The mesmerizing Orson Welles
May 6, 2015, marks the centenary of Orson Welles, the American actor, director, writer and producer whose best-known film, "Citizen Kane," is regarded by many as the best ever made. A landmark of technical wizardry, "Kane" was the product of a blazing creative force who had already dominated radio and the New York stage.
In addition to directing film noirs and Shakespeare, Welles also starred in Hollywood and international productions, including Gothic romances and suspense films, in which his brooding countenance and mellifluous voice seduced audiences.
Left: In "Black Magic" (1949), based on the Alexandre Dumas novel, Welles starred as the hypnotist and magician Count Cagliostro - typecasting, given Welles' fondness for illusions and magic tricks.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
The Young Genius
Born on May 6, 1915 in Kenosha, Wis., George Orson Welles lost his mother to hepatitis when he was nine. His father, an alcoholic, took young Orson on business trips. He lived a peripatetic life in and out of public schools, before he was placed in the Todd Seminary for Boys, a private school in Woodstock, Illinois. There, Welles' creative life blossomed under the tutelage of teachers who encouraged the precocious young man. Welles acted in stage plays, and wrote and performed radio dramas.
After his father's death, Welles turned down a scholarship to Harvard to travel, bluffing his way into an audition for the Gate Theatre in Dublin, where he made his stage debut at age 16. He appeared in several roles in Ireland, and even produced his own plays, before returning to the States.
"Faustus"
In 1937, as part of the Depression-era Federal Theatre Project, Orson Welles - then only 21 years old - directed and starred in Christopher Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus." In addition to also designing the costumes, Welles employed innovative lighting and stage effects to evoke the magical aspects of the damnation tale.
The production opened on Jan. 8, 1937, at Maxine Elliot's Theatre in New York City, and ran for 128 performances.
Radio
Orson Welles at CBS Radio, where he performed on "Columbia Playhouse" and "The March of Time," and oversaw "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" in the 1930s.
Welles' radio productions included his 1938 Halloween adaptation of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," which proved particularly controversial, as it mimicked radio news bulletins about an alien invasion that many listeners took to be real.
Welles also appeared as the star of the thriller series, "The Shadow."
Legend has it that as he juggled his theatre and radio assignments, he would race through New York City traffic aboard an ambulance, sirens blaring, in order to make it from one studio to another in time.
"Too Much Johnson"
As part of a planned production of the play "Too Much Johnson" in 1938, Welles directed three short film vignettes which were intended to introduce each act of the knockabout farce. The cast included Joseph Cotten, Virginia Nicolson, Arlene Francis and Edgar Barrier.
The footage - Welles' first professional film - was never actually shown with the play (which failed), and the reels were considered lost until recently, when they were restored by George Eastman House, the National Film Preservation Foundation, and other partners.
Left: Orson Welles directing "Too Much Johnson."
"Citizen Kane"
Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in "Citizen Kane" (1941), a film Peter Bogdanovich described as "so breathtakingly inventive, so magnificently realized in every detail, so crisply, wittily written, so strikingly photographed and acted, and so brilliantly directed that to see it once is only to see a fraction of its glories."
Although the director had long dismissed suggestions that his character in "Citizen Kane" bore any resemblance to himself, Josh Karp, author of "Orson Welles's Last Movie" (St. Martin's Press), was not convinced. "Orson had always warned not to 'look for keys,'" he wrote.
However, at the center of "Kane" was a complicated man - loved, hated, revered and reviled - whose tremendous promise was undone by his own failings.
"Citizen Kane"
"Orson Welles' first and best-known film opens with images and words about an unfinished mansion that are taken from an unfinished poem - all to tell the story of a great man who has a bright mind, boundless energy, gigantic ambition, and extraordinary charisma," Karp wrote in "Orson Welles's Last Movie." "Yet it is that same man who fails to live up to his own expectations and those of others, in part because he can't finish anything and keeps getting in his own way."
Welles would leave behind many unfinished stage, film and TV projects, including his final movie, which he'd hoped to be another masterpiece to fulfill the promise of "Kane."
"Follow the Boys"
Long a fan of magic tricks and circuses, in 1943 Welles presented "The Mercury Wonder Show for Service Men," a revue in which "Orson the Magnificent" and his Mercury Theatre stars (including Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorhead) entertained the troops with feats of magic. Rita Hayworth, Welles' wife, served for a time as his assistant.
Acts from the Hollywood stage show (which also toured at military bases) were featured in the 1944 film, "Follow the Boys," in which Welles sawed Marlene Dietrich in half.
"Jane Eyre"
In his first film performance for another director, Welles starred in Robert Stevenson's 1943 version of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre," playing Edward Rochester opposite Joan Fontaine's governess. His brooding, Gothic performance quickly made him a favorite romantic lead.
"Tomorrow Is Forever"
In "Tomorrow Is Forever" (1946), Orson Welles plays a soldier who had gone missing presumed dead during World War I, only to return home years later (now unrecognizable, due to plastic surgery) to his wife, who has remarried.
"The Stranger"
In "The Stranger" (1946), Orson Welles played a fugitive Nazi war criminal who assumes the identity of a school teacher and settles into a not-quiet-for-long life in a small New England town.
Eager to prove he could direct a popular film after the box-office failure of "The Magnificent Ambersons" (which had been taken away from him and cut by the studio), Welles agreed to direct "The Stranger," filling the suspenser with a recognizable mood. He also included, for the first time in a Hollywood film, footage of the Nazi concentration camps.
