the issue artists, um all of which have their place within the grand
Orson's Formative Years and Early Influences
00:09:54
Speaker
scheme of things. I think Griffith was doing both innovation and issue.
00:09:59
Speaker
The issue, unfortunately, was racism. ah And that and was it ever. Yeah, I've not seen Birth of a Nation. I really don't have a desire to see Birth of a Nation um because everyone I've talked to that has seen it goes, yeah you can skip that one.
00:10:19
Speaker
Uh, literally every person whose opinion I respect on film who has seen birth of a nation goes, you're not missing anything. We should host a screening of birth of a nation. No, but when the know but when the lights go down and the, the screen comes up, it's just blazing saddles.
00:10:34
Speaker
Okay, you I'm back on. See? i'm back on board. There you go. All right. Back on board. There All right, good. ah When Bogdanovich then later in their conversation compares the innovations of Citizen Kane, based on a quote by Andrew Sarris, compares the innovations of Citizen Kane to the innovation of Birth of a Nation, which Wells completely balks at, says Birth of a Nation had genuine innovations.
00:10:58
Speaker
The close-up, the moving shot, everything, the whole language of film is in it.
00:11:06
Speaker
So there you go. That is Orson Welles on Birth of a Nation and D.W. Griffith. There you are. I'm so glad we're covering this right off the top of the... ah Before we even get to his birth.
00:11:18
Speaker
ah Gosh. This will not be the the only time this episode where you where you just witness Hope completely losing her will to live. It's going to happen it's been a few more times. It's been a week. I'm going to not go ahead and date when we record this episode, but it has been a week.
00:11:36
Speaker
Or as as of the recording of this, yeah exactly a week. Jesus Christ. Let's move on. Anyway, Orson Welles.
00:11:48
Speaker
George Orson Welles, born into this earth on May 6th, 1915 Anno Domini, that is to say the year of our Lord, in the sleepy big town of Kenosha, Wisconsin, ah known throughout the Midwest as Little Chicago at the time.
00:12:09
Speaker
Um, really little Chicago, not, not much about his early life. In fact, uh, when you, um, start the third chapter of Patrick McGilligan's young Orson, which is where a bulk of the research for this episode comes from. Also some from Simon Callow's, uh, the road to Xanadu volume one of his Orson Welles biography, no biography, not auto, just regular type biography.
00:12:35
Speaker
Um, McGilligan starts in 1916 with Beatrice Wells and her activism. ah So she is leading a contingent of 500 suffragettes to a meeting with Woodrow Wilson to demand women's suffrage.
00:12:53
Speaker
um This is the man who basically ran an America's First campaign and won the White House with it. Hmm. yeah ah ah ah So progress, not really his fortitude. He also screened the first ever screening in the white house was DW Griffith's birth of a nation. A movie of which Woodrow Wilson was a big fucking fan. So there you God damn it.
00:13:18
Speaker
God damn it. Um, but, um, Beatrice Wells becomes really um her activism takes a couple of different forms. ah She's also ah we mentioned last week, the first woman elected to public office in Kenosha on the school board, a school board commissioner.
00:13:35
Speaker
ah She also is a performer and performs a self-authored story yet called Mother and Child. um Talking about mother's privilege to address difficult subjects with her child, things like sex and death while they're still at a young and impressionable age, um which in case you were wondering, yes, Beatrice Wells was a sex education advocate.
00:13:57
Speaker
We stan. Fantastic. All right. We stan. um She is elected to her second term of school board commissioner that spring. ah The margin has shrunk, though. She's only leading by 30 votes, only wins the office by 30 votes on her second term.
00:14:15
Speaker
um That summer, 1916, Orson would take his first trip to New York City, not even, or I guess barely even a year old at that point. ah this The New York City trips would become something of a tradition, particularly for Orson and his father, Dick, as as the young man gets older. And he it's there that he manages to like meet some of the great, like manages to forest gump his way through the theater. Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker
Like he meets, like his dad's good friends with John Barrymore. Yes, of those Barrymores. oh Oh, of of the E.T. Barrymore. Correct. okay ah Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:14:54
Speaker
um like I could not pull another fucking Barrymore movie out of my head. Batman Forever. There it is. All right. Keep going. Never being pissed. um Home fries.
00:15:05
Speaker
Batman Forever. It's the most bisexual movie ever made. It really is. for reasons Besides possibly Casablanca. 1999's The Mummy would like a word?
00:15:19
Speaker
They're not as... That is argument. That isn't our that is our generation's bisexual awakening. and You kind of can't deny that. That's fair. that's fair The way Nicole Kidman looks at Batman, though, it ah it's... yeah I mean, that was that was a different kind of awakening for me, I'll tell you that.
00:15:38
Speaker
Okay, so it's the way Nicole Kidman looks at Batman and um Chris O'Donnell's little earring. that's That's what it is. Okay, there it is. That's what it yeah you you You won me back. I'm back. There we go. We got there.
00:15:51
Speaker
Okay, good. Um... And then ah very suddenly um Beatrice starts to pull back on her political affiliations that autumn, intending to focus on her music career, which becomes more of a focus for her as she begins to care ah ah for Orson.
00:16:09
Speaker
as he gets older. Also, it is worth noting that Dr. Maurice Bernstein, who we mentioned very briefly or Bernstein, I think, sorry. We mentioned briefly last week as a figure in Orson's life who will become quite prominent on December 31st of 1916, Mary's Mina Elman.
00:16:30
Speaker
ah She's an aspiring singer, ah classical singer. She's a younger sister of virtuoso violinist Misha Elman, ah They marry at the Hotel Statler in Buffalo, New York. The Wellses are not in attendance.
00:16:44
Speaker
Shortly after their wedding, they move to Kenosha, Wisconsin, just around the corner from Dick and Bee.
00:16:53
Speaker
You know I had that thought over the past few weeks. Oh, his name really was Dick Head. Wow. um Yeah. i I love and hate that you incepted that knowledge into my brain. Well done. Yours and everyone else's who's listened to that episode. Yeah.
00:17:08
Speaker
Good Lord. Richard Head Wells and he went by Dick. Dick Wells. Dick. Jesus Christ. So i I will try as much as I can to refer to Orson's father as Dick and his older brother as Richard.
00:17:23
Speaker
Okay. Because there is another was I did intimate last week or or imply infer one of those last week that Richard probably had some kind of learning disability.
00:17:33
Speaker
And he may very well have but what became increasingly clear through this section of the reading is that Richard ah had a lot of behavioral problems, and was just really shitty at school.
00:17:48
Speaker
So those could stem from mental problems. We're not sure. But in terms of like a child with disability, like a learning disability, which is what I suggested earlier, there's no real evidence to suggest that.
00:18:01
Speaker
That's fair. I mean, we're we're also going off of, you know, secondhand historical record. And trying to make any kind of diagnosis off of that. Right. And we haven't read all of this to start with either. So we are also learning as we go. So there's going to be some incomplete knowledge. There will be correctives. I can pretty much guarantee you.
00:18:20
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Like all of this is going to happen. And unfortunately, if anyone catches them in real time, we won't be responding to them until at least a week, if not weeks later, because yeah we're doing a lot of prep work on this one for, ah for, for, for our own sanity and necessity.
00:18:38
Speaker
Unfortunately, yes. I enjoy owning Sanity. I've never owned one before, so it's kind of a novel ah experience, and I'd like to keep it intact as long as I can. Good luck. Thanks. It's going to be...
00:18:51
Speaker
I'm rooting for you. Thanks. Going to be a fun challenge. Particularly now. Yeah. Well, keeping it posy, I might have to introduce myself under a new name in a couple of episodes, but we'll see how that shakes out.
00:19:06
Speaker
Um... um the In 1917, starting off the year, ah Badger Brass, the company that ah Dick Wells founded with a couple of other gentlemen, is sold.
00:19:19
Speaker
Maybe Bicycle Lamp, I believe. Correct. Yes. Hey, I remembered something. Class does really work. It does. Hey, that we we go to school to learn. we And we come to this place for magic. we did Speaking of the bulk admin. I don't have any gummies on me. i I have to pop a gummy at, we come to this place for magic.
00:19:39
Speaker
But Badger Brass sold to CM Jesus Christ cat jump scare. Okay. I'm going to note that.
00:19:49
Speaker
Continue, please.
00:19:53
Speaker
Yes, the Badger Brass is sold to CM Hall Lamp Company in Detroit for a sum that is estimated as to be around $400,000 1917, which adjusted inflation to 2024 dollars is going to be about $10.8 million.
00:20:04
Speaker
ah which adjusted for inflation to twenty twenty four dollars going to be about ten point eight million Not fucking bad. Not a bicycle lamp. Not fucking bad. Dick's share with inflation, according to Simon Callow, would have been about $100,000 of those $400,000, which is about $2.7 million in today's monies.
00:20:27
Speaker
So he is, by modern standards, effectively a millionaire. And so at 44, Dick Wells announces his retirement. That's... Son of a bitch.
00:20:39
Speaker
Christ alive. What a way to live. Now, this is our first point of major contention between Callow and McGilligan in their accounts of rama the wealth. you We're going to get a lot of this because, again, we're dealing with and we address this in our first episode a little bit.
00:20:57
Speaker
Wells's life is he is his own myth maker. Oh, yeah. And loved fucking with people. And so you never know what, which of his stories to believe in, which ones not to, we're going to try to get as much of the information out there as we can.
00:21:13
Speaker
McGilligan does a very good job of corroborating with other sources in a way that so from what I've seen so far, Calo really doesn't like McGilligan, like does the legwork.
00:21:24
Speaker
So when Callow says this is probably where Dick's alcoholism really starts in earnest. um And of course, Callow attributes it to him, ah Dick being cuckolded by Dr. Maurice Bernstein. Jesus Christ. A thing we will get to later.
00:21:42
Speaker
ah Jesus Christ. That is another point of contention. Okay, well, I have great news. I've just decided that trying to biographize Orson Welles is a contact sport, and I'm thrilled to announce that we now have an athletics department, and it purely consists of the actual professional biographers fighting one another.
00:22:00
Speaker
God, I want that so much. Right? Okay. let's Who's on your March Madness brackets? We've got Bogdanovich. We've got... Callow. We've got... Noble. Brady. We've got Frank Brady, yeah. I just...
