Orson Welles and Me

That’s me with the glasses at center left.

My co-star, Orson Welles.

Lately I’ve been listening to podcasts as I walk. One I’ve written about already is I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere. I also like the Battle of Gettysburg Podcast. (It helps if you’re interested in the Battle of Gettysburg.) Turner Classic Movies just started an excellent podcast about the life and career of director Peter Bogdanovich, and the other day I listened to an episode of the podcast from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

The last two podcasts I mention had something in common: Orson Welles. The famed director/actor/showbiz personality had been a close friend of Bogdanovich’s. In fact, at one point he lived in the younger director’s house, and Bogdanovich played an onscreen role in Welles’s last film, the recently-completed The Other Side of the Wind. And the Folger podcast I listened to dealt with Welles’s life-long love of Shakespeare. Not only had he directed legendary theatrical productions of Macbeth and Julius Caesar in stage in the 1930s, he also did cinematic versions of Othello, Macbeth, and the Henry IV plays (as Chimes at Midnight).

I’ve long been interested in Welles. He’s a fascinating individual, one of those people you can describe as “larger than life.” His film Touch of Evil is one of my all-time favorites, and so is The Third Man, in which he appeared as Harry Lime. Even his lesser films show flashes of brilliance. I have a bunch of books about his life and career. But I also have a personal connection with Welles, because I once appeared in a film with him.

Let me explain.

After graduating from high school, I went to a small college in Maine. I liked it there, but it was pretty close to home. Then one day I read a newspaper article about the film school at the University of Southern California, which was celebrating its 50^th anniversary. it was like the proverbial light bulb went off over my head. That was the way to get a college education—by watching movies! I immediately applied to the film program.

And I didn’t get in. I had always been a good student. I was the valedictorian of my high school class. I was accepted by every college to which I applied (well, one of them wait listed me first, but I got my revenge by not going there). I did not take this rejection lightly. Instead, during spring break of my sophomore year I hopped on a Greyhound bus in Maine and headed out to Los Angeles to find out what had gone awry.

It was an epic trip that lasted several days. I traveled through parts of the country I had never seen before. I stopped in Dallas to surprise a friend I hadn’t seen in years, hitchhiking from the bus terminal to his campus. I remember buying a taco from a street vendor in El Paso and staring over the border into Mexico. I felt like Jack Kerouac—or I would have, had I read On the Road at that point. But I hadn’t. Still, I was young and having the adventure of a lifetime.

Eventually I made it to California, where I stayed overnight in Pasadena with the parents of a girl I knew back at college. I took a bus from their house to the University of Southern California in downtown Los Angeles and made my way to the film school. Back then it was housed in a tiny 1920s-era bungalow. Over the entrance someone had written, “Reality Ends Here.” I went inside and found a grad student—I can’t remember how I connected with him—and asked what I should do to get into the film program. He suggested two things—to get some teachers to write letters of reference (I hadn’t provided any with my first application), and to apply to the history and criticism program instead of the production side. He gave me an application. I found a typewriter at the journalism school, typed up the application, turned it in, and the next day I was back on a Greyhound heading east. Once back at school I changed my major from English to psychology because I liked my psychology professor. He agreed to be my advisor and wrote me a nice reference for USC. I few weeks later I received my letter of acceptance.

That’s how I ended up watching movies to get a college degree. I can’t say it was the most practical education, but it did lead to an internship at the Hollywood Reporter, which led to my first pieces of published writing outside of my high school paper and a letter in the Tomb of Dracula comic book.

It was also fun. I saw a lot of great movies that I had never been able see in that pre-VHS/DVD/Blu-ray world. Los Angeles at the time had a slew of repertory houses, so I spent many hours in once-glamorous movie palaces watching double bills of the classics. I also got to see a lot of famous people in my classes. Jack Lemmon came by once to talk about the movie Missing. It seemed like he would have been happy to answer questions all night. Gene Wilder spoke about something he had done for an anthology film called Sunday Lovers. (I thought it sucked, but what did I know?) Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegal came for a screening of The Beguiled, with director Sam Peckinpah sitting right behind me. Director Richard Marquand showed his film Eye of the Needle and announced that he had been chosen to direct the next Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi. Martin Scorsese took a break from editing Raging Bull to talk about that film. (Man, the guy was wired!) Pandro Berman, who produced a lot of classic Astaire/Rogers films at RKO spoke. So did director Rouben Mamoulian, another survivor from Hollywood’s Golden Age. He was there for a screening of the musical Love Me Tonight.

So, yeah, it was a great way to get a college education. And it led to my appearance with Orson Welles.

It happened this way. Welles wanted to come to USC to film a question-and-answer session with film students about his movie of The Trial. The session took place in a big auditorium. I believe that people in the film program got first crack at seats, which was good, because the place was packed. All attendees were told that no one would be allowed inside if they had a script. It was like the old joke about the woman who was so stupid she tried to get ahead in Hollywood by sleeping with a writer. In this case, I couldn’t imagine any film student thinking the way to get ahead was by slipping a script to Orson Welles, who couldn’t even get his own films made. Be that as it may, I didn’t have a script for Welles to read, so I was clear.

We watched The Trial and then Welles appeared for a 90-minute Q&A session. I did not ask a question, but the woman in front of me did. It made me laugh, because I knew I would appear on film.

Laugh while you can, monkey boy!

Years passed. I never heard of Welles doing anything with what he had shot. Eventually I began remembering that the session had been about Othello, not The Trial. I wondered if it had been included on the DVD of Othello when that film was restored and re-released. It was not. Then, several years ago, I stumbled across the full session on YouTube and I was stunned and amazed to see my young but still hirsute face staring out from the screen.

Okay, okay. Admittedly, it’s not a large role. It’s not even a speaking part. But, as the old saying goes, there are no small roles, only small actors. I like to think that I light up the screen during my short appearance. I wonder what Welles thought. “Who is that young man?” he may have asked. “Such charisma! We must track him down so I can cast him in my next film. Perhaps he has a script he can give me.” Alas, we will never know. Welles died in 1985 without ever reaching out. By then I had left Hollywood behind and was working on a magazine career in Washington, D.C.

But I can always say that I have something in common with people like Joseph Cotton, Marlene Dietrich, John Gielgud, Everett Sloan, and Edward G. Robertson. I appeared in a film by Orson Welles.

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