"The Lady From Shanghai"
Orson Welles directed his wife Rita Hayworth in the 1947 mystery, "The Lady From Shanghai." Though a failure at the time (it preceded the couple's divorce), the film's striking visual flair has since won over critics.
"Macbeth"
Orson Welles as the Scottish king in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (1948).
"The Third Man"
Orson Welles as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's suspense classic, "The Third Man" (1949), based on the Graham Greene novel.
"Prince of Foxes"
Orson Welles as the 15th century Italian nobleman Prince Cesare Borgia in "Prince of Foxes" (1949).
"The Black Rose"
As a follow-up to "Prince of Foxes," Orson Welles and Tyrone Power starred the following year in "The Black Rose" (1950). Welles played a Mongol warlord.
"Othello"
In his 1952 film of "Othello," Orson Welles played the Moorish general opposite Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona.
"Mr. Arkadin"
Orson Welles is an international man of mystery whose life story becomes a puzzle to be deciphered in the 1955 drama, "Mr. Arkadin" (a.k.a. "Confidential Report").
"Moby Dick"
Orson Welles as Father Mapple in John Huston's 1956 film version of "Moby Dick."
"Man In the Shadow"
Orson Welles as a powerful ranch owner who faces off against the town sheriff in "Man in the Shadow" (1957).
"Touch of Evil"
Orson Welles as Hank Quinlan, a one-legged police captain on the trail of a bombing suspect, in his film noir, "Touch of Evil" (1958).
"The Long Hot Summer"
In "The Long Hot Summer" (1958), an adaptation of stories by William Faulkner, Orson Welles played the big man in a small Mississippi town who takes a young sharecropper (Paul Newman) under his wing.
"Compulsion"
In Richard Fleischer's "Compulsion" (1959), based on the lurid Leopold and Loeb murder trial, Orson Welles played the defense attorney who tries to save his clients (Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman) from the gallows.
The three shared the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
"Ferry to Hong Kong"
Orson Welles played the sodden captain of a ferry boat transiting between Hong Kong and Macao in the 1959 melodrama, "Ferry to Hong Kong."
"The Tartars"
Orson Welles appeared as Burundai in "The Tartars," a 1961 Yugoslavian-Italian coproduction pitting Tartars against Vikings.
"The Trial"
In Orson Welles' "The Trial" (1962), based on the Franz Kafka novel, Welles played The Advocate, who may be key to resolving the torturous nightmare undergone by Josef K. (Anthony Perkins). Pictured with Welles is Romy Schneider as Marika, the Advocate's mistress.
"Marco Polo"
Orson Welles played the tutor of a young Marco Polo in the 1965 spectacle, "Marco Polo" (a.k.a. Marco the Magnificent" (1965).
"Chimes at Midnight"
Orson Welles adapted several of Shakespeare's histories into "Chimes at Midnight" (a.k.a. "Falstaff")(1965), in which he embodied the boisterous figure of Sir John Falstaff opposite Jeanne Moreau's Doll Tearsheet.
"A Man for All Seasons"
In the Oscar-winning "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), adapted from Robert Bolt's play about Sir Thomas More's religious stand-off with Henry VIII, Orson Welles played Cardinal Wolsey.
"Casino Royale"
In the 1967 spy spoof, "Casino Royale" (1967), Orson Welles played an agent from SMERSH who gambles at baccarat against a fake James Bond (Peter Sellers).
"House of Cards"
Orson Welles was just one of the mysterious figures George Peppard encounters in the 1968 political thriller, "House of Cards."
"The Thirteen Chairs"
Welles' love of makeup and fake noses is apparent in his performance as a traveling theatre company manager in "The Thirteen Chairs" (a.k.a."Twelve Plus One") (1969), based on the same Russian comic novel that inspired Mel Brooks' later "The Twelve Chairs."
"Get to Know Your Rabbit"
In Brian De Palma's comedy "Get to Know Your Rabbit" (1972), Welles played the mentor of a stockbroker-turned-tap-dancing magician (Tommy Smothers). De Palma was fired by the studio, which completed the film itself. The result, according to critic Roger Ebert, was "pretty much unwatchable," though he singled out Welles for a "few moments of real wit."
"Necromancy"
In his 1975 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech, Welles said that to fund his own films, "I pay myself out of my acting jobs. I use my own work to subsidize my work. In other words, I'm crazy."
Crazy enough, perhaps, to appear in Bert I. Gordon's 1972 Satanic thriller "Necromancy" (1972).
"Treasure Island"
Orson Welles as the pirate Long John Silver, with Kim Burfield and Michel Garland, in the 1972 film version of "Treasure Island."
"F For Fake"
Orson Welles directed and starred in "F For Fake" (1973), a quasi-documentary about the notorious art forger Elmyr de Hory. The film essay is also a meditation on illusion, art and fraud. The New York Times' Vincent Canby wrote, "It's as much magic show as movie, a lark that is great fun even when one wishes the magician would take off his black slouch hat and his magician's cape and get back to making real movies."
"The Other Side of the Wind"
Orson Welles with John Huston on the set of "The Other Side of the Wind."
Over a period of several years in the early 1970s, Welles shot the majority of the picture, featuring Huston as an aged director whose oeuvre and reputation are fought over by fans and critics. Budget and legal problems stalled Welles, who failed to complete the movie before his death in 1985.
"Obediently Yours, Orson Welles"
A 1930s portrait of Orson Welles by Vandamm Studios.
For more information about Orson Welles centenary events and screenings:
Orson Welles in the Criterion Collection
"Orson Welles's Last Movie: The Making of 'The Other Side of the Wind'" by Josh Karp (St. Martin's Press)
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan