Young Orson

October 5, 2015
Orson Welles, America’s storied show-biz boy wonder, appears to the manor born in this engrossing biography. Film historian McGilligan (Nicholas Ray) follows Welles from his Illinois boarding-school productions (which even then drew press interest) to his professional debut at age 16 in Dublin, playing roles twice his age. New York directing coups followed, including his all-black Macbeth and Fascist-themed Julius Caesar. His radio play of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds induced panic. His movie Citizen Kane, hailed by many critics as the greatest film ever, was made when he was just 25. This is a book about families, with rich profiles of Welles’s affluent, indulgent parents; a series of father figures who mentored him, promoted him, and lent him money; and his close-knit acting ensemble at the Mercury Theater, where he played the paternal, tyrannical head of the household. It’s also a fine evocation of Welles’s innate charisma, concocted from a grand physical presence, godlike voice, Falstaffian magnetism, and uncanny precocious insight into character and dramatic effect. Exhaustively researched but well-paced and stuffed with beguiling detail, this is a vivid, sympathetic portrait of Welles’s youthful promise and achievement, before the misfires and compromises of his later years. B&w photos.