So long, Orson Welles
During his seventy years on Earth, and for much of the nearly forty years since he left it, Orson Welles has managed to rub people the wrong way. Welles, who was born in 1915 and died in 1985, was plainly a genius: a theatrical impresario whose Mercury Theatre was legendary in its own day; a puckish conjurer whose War of the Worlds radio broadcast misled millions; and a so-called one-man-band who, like few filmmakers before him, combined the jobs of director, producer and actor in such masterpieces as Citizen Kane, Chimes at Midnight and F for Fake. But this record earned him little credit among the naysayers who hounded him and told us to believe them rather than our lying eyes.
