“But I’m sure Hollywood isn’t what it used to be. Once it was what people expected, a wild boom town, where a new gold had been discovered, and actors, naturally a crazy and vagabond ilk, ran loose. Today that’s gone. Hollywood is horribly respectable. The actors are too sober. They play cricket and polo; they read books and build big homes and do the right things. It’s all very middle class. That is because Hollywood is now in its second generation. It’s behaving, maturing, and the actors are busy being cultured and making money. I’m a dreadfully commercial creature myself. But, in brief, Hollywood is socially disillusioning. Like a million actors toiling in a factory, which indeed they are. The weakness of the town is not that it hasn’t the best people, because it has. The weakness is that the best people aren’t doing their best work. All very amazing!” – Orson Welles
Source: George Benjamin (1940)
Photo: Ernest Bachrach
“A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong.” — Orson Welles
Orson Welles. Artist: Gus Schilling. Year: 1941. Oil on canvas board. 16 x 12 inches.
“Apparently, the way to a girl’s heart is to saw her in half.” – Victor Mature, after Rita Hayworth dumped him for Orson Welles. Hayworth and Welles [pictured, here, in 1943] had been working together on a charity magic act at the time.
“I write, produce, direct, and act in the movies. I write, produce, direct, and act on the radio. I write, produce, direct, and act on the stage. Isn’t it too bad there are so many of me and so few of you?” — Orson Welles
Source: Herb Drake (1947)
Photo: The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
“I never thought about whether I could do things – I just went ahead and did them.” — Orson Welles
Welles helping out Superman in 1950. Or is it the other way around?
“I discovered at the age of six that almost everything in this world was phony, worked with mirrors. Since then, I’ve always wanted to be a magician.” — Orson Welles
Source: 1943
Photo: I Love Lucy (1956). With Lucille Ball.
“A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.” – Orson Welles
1981. Artist: Nicholas Volpe. Pastel on 12½” x 10½” lightly affixed to a 15″ x 10″ piece of paper with the subject’s name misspelled at the bottom. Created for The Brown Derby, the “Restaurant of the Stars.”
“The terrible thing about L.A. is that you sit down when you’re 25 and when you stand up you’re 62.” – Orson Welles
Source: Peter Bogdanovich
