Just browsing at Amazon, I see a *lot * of books on Orson Welles.
Can anyone steer me towards the best recent (non-gossipy) biography?
Honest, despite the way I screwed up the thread title, I *am * literate. :smack:
I’m intrested in any recently-published volumes on the Mars Hoax, and related radio hoaxes in the US & abroad.
I read one Welles bio (Orson Welles, by Barbara Leaming) a few years ago, and I have another, Despite the System by Clinton Heylin, on the shelves. One of the blurbs on the back of Despite the System describes the author as a “champion” for Welles, so it may be well-written, but I’m not expecting it to be really evenhanded. The Leaming book has to be out of date by now, but it’s a unique one, as it’s almost a Welles autobiography. Welles suggested that they make it an openly collaborative effort. So there are some obvious biases, and probably some inaccuracies too, but it may have some value.
I would also like to recommend Leaming’s “If This Was Happiness” - her biography of Rita Hayworth. She got a lot of input from Welles re: Hayworth’s issues (apparent sexual abuse by her father & first husband).
VCNJ~
The actor Simon Callow (He of Four Weddings and Funeral fame. The fat one who dies) wrote what can only be described as an exhaustingly researched account of Welle’s life. I can’t remember the title, but if you want detail, it is the book to track down.
For Welles in his own words (approximately) I would reccommend Peter Bogdanovich’s book. It’s falls into the same category as Truffaut’s book on Hitchcock and the Billy Wilder book by Camron Crowe - very interesting dialogue about film in a teacher/pupil type setting.
Actually, it’s an ongoing series. Part 1, about his early life pre-Hollywood, is The Road to Xanadu and Part 2 (just published this last August) is Hello Americans. Probably as close to definitive as you can get (and there’s still one more volume to go).
Thanks for all the help, evereyone!
I’m leaning toward the first Callow volume–thought the Leaming and Heylin books do sound interesting too.
Hmm, it’s not like there are a whole lot of books on the 1938 War of the Worlds. But back in the early 1970s, Howard Koch, the author of the radio play, wrote a book on it that included the complete script.