Orson Welles

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, writer, actor, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work and despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood.

Welles first found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds which, performed in the style of a news broadcast, caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an extraterrestrial invasion was occurring and being reported by newscasters. Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO in which he starred in the iconic role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, especially The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces. In 2002 he was voted the greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute's poll of Top Ten Directors. Welles, who was also an extremely well regarded actor, was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest film actors of all time. He was also celebrated as a Shakespearean stage actor and was known for his distinctive baritone voice.
Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.

Memorable quotes:

• A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.
• Create your own visual style... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
• I don't pray because I don't want to bore God.
• I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
• I have a great love and respect for religion, great love and respect for atheism. What I hate is agnosticism, people who do not choose.
• I have an unfortunate personality.
• If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
• Personally, I don't like a girlfriend to have a husband. If she'll fool her husband, I figure she'll fool me.
• Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in senate.
• We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone.
• When you are down and out something always turns up - and it is usually the noses of your friends.