00:22:14
Speaker
In this corner. Barbara Leeming.
00:22:18
Speaker
this corner, weighing 655 pages. It's Frank Brady's Citizen Wells. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. Had to. Good. we We're off to a great start. 22 minutes into this episode.
00:22:32
Speaker
We're making great time here. I am only on page two. Two! Christ! Two of seven. Um... So Callow suggests that the alcoholism starts here.
00:22:44
Speaker
McGilligan disputes this. He says it probably didn't really happen until ah the Wells family moved to Chicago. um All that Marlott. Merlot. Merlot. Merlot.
00:22:57
Speaker
How do I get it wrong every time? You're thinking of Merlot and it's not fucking Merlot. Fucker. And then when you start to say it, I forget it for about 10 seconds. And then I have to like remember it while you're like ranting through all the other options it could be.
00:23:13
Speaker
The problem is the actual word is so unappealing in terms of like a mouthfeel. So you want to make it like your brain wants to make it prettier.
00:23:25
Speaker
No. It's fucking Chicago, dude. like That's fair. That's fair. Come on. I wonder i wonder when Jepson's Malort was first invented. Why don't you research that yep real quick? Okay. Okay. You're giving me busy work while you do the actual legwork.
00:23:42
Speaker
um Start narrating. ah According to um the local Kenosha's, the eyewitness reports from the people who lived with Wells in in his time in Kenosha, he would drink, but not to excess. Like he was a fairly prominent, a fairly prominent ah social figure in Kenosha. And so it wouldn't have become him. When he moved to Chicago, he becomes a bit more anonymous.
00:24:12
Speaker
ah Well, I have good and also terrible news. We can't really talk about Jepson's Malort until ah the year it was founded, which was 1933. Okay. okay So, yeah, we will we will talk about that ah next episode, maybe.
00:24:27
Speaker
would say a couple of, a few episodes from now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah, we're not. Well, I'll have time to import a bottle. ah So that'll be good.
00:24:40
Speaker
Whereas I can just walk down to the corner of liquor store and buy one. Son of a bitch. Because I live in fucking Chicago. oh Oh, yeah? Well, I have soft pretzels. Fuck you. Oh, yeah, because those don't get sold in Chicago ever at all. Not Philly fucking soft pretzels. God damn it.
00:24:54
Speaker
Every time I see a recipe for a Philly cheesesteak anywhere like farther outside of the city than Lancaster, I'm like, no, no, no, that's no. I'm using the you're using the good cheese. Fuck off.
00:25:10
Speaker
I'm told there's a place here in the city that has a mean cheesesteak. and There's also weirdly, I believe, a bar in London that is entirely Philadelphia-based, which is odd, but I'm glad we're spreading like a viral infection. I was going to say, if Philly's going to spread, that's the only way it's going to. Exactly.
00:25:26
Speaker
I mean, honestly, Chicago, not that far off in some ways. You've got to mask up and prevent Philly-itis. Right. So I'm excited to discover that.
00:25:37
Speaker
Unfortunately, um Orson was not in Chicago when Malort was a thing. He had already gone to New York at that point. God damn it, Orson. You're fucking everything up with your racism. yeah Your love of D.A. Griffith.
00:25:50
Speaker
And you're being in the wrong geographic location at the invention of a completely unrelated thing. God damn it. That you probably would have hated. Probably. Probably.
00:26:01
Speaker
kind of I mean, he hated Paul Masson. He probably would not have liked Mallory. Well, his loss. I mean, honestly. Yeah. Christ alive. Okay. So that gets us up to when.
00:26:13
Speaker
ah So we're still in January of 1917. Christ alive. Around this time, Richard Ives Wells, who is Orson's brother, ah suffers an injury.
00:26:26
Speaker
ah No one's really sure how. He either falls down a flight of stairs or gets hurt playing football. One thing I'm learning about Richard Wells is the dude was prone to getting into accidents. Dude got hurt a lot.
00:26:42
Speaker
And as a result, missed a lot of school, which might have been why he wasn't so good at it. Because wasn't there long enough for it to make an impact. Yeah.
00:26:53
Speaker
um Dr. Bernstein sends him to a hospital in Chicago, and his parents are basically going back and forth between Kenosha and Chicago in order to stay with him.
00:27:04
Speaker
While they're between the stress and moving between their hospital and their hotel in the middle of a Chicago winter. Beatrice basically um has something of a breakdown and is prescribed to bed rest and is basically sent by Bernstein back to Kenosha and put on bed rest. The first real sign of like poor health from her.
00:27:28
Speaker
I do just, I joke about this all the time, but I love how we're, um, currently living through the I'm going to stab you a phase of medical science. Yeah. Like if you are losing blood, you got to get stabbed to get more blood. If you got stabbed, you got to get stabbed again.
00:27:46
Speaker
You know? Yeah. If you want a really deep, relaxing massage, you're going to get stabbed. Meanwhile, this is the era we're talking about ah historically of what's that one tweet? It's ah you've got ghosts in your blood. You should do cocaine about it.
00:28:00
Speaker
ah That's the current level of medical science. That's like being prescribed the seaside for your health. Right. We should go back to that. There is a little later where we're going to discuss um that Bernstein, um after Beatrice's death, basically becomes um Dick's kind of uneasy companion, fellow guardian of Orson slash doctor.
00:28:25
Speaker
And he's treating him for an illness. And basically he's treating it with g
00:28:34
Speaker
because at that point, gin and tonic is effectively a health drink because of quinine, which is basically the ivermectin of its day.
00:28:45
Speaker
i joke, but like, no, I know. i know. Like I just said about medical science right and like Christ alive, do cocaine about it. Right. Do cocaine about it.
00:28:59
Speaker
Laudanum, I think was was that was ah red wine and cocaine. think of course. Yeah. No, it's like opium. Red wine and opium. I think it's what I would just like to personally drink a straight bottle of THC, which I have kind of been doing in slow motion over the course of this evening.
00:29:19
Speaker
By a bottle, I mean bong, but here nor there. ah I mean, if you drink bong water, isn't it essentially THC infused water?
00:29:31
Speaker
It's gross. I know I can tell you that much from experience. You're talking to someone who has smoked weed exactly three times in his life. So cool. Try sneezing while taking a bong rip. And so that gets you. Yeah. yeah it's It's a fun time.
00:29:46
Speaker
I'd rather not. I'd really rather not. Yeah. There you go. It's probably smart for everybody all around.
Development of Orson's Artistic Vision
00:29:53
Speaker
A lot of Febreze. A lot of Febreze.
00:29:56
Speaker
There you go. ah So Bernstein prescribes her bed rest. Yeah. So she basically has to go back to Kenosha by herself and stay in bed.
00:30:08
Speaker
ah Orson is there with his maternal grandmother who kind of watched him while Beatrice would make her trips to Chicago or when she and Dick were traveling. um 1917, April 1917, four months after they got married, ah the Bernsteins separate.
00:30:28
Speaker
Mina moves out of the home and effectively they don't get divorced until a couple years later. Like, I think it finalizes the next July, July 1918.
00:30:39
Speaker
um But she's gone. ah McGilligan suggests that the marriage dissolved as a result of Bernstein not really being able to use his artistic connections to further Mina's career as a singer, of which he said she had little aptitude.
00:30:54
Speaker
Shit. Callow, on the other hand, because Callow is much more, I think, prone to believing the scandal from what I've seen, a suggests, quote, cupidity and treachery.
00:31:11
Speaker
um I don't know who was treachering who. But someone got treachered and treachered right out of a marriage. And Callow says at this point that Bernstein started an affair with Beatrice Wells on the rebound.
00:31:27
Speaker
Christ alive. So like, and the the depictions of this man in Callow's account and in ah McGilligan's account cannot be more different.
00:31:40
Speaker
For Callow, he is a Lothario. Man is just like having sex with every married woman he meets. Basically always married women. Like Calo's like, he's got to have a third. That's where the thrill is for him.
00:31:54
Speaker
And I'm like, dude, are you okay? Yeah. and that Or it's like, you know, he he doesn't want someone who's... He wants someone who's available, but not too available. You know, like, how married are you? Kind of a thing. Yeah, yeah. um Whereas McGilligan kind of defers to Orson and sees Bernstein as kind of this figure of almost like pity, like this guy who just was always pining for Beatrice and it was never requited.
00:32:21
Speaker
like and he gets that mostly, I think, from Orson's account. And Orson was kind of always like... I think they loved each other, but he loved her that way and she did not.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of the impression that I get from Orson. um And given kind of where the marriage of Dick and Beatrice ends up, I'm more inclined to believe McGilligan on this.
00:32:48
Speaker
And we'll get into that a little later. Okay. um But in August of that year, um Orson's maternal grandmother dies, age 59, of colon cancer.
00:33:00
Speaker
Ugh. um And Beatrice is basically takes ill with grief is is so distraught. She becomes ill and needs to be taken to St. Luke's hospital in Chicago, a hospital that decades later will be the birthplace of one Robin Williams.
00:33:18
Speaker
Wow. Okay. It is on the national registry of protected places in Chicago. And when I do my Wells tour of Chicago, one of these days, it's going to be a stop.
00:33:30
Speaker
There you go All right. So there you go. um Which moves us into the fall. ah Richard is sent to a boarding school at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois.
00:33:42
Speaker
Again, one of those places that's like less than two hours from where I live. Crazy. um He basically, um this is the first boarding school he's sent to of, I think, three.
00:33:55
Speaker
And he, surprise, does not do well there. On vacations, he would basically scare Orson with stories about the Todd School. Orson would later say, I knew about Todd as criminals know about San Quinto. Jesus Christ.
00:34:11
Speaker
So just kind of tell, who and I mean, it. By all intents and purposes, and we'll get into this more next week, Todd is a very strict school. We'll get we'll get more into the origins of Todd, I'm sure, next week.
00:34:24
Speaker
Callow has a ah significant chunk on the origin of the Todd school, which I can dig into a little bit if McGilligan doesn't, but I can't imagine McGilligan's not going to. That dude... Thorough, Jeffrey.
00:34:39
Speaker
um Also, for those keeping track, we've made it to page three. Of the notes. I mean, we're half an hour in. we're Honestly, we're making really good time. We're not doing bad. Yeah, we're doing okay.
00:34:51
Speaker
we We got 10 years to kick around with this shit. Absolutely. Absolutely. we got yeah We got all the time in the world, kids. Just like James Bond and, um oh, what was her name? um i ah Emma Peel. Mrs. Peel, is that?
00:35:06
Speaker
Emma. yeah I can't remember the actress's name Diana Ridd. There it is. Thank you. I knew I would get there. I just had to like my brain had to do the exercises.
00:35:17
Speaker
um October 1917, Beatrice puts on a Red Cross benefit concert in her mother's honor, ah featuring a renowned tenor, Louis Kreidler, who was a good friend of hers. um One of the many artists that would show up at her lavish parties.
00:35:34
Speaker
And then, In December 1917, Beatrice basically says, I'm resigning as school commissioner, effective immediately. No real reason is given. But within the next few months, the Wells relocate to Chicago, Illinois.
00:35:51
Speaker
Now with with her mother ah passed away, Beatrice basically sees no reason to stay. In Kenosha, she was from Chicago, grew up in the Chicago area, and as a result, probably wanted to get back there to continue to pursue her artistic ambitions. And Dick went along with it, basically. Didn't really seem to care.
00:36:13
Speaker
um So by by Easter Sunday, which I believe was March 31st of that year, they're basically settled in Chicago full-time. Um...
00:36:24
Speaker
Orson is taken to the Illinois theater in Chicago in May for his birthday, his third birthday to see the performance of Eugene Moran's Les Cathedrals.
00:36:36
Speaker
Less cathedrals. um Thank you. That's in italics and I'm not wearing my glasses. Yes, you are welcome. ah Starring stage legend Sarah Bernhardt.
00:36:49
Speaker
Not to be confused with Sandra Bernhardt. That's a different person. But Sarah Bernhardt, a stage legend, ah a very common thing when Orson is taken to see a show, he will very often be gone be taken backstage by any number of his guardians. His parents and guardians being patrons of the arts, pretty much a weigh and right pretty much always found their way backstage. And so, again, this is kind of where he...
00:37:16
Speaker
gets to meet all these insanely famous people. At this point, Bernhardt has, ah um I think, a prosthetic leg and is in a wheelchair and put on oxygen after the show. Jesus Christ. She's not doing well.
00:37:33
Speaker
And basically Orson says he remembers seeing her backstage in her wheelchair recovering after the show. And he puts his little hand on her like crooked liver spotted hand.
00:37:44
Speaker
And the idea that in that moment, she passed the artistic torch from herself to this little child. Again, this feels like one of those exaggerated Orson stories where he's like, ah, yes. And as a child, I, I touched this old lady's hand and she was a legend.
00:38:01
Speaker
God in heaven, Orson. Not the only one of these, I will tell you. am aware. That's just the beginning of the end for this nonsense. Oh, yes.
00:38:13
Speaker
ah Um, again, in July, of that year, Bernstein and his wife finalized their divorce. Um, Maurice Bernstein does remain in Kenosha for a little bit after the Wells is moved, but I think after the divorce pretty much says, fuck it and moves to Chicago to be near his beloved Beatrice. And in fact, Orson makes a point to say he moved to Chicago to be near my mother.
00:38:37
Speaker
Like he says that pretty explicitly. Hmm. So again, Lothario or Hopeless Romantic?
00:38:50
Speaker
Could go either way. Could go either way. Send in your fan fiction to AO3, kids. Hope will definitely read it. i as I will not because there's no lesbians involved, but I will i will bookmark it and leave nice comments.
00:39:05
Speaker
So...
00:39:08
Speaker
She's got a type, ladies and gentlemen. yeah It's called Disaster Lesbians. um In August, Orson has takes his first stage role at age three as Trouble, one of the children of Madame Butterfly in the Puccini Opera at the Ravinia, which is actually a place that I have been in Highland Park, Illinois.
00:39:31
Speaker
ah There's a ah brewery up there called Ravinia Brewing that I have been to. And i knew this I have driven by this open air theater where apparently Orson had his first ever stage performance. so And the the title of the character was Trouble.
00:39:46
Speaker
That feels prophet prophetic. Yeah, prescient as it were. Literally, like I said last episode, it's just like, this is literally just, you know, Christopher Nolan wrote this like,
00:39:59
Speaker
As an adaptation of Batman Begins. It's fine. Wall magic, Mr. White. Hold on, because we're about five years away from the dead woman. ah Christ alive.
00:40:10
Speaker
really alive bring home that Christopher Nolan wrote this shit angle. Absolutely. Like, I know there's other examples of like, you know, origin stories and things slotting into place a little too cleanly, but Batman Begins is really like,
00:40:27
Speaker
That's just my touchstone for everything. I don't know why, but there it is. No, for good reason. Which is why this episode is called... Orson Begins. That definitely didn't tickle my fancy after a bong rip. So...
00:40:41
Speaker
ah that definitely didn't ah tickle my fancy after a bong rip so
00:40:49
Speaker
ah In September of 1918, two months before the armistice is signed, jesus Dick Wells signs up for the World War I draft. Oh, good timing, Dick. yeah forty is 45 years of age, and guess what the cutoff is? Bad timing, Dick. 45 years of age. God damn it, Dick. He barely fucking makes it to sign up for the draft, but doesn't really, it seems very performative because it's right there at the end. Yeah, you you tried, Dick.
00:41:18
Speaker
you You don't get any kind of medal. I'll give you a little gold star sticker. It's the the Bart Simpson, at least you tried cake, and then he goes and chucks it in the trash. Like, that's that's Dick Wells signing up for the Army in World War I. Absolutely abysmal. Christ.
00:41:34
Speaker
ah In February of 1919, on February 1st, the beginning of the end of the Wells' marriage as Beatrice discovers Dick in an adulterous affair.
00:41:46
Speaker
Shock. Shock, I say. Right. Effectively ending their marriage. um they are They never actually divorce, which we'll get to. But this effectively leads to basically the trouble that the two of them will have for the next five years of their lives as a family.
00:42:06
Speaker
um basically, in all ways, but publicly, they're done with each other. i think Dick is always kind of hoping for some kind of reconciliation that never fully comes.
00:42:19
Speaker
I mean, i get it Beatrice sounds like a hell of a lady. I would have liked to have known her personally. Oh, yeah. Dick fumbled that. And he don't get a second chance. Yeah. And apparently this was not the first time he had done something like this and apparently was very apolog unapologetic about it.
00:42:40
Speaker
i mean Hang on. Let me react appropriately. No. The Captain Kirk. ah so Hand over the mouth, hand over the face. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:53
Speaker
Basically, like she kicks him out, he goes to a hotel and then keeps up the affair with the same woman, essentially, like in the hotel that, you know, she's tossed him to.
00:43:05
Speaker
And of course, to add insult to injury right around this time, Richard gets kicked out of the Todd school. um No one really knows why Orson's headmaster Roger Hill ah later surmised that maybe he'd been caught with a local girl, but he has no evidence to suggest that this is actually what happened.
00:43:24
Speaker
It could have also been due to injuries sustained by Richard. um He would then, at the insistence of Dr. Bernstein, be enrolled in the Latin School of Chicago, an institution that is still around,
00:43:39
Speaker
Huh. And how is that going? i You know, it's been around for 135 years and they've got a very nice website. but Hey, sometimes good web design is all you really need.
00:43:50
Speaker
I mean, it it it's a preparatory school, like very much so, but... Yeah, I do appreciate how young Richard Wells and ah Dr. Bernstein had like so many different like potential characterizations applied to them throughout these biographies.
00:44:10
Speaker
But everybody universally agrees Dick dick. dick Yeah. ah Yeah. So, like, it's it's nice to know that there's some agreement. Right. And I think, I mean, Orson's love for his mother cannot be overstated, like, at all.
00:44:27
Speaker
But I think his relationship with his father, as with most artists and their father, is complicated. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. An artist not getting along with their dad? What?
00:44:38
Speaker
i know. I've never heard of such a thing. I know. Absolutely atrocious. Tell me another lie. Have you met my friend Steven Spielberg? Oh.
00:44:50
Speaker
I told you this, but Bex's one line review after seeing Close Encounters for the first of time was, Stephen, go to therapy. Yes. Yeah. And he openly admits, I didn't go to therapy. I made movies. It shows. We know, Stephen.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah. We really know. we've We've been going with you to therapy. We've seen all your therapy. I mean, movies. Yeah. what did i i like tried to pitch a trilogy to bex and it's like let's do like a mini movie marathon it's just like the steven spielberg dad therapy uh trilogy and it's it's close encounters last crusade and fablemans uh just all back to back yeah but that's good that's real good yeah i i really i really love close encounters that's possibly my favorite spielberg
00:45:40
Speaker
I have a very unconventional favorite Spielberg that everyone looks at me like I'm an idiot when I tell them my favorite Spielberg. Is it, hang on, I want to guess. Is it early period or late period? It's late period. late period. Interesting. Okay.
00:45:54
Speaker
Not as familiar. um It can't be as mind-numbingly strange as Bex's choice of second favorite Spielberg movie, which is ah Ready Player One. No, God, which is inexplicable. I cannot.
00:46:07
Speaker
Not that late. Great. OK, just tell me. AI, artificial intelligence. Interesting. I have yet to see that. Owns bones. That movie rules. I have yet to see that. And I love robots. So that feels up my alley. So, yeah. And it was it was a film that was developed by Kubrick. By Kubrick. Yeah.
00:46:26
Speaker
So, I mean, it's got that. no Robin Williams is in it, right? For a little bit. Yeah, for one scene. Jude Law plays a robot gigolo. Yeah, I know that. He's very pretty. He's very pretty. Chris Rock has a cameo in there, too. course. Sure.
00:46:40
Speaker
Brennan Gleeson plays a racist. Sure. yeah it It rules, man. I don't know what to tell you. AI rules. It is my favorite Spielberg movie. That's understandable. I just don't like watching new things by myself. It sucks. I like to have somebody to respond to the movie with. Yeah, I get it.
00:46:58
Speaker
Which is why it's going to take me three to four nights to watch The Magnificent Seven. so that movie also rules it really does rule it's upsetting how well yul brenner is working for me it's really truly upsetting have you seen yul brenner like i surprised and oh yes my god what an energy here's the question how how's bronson working for you
00:47:23
Speaker
subtler than I thought he would. He's again, a lot of these guys just have presence and the energy thing really works for me. So that is an amazing cast of actors and horse buckles. Like not really a fan of what he's doing in that movie for many reasons, but yeah.
00:47:41
Speaker
Yeah. Let's cast this German, this up and coming German kid as a Mexican. Yeah. Hmm. Hollywood in the sixties. What you going to do? Yep.
00:47:52
Speaker
Oh, well. And speaking of Hollywood, in 1920... Tell what happened in 1920. On February 26, 1920, little movie called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is released in Germany. Hey, I know that one.
00:48:06
Speaker
This would become an arthouse staple and would be one of those things you could probably only see in, like, big metropolitan areas. In fact, Wells on Caligari... It says, in those days, Caligari was the cineast's dream picture, you know.
00:48:22
Speaker
It hasn't stood up, thank goodness, but it used to be considered a great classic. You saw it every time you went to New York. That and Blood of a Poet by Cocteau and Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou.
00:48:33
Speaker
Now, I want to argue his point there. Like, I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in, like, a film class in, like, 2008, and I thought it fucking ruled. I don't know what he's talking about. doesn't hold up.
00:48:44
Speaker
You're right. fucking owns. But, you know, this is also the same man u-o who said ah that the works of
Orson's Legacy and Impact on Cinema
00:48:53
Speaker
D.W. Griffiths are far less dated today than they were a quarter of a century ago.
00:48:56
Speaker
Oh, God, you brought back D.W. Griffith. God damn it. i thought we were so I thought we were safe. I thought we were free, Stephen. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the podcast. God damn it. No, I mean, we we have to say, you know, as as as much as we love Orson, ah flawed individual. And again, we have said this before. We will say this again. We will again and again and again. and let me just check my notes here again. Again. um Again, again.
00:49:26
Speaker
Like children. um Very flawed individual. And that sometimes... i with regard to taste, like taste is a subjective thing. Not everyone's going to agree. And we're not always going to agree with Orson.
00:49:38
Speaker
I'm sorry to say. Well, I want to believe. I do too. In Orson. I do too. Look, there's a reason we're doing this podcast. Yeah. Because because at the end of the day, however flawed he might be, he's he's an object of fascination for both of us. He's insane is what he is. And I love him to bitty, bitty pieces.
00:49:57
Speaker
Absolutely. Yes. He's my comfort real life Blorbo. ah That's for all the Tumbleringas out there. Turns out Orson Welles is ah Bit of a thing on Tumblr.
00:50:08
Speaker
So I'm going to be, I'm going to be trying to put in some numbers on Tumblr. are one horse and well so Do we need a Wells U pod Tumblr account? I can start one this evening before I go to bed. Okay. and a Let's do it. Okay.
00:50:20
Speaker
Kick ass. We're almost out of 1920 because not much happens. 1920, an uneventual year in the life of the Wells is. ah Yes. After this, we've got six more years. Okay.
00:50:34
Speaker
What page are we up to? Four. We're on four. Almost halfway there. um Beatrice Wells basically performs publicly for the first time in years um in April 1920 with her prote protege Phyllis Fergus, later Phyllis Fergus Hoyt.
00:50:51
Speaker
ah They would perform together basically for the next year and of some months until Phyllis marries Thatcher Hoyt in July 1921 and basically then just takes several years off. She would not perform publicly again until after Beatrice's death.
00:51:05
Speaker
Hmm.
00:51:07
Speaker
In the spring of 1921, Richard Wells suffers another injury and basically gets sent home to Dr. Bernstein and thus ending his tenure at the Latin School of Chicago.
00:51:21
Speaker
Oh, you poor bastard. So that fall, then, he is sent to the Northwest Military and Naval Academy in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Oh, Christ.
00:51:32
Speaker
Worst case scenario, buddy. And his he is almost... Pardon me. Hmm. Those tiny penis individuals just driving by my apartment.
00:51:45
Speaker
ah Christ alive. the He's almost immediately sent back ah due to a cord lesion, ah which is believed to cause mood swings and weakness in his right side.
00:51:59
Speaker
umha Bernstein recommends he get a surgery to correct it. And, um, keeps uh he he says it's deemed successful keeps writing to northwest that they're going to be sending him back going to be sending him back he never goes back basically um and as they are now separated um as richard is now basically home beatrice says enough of you you're gonna go live with your father because he needs a quote strong example why dick was chosen anyone's guess but
00:52:31
Speaker
But when your other option is Bernstein, it makes sense. yeah Did you omit the word negative from strong example? No, I did not. strong negative example. Now, watch him and do the opposite that. the opposite of that. Although, by all accounts, he does not.
00:52:48
Speaker
ah Because in the fall of 1922, about a year later, he leaves home to join a vaudeville troupe. There's always money in a vaudeville troupe. Mm-hmm.
00:53:00
Speaker
ah Checks notes. It looks like he changed his name from Richard Ives Wells to Groucho Marx. OK, well, good on you. no no, that's a lie I just made up.
00:53:11
Speaker
It is. ah Darn. It is absolutely a lie. um By all accounts, he is not successful in that endeavor. Really? This begins a long period of Richard Wells leaving home, coming back home, leaving home, coming back home, ad infinitum, essentially. Oh god.
00:53:33
Speaker
Really, you really just, like again, it's going to make me mad again, but just, like, the the lack of, like, the ability for education to adapt to kids that need education.
00:53:48
Speaker
you know, help. Right. And I mean, everybody gets lumped into quote unquote special education and it gets stigmatized and this and that the other thing. And here's the thing. Shit like this. Beatrice is one of the ones advocating for that kind of shit, but I don't think she has the language or was, I should say, because she's at this point, she's not anymore.
00:54:07
Speaker
Yeah. But she was in Kenosha, one of the ones advocating for that shit. But I don't think they had the language for the kinds of things that were really needed for a child like that.
00:54:21
Speaker
unfortunately yeah it's it sucks it really just sucks we know so precious little about like him in general because as i said this is like second and third hand information right and um and probably a lot of it taken from orson himself who also was going off of second and third hand information so right Yeah, it just I feel bad for the bastard.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they're not close. Like, given their age difference, they really had nothing in common other than that they both like to paint. So, like, they didn't really spend any kind of time together. But also, like, how many hobbies were available to humans in, like, 1921? You couldn't go on Reddit, could you? No. So, yeah. and And you know what? Just people out there fucking living life. No one glued to their phones just out there living.
00:55:11
Speaker
You're right. Times were simpler then. We should go back to Birth of a Day. Oh, no. Oh, no. What are we saying? Oh, no. Oh, burn it all down. Okay. Oh, well, you know, if the coming administration has its way, we'll be there. Stop it.
00:55:27
Speaker
No, we're talking about Orson Welles and good things. God damn it.
00:55:33
Speaker
This is escapism for me. Sorry. a ah You're okay. Which leads us to October 1922. Oh, we've made to 1922. Okay. nineteen twenty two oh thank god we've made it to nineteen twenty two wherein Beatrice Wells files for divorce from Richard Head Wells. Hey! Citing his drunkenness, philandering, and unwillingness to provide for her or their children.
00:55:58
Speaker
Nowadays, that's pronounced irreconcilable differences. Right. ah Ten days later, however, the petition is withdrawn. goddammit. When ah Dick relinquishes his shares in Goodrich Rubber and Utah Copper to Beatrice and agrees to deposit a monthly sum into her account... Oh, shit.
00:56:18
Speaker
Basically allowing her to become financially stable. hey ah Hey, all right. As such, the divorce is never finalized. They remain separated to the end of their lives, but they do not divorce. And that reminds me, honestly, a lot of Orson's last marriage to Paola Mori.
00:56:37
Speaker
Okay. I have not read that far ahead, believe it or not. I, again, i just have this in this innate knowledge of Orson from all the other shit. Again, he's an object of fascination for me and has been for years.
00:56:50
Speaker
Really? Yes. Go listen to The Matrix Reclamations to hear me talk about something as knowledgeably as Steven is doing right now. Yes. um I say knowledgeably. It's not a good example. Please keep talking. No, it is a good example. You have you have an intense, deep love for that content, and I'd love that podcast for that you're very kind. And it is completely useless in this situation, because as far as I know, Orson Welles died before The Matrix happened. Yep, I had to check that.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yes. 1985 happened before The Matrix. Yes, I did 14 years before, yes. Man, what a shame. He'd have loved that shit. He might have done, actually. He might have done.
00:57:29
Speaker
Um, but no, he, he's married to Paola Mori for years. They separate, but never divorced. Like Orson carries on a very public affair with Oya Kodar for like the last several years of his life.
00:57:42
Speaker
he He made at least one very large movie about it. So yeah. Yeah. God in heaven. Yep. Yep. ah I mean, if you haven't seen the other side of the wind yet, kind of too. Um, mean, I did check out the, um,
00:57:59
Speaker
disc I have of that. And, uh, it's not a so It's not something a Jedi would teach you. And it is good quality shit. I will say, capital G, capital S, good shit.
00:58:12
Speaker
So I'm going to have a lot of fun with that when we get to it in 10 years. Right. At least. At least. least At least. We got a lot of ground to cover between there then and now. Maybe there'll be a bootleg 4K by then. so But no, I mean, the story goes, when Orson dies, is Will stipulates that Paola gets everything.
00:58:32
Speaker
And so When Paula is literally on her way to the lawyer to sign over the rights to Wells' shit to Oya, she gets hit by a car in New York City and dies.
00:58:44
Speaker
Holy fuck. And so, which is why Beatrice Wells now, Wells' third daughter, is basically the keeper of the Wells estate.
00:58:55
Speaker
That's... Holy shit. Yeah.
00:59:01
Speaker
that's That's what that's. All right. Well, fair enough. Not to skip to the end or anything. I mean, yeah, spoilers for an episode we're going to nine years from now. But yeah, Jesus Christ.
00:59:12
Speaker
Yeah. Basically. That's bananas. All right. so So that takes us up to 1923. 1923. nineteen twenty three um Beatrice basically begins touring the Midwest, starts to travel with her cousin, Dudley Crafts Watson. Sorry. Sorry. The cat's name is Dudley Crafts Watson.
00:59:33
Speaker
Yes. That's a great fucking name. Yeah. Yeah. That's solid. You know, back it back in this these days, people knew how to fucking name a person. God damn it. Did they ever. Richard Headwells. God damn.
00:59:45
Speaker
Yeah. named Dick Dickhead Wells. that Man's name was Dickhead Wells, Hope. Dudley Crafts Moore. Dudley Crafts Watson. What a fucking guy. Did I say Dudley Crafts Moore? You did, yeah. the fuck is wrong with me?
01:00:01
Speaker
Dudley Moore. like i know I know the connection, but like I'm looking at the text right now, and I... still Never mind. It's fine. It's past my bedtime, and I'm still high.
01:00:12
Speaker
ah We're all fine here. Everything's fine. What a great place to be, though, honestly. it's I can't really complain. I had pizza bites for dinner. Fucking a That kind of Tuesday. yeah i made i made I made frozen bagged risotto for dinner. That's what I did. you All right.
01:00:29
Speaker
It was pretty tasty. Yeah. um Basically, she would provide piano accompaniment, and he would provide lectures on any number of topics. He was... um He was basically an arts guy, Dudley Crafts Watson. He worked at the Milwaukee Art Institute for a number of years before relocating to the Chicago Art Institute.
01:00:49
Speaker
um And so by the time Beatrice dies, he is basically at the Chicago Art Institute as like the head of the organization or some shit. Like he's a very prominent role within that organization at that point.
01:01:01
Speaker
um In May of 1923, Beatrice is admitted to the hospital for an undisclosed surgery. um McGilligan says maybe a hysterectomy, um which is fairly common for women around the age of 40 in those days.
01:01:17
Speaker
um And then ah in November of that year, Beatrice performs a very successful public solo recital. It is her one recital.
01:01:31
Speaker
venue basically she performs it in miss in milwaukee wisconsin clap it out steven in milwaukee wisconsin to pretty wide public acclaim going by her full name beatrice ives wells And it is, by all intents and purposes, an insanely successful endeavor, ah written about in all the papers as something to be seen, ah which is why it is so tragic that within six months of that recital, she would be dead. ah In fact, Beatrice, she dies on May 10th, 1924, five days after Orson's ninth birthday.
01:02:09
Speaker
Jesus Christ. When writing about it years later, he would recount, going into her room with a birthday cake with nine candles and those nine candles being the only illumination in the room.
01:02:23
Speaker
Oh, I have a quote on that. Yes, by all means. Hit me with that. Okay. It's a good one. All right. So this is out of ah my sole research point until I can invest more money and more books and time.
01:02:37
Speaker
Stephen. ah Citizen Wells by Frank Brady, page eight, about halfway down. And if you look, it's highlighted in orange. It should be highlighted just like that in all of your copies of the book.
01:02:50
Speaker
And if it's not, what the fuck is wrong with you? ah let's I don't have an orange highlighter. Help. Orson remembered that she quoted some of his favorite lines of Shakespeare to entertain him and told them that he was to puff very hard to blow out the candles on his cake.
01:03:05
Speaker
That stupid birthday cake is just another stupid cake, she said. You'll have all the cakes you want. This would turn out to be true. But the candles are just a fairy. The candles are a fairy ring and you will never again in your whole life have just that number to blow out.
01:03:20
Speaker
And that is beautiful. Right. God damn it. But Orson would turn out to have many, many more cakes. Oh, yes. And pineapples. Oh, yes. um he said when he blew out the candles, that was i think he associates that with the death of his mother.
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. Because it again, and this is probably one of the last times he saw his mother alive as well. Like, and so he would later tell his daughter, Chris, ever since I never wanted to celebrate my birthday.
01:03:55
Speaker
um Which makes total sense, honestly. yeah um Cause of death was indicated as acute atrophy of the liver. Which is vague enough to include any number of possibilities like jaundice, hepatitis, or potentially infections caused by a blood transfusion, maybe as a result of some operation, like the undisclosed one that she'd had a year prior.
01:04:19
Speaker
Who knows? Might have been something. Yeah. Right. Lord. And at this, I mean, it's all conjecture, but that's basically it. Like, and so her, her funeral is held again, just mere days later, Richard, not in attendance as his father has just gotten him a job. Sorry. A apprentice fish culturist.
01:04:42
Speaker
with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries in Bozeman, Montana. you do we have Do we have any information about what the fuck that job entails?
01:04:54
Speaker
We do not know. Oh my god. Okay. I don't know what a fish culturist is. let alone an apprentice fish culturist. Right, right, right. Although when I type fish culturist into Brave, the Brave search engine, the first thing that comes up is a careers article. How to become a fish culturist.
01:05:14
Speaker
Interesting. Learn what a fish culturist is, what they do, and how to become one. There we go. A fish culturist is responsible for breeding, raising, and maintaining fish populations in a controlled environment such as a hatchery or fish farm.
01:05:29
Speaker
They use a variety of techniques control the environment such as adjusting water temperature, pH levels, and feeding schedules in order to optimize growth and survival rates. Interesting. Sounds like Dick decided to become a bit of an amateur biologist. Sounds ah really above his skill level, quite frankly.
01:05:45
Speaker
ah Well, he invented a bicycle lamp and then... No, no, no. That's not Dick. This is Richard. not Oh, this is Richard. i'm getting I'm getting my Richards confused. Yes. Oh, Okay. Okay.
01:05:57
Speaker
this is This is the son. Richard the son. Then that makes less sense. Oh, no. okay Yeah. Wow. Okay.
01:06:04
Speaker
but Dick is a businessman and Dick will find his way back to business within a few years. Oh, Richard, you're not going to your own mother's funeral. That sucks, man. Yeah. Orson was there and I later in an interview, I think with Joseph McBride, Orson would basically say he doesn't have any good memories of Kenosha to which Oya Kodar would basically say, you have to remember he completely associates Kenosha with his mother's death.
01:06:32
Speaker
Yeah. Like that is the connection for him. So he is not going to have any fond memories of that place whatsoever. Yeah. Like it happened at just an impressionable enough age that it kind of overshadowed everything. Now, I think this is as good a point as any to point out ah something that McGilligan goes into some detail about, but like this becomes kind of a ah canon event for orson you that's yeah ah hate ourlems of our time i hate it that's entered the lexicon oh gosh i hate that
01:07:04
Speaker
yeah i mean what do you want to call beatrice is anchor being and you know his uncle ben Essentially, yes. Like this is, it has an incredible, it's an incredibly formative experience, although Wells himself would always kind of dispute this.
01:07:23
Speaker
um But like, particularly when you look at his early work, the mother-son relationship is central, both the Citizen Kane and the Magnificent Ambersons. Like you've got the the Charles Foster Kane's mother played by Agnes Moorhead, this kind of cold, unfeeling woman who sends him off to um to live with this, you know, weird, um you know, doctor guy, this trust fund dude when he's about nine years old, the same age Orson would have been.
01:07:53
Speaker
um So ah a kid losing his mother at at a formative age. And then you've got Kane's first wife, Emily, who dies in a car crash with her son, who at the time is eight.
01:08:04
Speaker
yeah Again, very close to the same age, like this idea of sons and mothers, like losing one another at that time. And then you've got the Magnificent Ambersons, which features as at its climax the death of the main character's mother, the only figure in his life who has truly loved and doted on him his entire life, who has enabled him in a real way.
01:08:27
Speaker
um Bogdanovich addresses this the scene... Particularly, I think it's the scene with Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane, the scene where they're in the ah in her her apartment and they're talking to each other.
01:08:41
Speaker
And she mentions that her mother always wanted her to sing opera. And she goes, well, you know what mothers are like. And Kane's just like, yeah. He doesn't know what mothers are like. That's the whole point. And Bogdanovich brings this up to to Wells says, this is my favorite scene in the movie to which Wells says, no, Peter, I have no Rose buds.
01:09:00
Speaker
Like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And Spielberg wasn't thinking of anything when he made Close Encounters. Methinks doth protest too much.
01:09:15
Speaker
Some men will make Citizen Kane instead of going to therapy. and There it is. damn it. There it is We did it. We memed it, everybody. memed it. Like we haven't done that 15 times already this episode.
01:09:28
Speaker
Shh. Shh. fresh
01:09:33
Speaker
ah So in June of 1924, Dick Wells, Maurice Bernstein and Dudley Crafts Watson embark on a trip to Europe. They were already going to take that trip with Beatrice. They decide to continue to take it in her honor.
01:09:48
Speaker
They leave Orson in the care of Watson's wife and daughters in the town of Wyoming and upstate New York. ah It is here that Orson would entertain and be entertained by his female cousins.
01:10:01
Speaker
According to Orson, he lost his virginity this summer to one of his female cousins, to Dudley's middle daughter, Emily. cool cool Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. So what age would that make Orson in 1924? Jesus living Christ.
01:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. Orson. Yep. Orson. Mm-hmm.
01:10:25
Speaker
Yep. By playing a doctor. God, I hope he's lying. god i hope he's lying i mean, I'm sure he was.
01:10:34
Speaker
That's comforting because, you know, he just lied all the time anyway. He really did. um But like this is around the time when like Orson would like tell scary stories using his penchant for magic and theatricality to kind of scare his his female cousins.
01:10:50
Speaker
Dudley Crafts Watson basically pinpoints this summer as, you know, the time when Orson created the shadow. um Just kind of trying to scare his daughters.
01:11:02
Speaker
um This is also the summer where Orson would meet Prince Ali Khan. ah Both of them would go on to marry Rita Hayworth. So there's that. okay All right. Sure.
01:11:15
Speaker
Orson would would often brag, hey, we've known each other all our lives. um in In the months that follow, you get this weird kind of team up between Dick Wells and Maurice Bernstein. Yeah.
01:11:30
Speaker
Which always feels kind of tenuous because those two guys feel like they have nothing in common.
01:11:36
Speaker
Pardon me. Made potentially even more awkward um if you believe Callow's claims that ah Bernstein was fucking Beatrice. um
01:11:49
Speaker
Right. Somebody's right and it's it really feels like a coin toss. You know what I mean? I can believe either one. Honestly, yeah. Yeah. I could see it going either way. And I am perfectly happy believing either one.
01:12:03
Speaker
I'm a little more happy believing one than the other, but I can take either one. I mean, yes, yes, yes. But, ah I mean, they basically take the shared responsibility of raising Orson.
01:12:15
Speaker
Dudley kind of helps when he can, but it's mostly Dick and Maurice. Dick and Maury. ah Bernstein would ah call Orson poogles. ahha Orson would call Bernstein Dada.
01:12:30
Speaker
Hmm. Hmm. Interesting and definitely not evidence to anything else. Correct. Hmm. Um, this is also again, uh, the time when Bernstein would become Dick's physician.
01:12:47
Speaker
Um, and when he started, ah treating his ailment with gin, uh, gin and tonic again, regarded as a medicinal beverage in the early 20th century. uh, Dick has heart issues, cardiac issues, which would eventually kill him.
01:13:01
Speaker
And it by all intents and purposes, it seems like he is self-medicating with gin during this time. Which, again, he's the Chicago years are were right in the thick of them. So this would be the time when Dick was in the throes of alcoholism.
01:13:16
Speaker
And heaven it doesn't seem like the heart condition helped. That's why the drink I had earlier contained. let me check my notes here. Gin. Hey, all right. in auto dick I'll do a pull of tequila from my freezer bottle later. There you go. yeah Thanks.
01:13:32
Speaker
um And eventually Bernstein would move in with Dick to share a responsibility of, you know, raising Orson, just like an uncle Joey before him. um I'm so mad that you threw a full house reference into these notes. I'm so mad, Steven.
01:13:47
Speaker
I mean, and are you not even going to address the very special episode where, that they made us watch in health class in the seventh grade where the one girl gets beer sprayed all over her and is accused by Bob Saget of being an alcoholic.
01:14:03
Speaker
Or am I just remembering that from a fog of 20 plus years? i don't know. You've, you've done several bong hits since then. So who's to say? I have, I have, um,
01:14:14
Speaker
Okay, so now Bernstein, who everybody thinks was fucking Dick's wife, he's taking care of Dick. Yeah, and Dick's son. And Dick's son. Sons.
01:14:25
Speaker
Right. when When Richard is home. you but Yes. ah Because he was also a Richard's physician.
Miscellaneous Anecdotes and Personal Insights
01:14:33
Speaker
Yes. If I'm remembering the notes from 30 minutes ago correctly. Not even 30, like five.
01:14:39
Speaker
Good. Time means nothing to me anymore. Clearly. Clearly. The linear flow of time is an illusion. Yes. ah Christ alive. Does that take us to the fall of 1924? It does. Okay. We should also mention, don't know if you've got this included in your notes ah here because I've, you know, the um Frank is a lot more anecdotal in the Citizen Wells.
01:15:05
Speaker
And he talks about all of the gifts that ah Bernstein ah gave to a young Orson. I don't know if that made it into your notes. It didn't, but i mean, there are a lot of gifts that come from a lot of sources. Bernstein takes credit for a lot of them later.
01:15:20
Speaker
ah of course he does. Right. um i' There's Peter Noble's biography, The Fabulous Orson Welles. is essentially ghostwritten by Maurice Bernstein.
01:15:32
Speaker
Jesus Christ. And so a lot of the ah rather wild claims made about Orson, particularly in his youth, are made in that text. A lot of them were debunked, most of them by Orson himself, who was like, I never did that. That never happened. Yeah.
01:15:49
Speaker
like I didn't have King Lear memorized as a child. I'm sorry. I did not write a treatise on the history of drama, nor did I write a defense of the spoke Zarathustra.
01:16:00
Speaker
Like he's like, none of these things are true. None of them happened. it's Eventually he'd just be like, no, I didn't do it. Whenever someone would be like, did you really be like, no. it is really funny to see where the line is drawn because he makes up so much bullshit about himself.
01:16:14
Speaker
Yeah. um Well, in either case, Frank Brady claims that ah Bernstein gifted Orson a puppet theater, which he put to good use and a, ah a professional box of ah magic tricks, which again feels just like white bats, Mr. White.
01:16:33
Speaker
ah It's, ah it's, The puzzle piece is fallen together. know what I mean? And the thing about is like Orson's love of magic comes almost exclusively from his father.
01:16:46
Speaker
Like Dick was a huge magic fan. So like Orson's love of magic comes from, and let's talk, let's talk a little bit about Orson's artistic influences. Cause I got lots of notes there too. Oh Jesus Christ.
01:16:57
Speaker
Is that a separate document? It's no, it's further down the page. It's like page six bleeding into seven. Oh, additional notes. Here we go. Okay. um His mother would basically make sure the classics were taken care of.
01:17:11
Speaker
um She would read to him from, among others, Shakespeare, Keats, Tennyson, Walt Whitman, like, made sure the classics were covered. a lot of these were read as bedtime stories. Okay.
01:17:25
Speaker
the a friend of Beatrice's, Laredo Taft, who was a very prominent Chicago sculptor, ah was said to have gifted Orson his first paint set, ah which Orson said he loved the most always. If only I'd been better at it.
01:17:40
Speaker
um But no, he loved to paint. And in fact, most of his youth is spent painting. um but He loves painting. That's kind of his his his first love, I would say, artistically.
01:17:51
Speaker
His mother also insisted he receive piano lessons and refusing to do it herself, ah enlisted her protege, philip Phyllis Fergus Hoyt, ah to give him piano lessons. Yeah.
01:18:03
Speaker
Orson, i don't think liked piano. He said after his mother died, he never touched the piano or the violin and he was basically took lessons in both. Callow suggests that maybe he never liked piano and used his mother's death as an excuse and kind of carried with it the guilt of not being able to be better at it.
01:18:25
Speaker
um Which makes some semblance of sense, honestly, in the grand scheme of things. It does. It does. Kind of turns his mother's death into a bit of a convenient excuse, but right I get it.
01:18:36
Speaker
Right. If you're already feeling bad about not being able to be good at it, and it's the thing that your mom did. And you know your dad's not going to force you to do it, then why would you?
01:18:46
Speaker
Yeah. Um, his father is a big fan of stage magic and so would introduce him to magicians that would be traveling through Chicago, including, but not limited to the great Thurston and Theodore Okito Bamberg, who was a master of shadows, shadow puppetry in particular.
01:19:05
Speaker
um Orson would also become an avid film goer, uh, and would beg his parents and Dr. Bernstein to take him to the theater. Any chance they got. Um, He loved Douglas Fairbanks, most of all, Lon Chaney and the quote unquote documentaries of Robert Flaherty, including Nanook of the North.
01:19:26
Speaker
And then his summers were spent in Highland Park for the most part. ah Where he would basically meet with ah his friends of his mother's, Edward, Ned Moore, and ah Hazel Moore, another person that Callow says Bernstein was sleeping with, Hazel Moore, would meet any number of divas, henners, and newspapermen. Does Calo just think everybody's fucking?
01:19:52
Speaker
Like, is that his jam? That's kind of what I meant when I said Calo is a little more prone to scandal than McGilligan is. Like, Calo's more ready to believe that everyone fucking everybody else.
01:20:03
Speaker
mom and Whereas McGilligan's like, I don't think that's true, and here's why I don't think that's true. At least get creative with the scandals, man. It doesn't have to be just fucking...
01:20:15
Speaker
And yet so much of it is fucking. Yeah, he could just have her really controversial opinions. Right. About Birth of a Nation.
01:20:24
Speaker
I mean, look you've got drama right there. I didn't even have to look for it and Dick Wells was himself a pragmatic gentleman. And as a result, um he because of Wells's love for art and particularly painting, um he's like, well, practically the best use of these skills would be to be a journalist. And as he got older, kind of pushed Orson toward cartoonists, ah like introducing him to the guy who drew like Mutt and Jeff and stuff like that.
01:20:55
Speaker
ah But one of the people he would meet in Highland Park as a child was ah Ashton Stevens, a 30 year veteran of the papers of William Randolph Hearst. Remember that name. It's going to be very important later.
01:21:08
Speaker
ah um yeah Speaking of bad news and people we don't like. And so Hearst, he was also Hearst's one-time banjo teacher. What? And Hearst basically, yes.
01:21:20
Speaker
So Hearst basically gave him a job as a as a critic in his papers. He ended up at the Chicago ah chicago Chronicle, which was a ah ah ah Hearst paper.
01:21:33
Speaker
And he had every year Hearst would travel to Chicago. And while he was there, he would visit his old banjo teacher. And so he had no shortage of her stories to tell. So a lot of the first stories that Orson probably heard about William Randolph Hearst were from Ashton Stevens, this friend of a friend of his mother's.
01:21:53
Speaker
Oh, my God. Oh, God. That's scare me, Alfred. um It just it. Fuck. Come on. This is too easy of a layup.
01:22:06
Speaker
McGilligan is all about creating the and because, again, his his book is called Young Orson. So he kind of in in whatever ways he can draws all the attention to Citizen Kane and to Magnificent Ambersons when he can.
01:22:21
Speaker
That's. Come on. During one of the annual trips to New York city. In fact, it was the one that we're going to talk about next in 1925, January, 1925, where Orson would start to like notice different performers and then remember them for later when it, when he would go to start making his own films.
01:22:46
Speaker
We'll get to that here in just a second, but first, um, Orson gets enrolled in public school in fall of 2024 and does not do well there. Oh, God, shock. Yeah, gets picked on and taunted, mercilessly struggled to fit in.
01:22:59
Speaker
According to Orson, he once pretended to be sick to keep from having to go to school. And as a result, his cautious doctor guardian whisked him to the hospital and forced him to get his pen appendix removed.
01:23:12
Speaker
ah Orson apparently kept saying, you know, I'm starting to feel better, and they didn't believe him and took out his appendix anyway. Bernstein, for very obvious reasons, disputes this um because malpractice.
01:23:24
Speaker
Yeah. That didn't exist in 1920. Checks, no, it's four. ah
01:23:33
Speaker
um But yes, understood. um Then you get the... um The trip to New York, again, kind of a a regular occurrence at this point ah for the for the Wells men and for Dr. Bernstein.
01:23:48
Speaker
Bernstein kind of takes the role of Beatrice in Orson's life, kind of fostering his love for the classics. ah Wants him to see the very debut performance of famed Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.
01:24:01
Speaker
um and of course is taken backstage to meet Stravinsky after the concert. Of course. Afterwards is just pontificating in the lobby to anyone who would listen about how much he loved the concert.
01:24:13
Speaker
And there he should happen upon another little girl ah who would go on to be a coworker of his, a for a future Mercury theater actress, Agnes Moorhead. Hey.
01:24:25
Speaker
Who described Wells as fantastic. I mean, Yeah. And throughout this time, um he would remember kind of these people he sees in smaller roles and things.
01:24:38
Speaker
ah He would see a play and Erskine Sanford would be there in his 30s playing a frazzled old man, even though he's only in his 30s. Wells would remember him so that when he goes to make Citizen Kane, he casts Let me just check my notes here.
01:24:52
Speaker
Erskine Sanford as the editor of the paper. i didn't see that coming. Right. um He sees a dancer named ah Harry Shannon and is really kind of taken with him in in like a bar in Chicago that his dad was probably in and remembers it and clocks him so that when he's going to make Citizen Kane and need someone to play the father, casts...
01:25:14
Speaker
so Harry Shannon. um I forget the name of the actor, but the actor who plays the ah the the music tutor at the end of Citizen Kane as well is another like actor that Will saw in a play and just thought was really funny.
01:25:28
Speaker
like he He becomes this kind of kid who reads the program front to back and like memorizes the name of every bit player he sees. And those bit players become important figures in his work later Incredible.
01:25:40
Speaker
Which is kind of awesome. Yeah. um This, ah the the January 2025 trip would also be the trip where Wells meets one Harry Houdini.
01:25:52
Speaker
Oh boy. Did he also go backstage and touch the hand of Harry Houdini as well? Not only did he touch the hand of Harry Houdini, is this Harry Houdini taught him a card trick. Of course he did. And then when Wells insisted on going back the next night backstage, ah Houdini taught him a handkerchief trick.
01:26:10
Speaker
And during that time, Wells, ah Houdini apparently told Wells that a magician needed to practice his trick ah thousand times before he performed it on stage. That a true magician practices ed every trick a thousand times before he performed it on stage.
01:26:25
Speaker
After which there was a knock at the door. Houdini answers the door and behind the door, there's a guy selling him ah a disappearing lamp trick to which Houdini, after a couple of demonstrations says, it's great. It'll be in my act tomorrow.
01:26:37
Speaker
and um Which I mean, mwah. Chef's kiss. Yeah. Perfect. Yep. Um, that summer Orson is sent to camp Indianola on Lake Mendota near Madison, Wisconsin, which is a summer's camp largely, ah inhabited by the Chicago Jewish community.
01:26:56
Speaker
Interestingly enough, um, At this point, um his dad has bought, has purchased Hotel Sheffield, which is a hotel in Grand Detour, Illinois, which is a place where the Wellses would kind of vacation their summers quite a bit.
01:27:11
Speaker
ah the Hotel Sheffield was a huge, huge tourist destination in Northern Illinois. And so Dick is spending, you know, the winter renovating it, manages to close the deal while Orson's at camp.
01:27:23
Speaker
um At camp, he... is The camp is run by ah Frederick Mueller and his wife, Mina. um Mueller was called the captain in the summer. in um In the fall, the rest of the year, he would basically be a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
01:27:42
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, Wells basically went to camp there. Dick made sure that Wells was properly looked after and that there was an art class for him to take. He was literally the only kid enrolled in the art class.
01:27:55
Speaker
It basically involved him and athletic director Lowell Frouchy, uh, going into a pasture. Orson would paint and Lowell would read a book. Um, Lowell was also Orson's bunkmate charged with watching over him and looking after him that summer.
01:28:10
Speaker
Convenient. Right. And Orson, um, basically kind of trying to make sure Orson fit in. And Lowell basically said he didn't really have to do much convincing to get Orson involved. Like Orson was just game to try anything.
01:28:22
Speaker
So like it made my job really easy. Um, after seeing how much Orson loved camp. Oh, he also, I should say at the closing ceremonies performed an abbreviated version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kick ass with a hat, a pair of glasses, a table and a tea set, um, performed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the closing ceremonies. Uh, Frouchy called it a stunning success. Um,
01:28:51
Speaker
After camp, um dick was while Dick was renovating the Hotel Sheffield, he basically arranged for Orson to stay with the head of the camp, Frederick Mueller, and his wife there in Madison.
01:29:03
Speaker
Um, he was enrolled in the Washington grade school in Madison, Wisconsin, um, basically was picked on teased. Eventually he would flourish delivering a massive speech to the school assembly in which he said, after, you know, giving a pretty damning critique of the school's, uh, art program basically said, if the public school system can be critiqued, I will critique it.
01:29:29
Speaker
God bless him. Orson, Orson, Orson. Orson, isn't that page one of Citizen Wells? I'm remembering that It literally is. Yes. i I cracked open the... I was going to try to do the the Citizen Wells reading, and I fell behind catching up on the Callow reading. so i'm I'm filling in that one little bit of our research.
01:29:50
Speaker
Yeah. But no, it is that is the anecdote that opens Citizen Wells. Yeah. Absolutely insane. Right? Eloquent little fuck. Yeah. um In February of, oh, I'm sorry, when he returned home on Christmas break, ah his guardians took him to see Ziegfeld Follies in Chicago, the latest iteration of that, wherein Orson said, became acquainted with W.C. Fields for the first time and laughed himself sick.
01:30:20
Speaker
uh laughed himself so hard they had to remove himself from the theater and he was like sick for a week afterwards because wc fields was so fucking funny that's fucking great he ah and he also said that well or that fields was way funnier on stage than he ever was on screen and the two of them would eventually do a movie together in 1944 hey they do not share any scenes together but when wells did come to hollywood he and fields did become, uh, friends with it one. And all good for him.
01:30:52
Speaker
Did get to know each other. The film was called follow the boys was the 1944 film, which is like one of those like anthology films, like the Broadway melody of 1939 or whatever. It was like, Hey, here's the war effort stuff that we're doing. Yeah.
01:31:07
Speaker
And Orson Welles was credited as Orson Welles' Mercury Wonder Show, the magic show that he performed for the troops during World War II, which we will get to here in about a year and a half.
01:31:19
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, God. um Daunting. Daunting. So much to cover, and we're going to cover all of it. um In 1926, February 19th, I should say, 1926, a blurb appears about Orson, a full article, actually, in the Capital Times newspaper um with the headline cartoonist, actor, poet, and only 10. Oh.
01:31:46
Speaker
um about Orson's exploits in, ah in school and how awesome and wonderful he is in every regard. We really need the newspapers to hype this bitch up even more.
01:31:57
Speaker
And it's kind of like Callow himself is like, who, who would have told the paper? Would it have been Mueller? Would it have been Bernstein? Would Orson himself have written to the paper and been like, you got to see this kid. Like,
01:32:09
Speaker
what is it that gets people out to see Orson like performing like this? Right. It's kind of wild. He actually submitted a poem to the paper. He wanted to submit a full story, but they're like, we don't have the space for that kid.
01:32:22
Speaker
So he submits a poem instead called, Oh, it's actually McGilligan includes it in its entirety in young, in young Orson. Let me see if I can find it here.
01:32:37
Speaker
It is called the passing of a Lord and I shall read it here. Oh, good. He sat upon a satin chair. ah Lord was he and had it that had that air about his neck was golden fringe. His trousers ironed without a singe at the side of him. A table stood made of finest Cassian wood.
01:32:57
Speaker
covered it was with a beaded mat and upon it reclined a persian cat his wig was powdered to the last degree and silver buckles were at his knees the window was ah thrown open and let in the air The Lord sat still and was unaware a moment before there had been a shot.
01:33:18
Speaker
The aim was true, but the Lord knew not. The next day they found him in a pool of his blood, his flying, his fine clothes torn and be spattered with blood. Damn.
01:33:31
Speaker
The passing of a Lord. Damn. George Orson. Well, age 10. Damn. George Orson. Well, Christ. um And yeah, at the it was later this year that Orson, or I guess later in his life that Orson would accuse his host during this time period, Frederick Mueller, of um unwanted homosexual advances, basically of molestation. Now, Wells always would kind of joke about these dalliances, these things, and would always say, oh, I was able to get out of them. He basically was...
01:34:11
Speaker
he called himself, was it the Lily Langtree of the homosexual set is what he would say. Basically every gay man in the world wanted a piece of little Orson to hear him tell it.
01:34:26
Speaker
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep. And so Mueller was one of the first that he accuses of this, but he is not going to be the last. We'll absolutely can reallyly get into this more as we go on, unfortunately.
01:34:42
Speaker
um yeah but Apparently he, it again, he always had a way out of it, either with, by just leaving the room or some witty retort or, oh, I always had a headache. He would joke. Like I was, I was, the I was, you know, a virgin in those days. He would, he would joke basically with leaning. He joked about this shit a lot.
01:35:00
Speaker
Christ alive. um And that's, and Callow kind of disputes it as, ah as a result, like Callow, the guy who think everyone fucking kind of disputes a lot of this because of the jokey way that Orson kind of plays it all off.
01:35:14
Speaker
Hmm. Like some, like ah a 10 year old in this position would probably not have the wherewithal to like do what Orson said he did, climb out of a window, run to a train depot and hop a train to Chicago.
01:35:30
Speaker
Like is kind of the evidence that Calo gives. um Despite Mueller's life, Mueller's wife, excuse me, later leaving him because of his womanizing. And the fact that lol tro Lowell Trow, Lowell Frouchy basically said after years of watching him, you know, leading a summer camp of young boys said he never saw any indication that that was something that he was into.
01:35:55
Speaker
Wells maintained it was true to the end of his life, like maintained that he had been molested or attempted to be molested by by Frederick Mueller. And it's one of those things like you don't fucking know what's true as a result. Like it just kind of fucked.
01:36:10
Speaker
That sucks. Yeah. Jesus Christ. um
01:36:19
Speaker
Believe victims of molestation.
01:36:24
Speaker
They need help. Yeah. Like, yeah, for real. um And I mean, both both Callow and McGilligan kind of armchair psychologize Orson a little bit at this point. Really?
01:36:36
Speaker
yeah No, I ain't. I'm not. I'm not going to get into that shit because I have better things to do. Oh, no, I've already like psychoanalyzed the man as much as I care to. He's insane. Right. That's why we're doing this. Right.
01:36:52
Speaker
I mean, he wanted to be the one in control of his own myth. at the At the end of the day, that's the thing I keep coming back to. And so everything he says about himself, I have to take with a grain of salt.
01:37:03
Speaker
Yeah. And so I'm, i did which is why, one of the things I'm really loving about McGilligan's account is that he's checking a lot of outside sources beyond just Wells and his other biographers. Yes, he's checking in with them and doing his due diligence and he quotes Wells quite a bit.
01:37:22
Speaker
But he's also doing his due diligence to kind of check other accounts and other potential people. Like he's the one who talks. He's the one who has the interviews with Fauci. He's the one who um has the record of ah the reason for Mueller's divorce. Like it's and and those those those are important pieces of information, I would say, to this context.
01:37:45
Speaker
So again, i i don't necessarily disbelieve Orson, but in some ways you can cry wolf so many times that maybe it's not entirely believable. Yeah.
01:37:58
Speaker
Yeah. Good Lord. And again, this is the first of many times Orson would claim to be the object of some older man's affections. Yeah, good. And it's not the first time I'm going to be awkward and not have really much to say about it because of personal reasons. And I'll let the audience put two and two together. Right. Yeah.
01:38:19
Speaker
Right. We will leave it at that. um Thank you. Moving on. at that Moving on. um For his for his 11th birthday, Orson is taken by Dick to see Harry Houdini's final Chicago performance, which Wells says ah later was hardly as good as his previous shows. Oh, apparently.
01:38:41
Speaker
Apparently his stage presence had kind of dwindled. However, Wells did say the second, the last two thirds of the act, which involved the daredevil escape stunts were some of the most riveting things Orson had ever seen.
01:38:53
Speaker
The first third, not so much, but the rest of it. Amazing. Um, Houdini would die later that, that fall of a burst appendix. Um, right. Because somebody punched him in the stomach. Correct.
01:39:05
Speaker
Right. Right. Because he said he could survive any punch to the stomach. Correct. And didn't have time to prepare. Yes. Like an asshole. Right. Like um you do. Um, in the summer, Dick reopens hotel Sheffield, massive success. Um, um,
01:39:21
Speaker
it and a He includes ah um on the menu of the place apparently known for its food. ah But on the menu, he includes homemade red basement wine ah because prohibition. Hmm.
01:39:34
Speaker
Hmm. All right. Fair enough. That I can get behind. I come from ah my great great grandfather was a bootlegger. Fuck you. I know. Right. Fuck the cops. um Ice Cube said it best.
01:39:49
Speaker
Fuck the cops. run booze in philadelphia in the 20s uh yeah fun story my uh great great grandfather and my great great my great and great great grandfathers were bootleggers in philadelphia during prohibition but they decided to go clean and legit about two months before the stock market crash so they lost literally everything because they didn't stick with a life of crime so that that'd be a lesson kids as i broadcast this from my little tiny apartment in northeast philadelphia always stay with crime it pays way better uh amazing thanks amazing thanks
01:40:36
Speaker
um Orson, of course, spent the summer there pulling practical jokes, giving mock performances, finding ways to generally entertain himself and his little cousins. um You'll notice I've skipped the blackface section of this.
01:40:49
Speaker
i I did notice that, which I appreciate. Yeah. um And i will say ah Orson does say he has his second sexual dalliance with a ah neighbor girl in Chicago shortly before this summer. At 11, he is canoodling with a girl up the street and her mother comes home unexpectedly and Orson basically gets the blame.
01:41:13
Speaker
That is around the time when Orson's guardians decide, you know what, we'll send him away to school. public school, not for him. We're not going to make the same mistake we did in, at the, at the Madison, Wisconsin school.
01:41:28
Speaker
We're going to send him to the Todd school for boys and Woodstock, Illinois. Oh boy. Uh, Orson, of course they had to convince Orson that it was a good idea. Uh, and so they basically call up, uh,
01:41:43
Speaker
someone from the school to come visit them in grand detour. She comes up basically ah Dick points her to the art shack where Orson is. She goes kind of lays it all out for Orson. Orson kind of listens solemnly asks about, you know, the prospects for creativity, artistic expression asks about, you know, if he's going to be able to practice theater, et cetera, to which she assures him. Yes. And he says, okay, I'll think about it.
01:42:12
Speaker
um Bernstein takes him on a trip there. They tour the theater. ah Well sees kind of the and archaic light board and is like, fuck no, this is not going to work. Bernstein's like, look, it may not be much now, but that there's room for improvement and you could be the one to improve it.
01:42:28
Speaker
To which Well says, okay, I can work with this. yeah And with Orson on board that fall, the fall of 1926, which is where we'll pick up next week. ah We leave Orson in the care of the Todd school for boys.
01:42:45
Speaker
And that class is the lesson. God in heaven. All right. So ah homework for next time. Uh, what's the, what's the, it's, it's, we're covering just the Todd school.
01:42:58
Speaker
We're covering the Todd school year. So from, uh, from fall 1926, uh, up until 1931, which is i when he leaves for Ireland.
01:43:10
Speaker
this This is absolute nonsense. Uh, I love it. Uh, terrific. Um,
01:43:18
Speaker
I do want to say, Hope, two days after we recorded our last episode. In our last episode, I mentioned that I had purchased Citizen Wells from a used bookstore. Uh-oh, uh-oh. He's got a disc, it looks like?
Personal Reflections and Closing Remarks
01:43:31
Speaker
There was a Kino Lorber sale, like, the week after our last episode, and, like, two days after, the week we recorded Oh, shit, he's got multiple discs.
01:43:41
Speaker
So the, the, the, like two days after we recorded the episode, my Blu-ray copies of. Hey. Orson Welles' Macbeth. And the lady from Shanghai arrived in the mail from Kino Lorber. Okay. I am expanding my Wells collection ever much every day.
01:43:58
Speaker
Oh my good But I did say that as I bought more Wells paraphernalia, I would mention it on the podcast. And so this is me mentioning it on the podcast.
01:44:09
Speaker
Well, your mentioning is noted and it's horrifying and I love it. And I'm glad you're my friend. um ah Do we want to wrap it up? Let's wrap it up. Yeah. Okay. So I've been Hope Lichner probably.
01:44:26
Speaker
um I don't know what's happening in the world at this point, but shit sucks. And it's going it's going to get worse before it gets better. And just, go keep kicking ass.
01:44:40
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not going to get better unless you try to make it better. Exactly. And, uh, as, as I like to say, um, I'm sorry to end this episode on kind of a downer note, but that's where we are as a society right now.
01:44:53
Speaker
We still need to do our social medias, but yeah. ah Well, It doesn't get more downer than that. It really doesn't. So, but like, ah as I've been saying, ah ah God needed 10 commandments and I think we only need two.
01:45:07
Speaker
And that's ah be excellent to each other. And party on dudes. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. My social media, the only one I care to promote, uh, unless I've made the Tumblr at this point, um, is, uh, my AO3.
01:45:22
Speaker
I I'm, I'm, I'm working on shit. Shit's coming down the pipe. It's going to be a good time. I love Uh, I have no interest in promoting any of my other social medias because fuck social media because fuck social media.
01:45:34
Speaker
I recently completely blitzed my Twitter presence. Hey, you did the fucking app and everything. Fuck. go Um, but don't actually fuck Elon Musk. He doesn't deserve it.
01:45:46
Speaker
Um, but fuck that guy. Yeah. Not literally, but you know, metaphorically in a way that he wouldn't enjoy. Please stop putting that image in my head and continue your sentence. um I am on some forms of social media, but not all at Chewy Walrus. Listen to my other show, Disenfranchised at Disenfranch Pod, Disenfranchised Podcast, wherever you get podcasts.
01:46:09
Speaker
um But yeah, I'm at Chewy Walrus on most forms of social media. ah You can also buy my book that I wrote with my partner. It's called Check In, Check Out. It's the Hunger Games with 20-somethings in a hotel.
01:46:21
Speaker
um It's goofy. It's silly. It's very fun. ah Check it out on Amazon. And... and um You can buy a physical copy. It pretty much, it it slaps. Yeah.
01:46:35
Speaker
I've got it sitting on my nightstand and I'll read it one day. i have i was about to ask how far you've gotten into it. And I guess that answers my question. a terrible friend. i am a terrible friend.
01:46:47
Speaker
yeah Believe it or not, I've needed to delve heavily into the comfort of the familiar this past year. Wait, really? Yeah. What could going on this year that would cause you to need to do that?
01:46:57
Speaker
Well, let me tell you, Dune Part 2 really didn't live up to expectations. So I really needed to retreat even harder into Khorasami and Kate Vi and Catradora and Griddlehark.
01:47:09
Speaker
And I know I'm i'm missing a ship. I don't know what the bitch any of those things are. You're better off for it. Don't don't worry about it. Everything's fine. um But here we are.
01:47:21
Speaker
Here we are. Here we are. here we hope I'm glad that that you are here with me at the end of all things. Oh, Christ alive. Don't start quoting Lord of the Rings. We'll be here all night.
01:47:33
Speaker
um ah what Why didn't the Eagles carry Rosebud into Mordor? Look, we can be found at Wells U pod on ah the forms of social media that we have chosen, at least Instagram and blue Skype, hopefully Tumblr at this point.
01:47:51
Speaker
Hopefully you can go on Tumblr and like see Hope just re-tumbling all the Orson Welles shit. I will have to get on that as soon as possible. Um, and, if you go to our Instagram, we've probably posted some photos of the many times I've been to Grover's mill because that was a ah recent excursion for, uh, for me as the time of this recording.
01:48:12
Speaker
And I'm going to try to post, uh, photographs relevant to the episode in the days and weeks following each individual episode. So hopefully you've seen a number of pictures of the, the Wells is in their youth,
01:48:25
Speaker
And also of, as as of this episode and maybe in the days after it comes out, of baby Orson as well.
01:48:34
Speaker
Baby Orson. Baby Orson. Oh, okay. Well, that's coming now. That's coming to Disney plus next fall. Baby Orson.
01:48:46
Speaker
um Can we outdo Grogu? I think we can. Wah wah the French. Alright, that's the end of the episode. ah Class dismissed.
01:48:58
Speaker
Until next time, class.
01:49:01
Speaker
Keep on truckin'. We will sell no wine before it's towards time. And we're gonna keep quoting random Orson Welles things. Gee brain, what are we gonna do tonight?
01:49:13
Speaker
Same thing we do every night, hope. Same thing we do every night, Pinky. We stay up too late reading one more chapter off of AO3.
01:49:23
Speaker
Good night, everybody. you're Good night, America.