Orson Welles is probably lauded more as a director than actor, though he started out as an actor and performed in movies and TV all his life. His company, the Mercury Theatre, moved from stage to radio to the big screen in the 1930s-40s, and Welles’ October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds may have sent people into a panic about Martians invading the U.S. While that has been exaggerated over the years, the publicity helped get Orson Welles into Hollywood. The first movie he made, Citizen Kane, is considered one of the best films ever made. He went on to direct and write over a dozen films, plus a handful of TV projects. Orson Welles was frequently a narrator for films and TV shows, tapping into his radio experience. He married three times (including to Rita Hayworth; they had a daughter) and was romantically linked to actresses like Dolores del Río. With such a prolific career, of course there’s bound to be some frock flicks in Welles’ resume, so let’s take a look!

 

 

Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane (1941)

 

 

Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (1943)

 

 

Macbeth in Macbeth (1948)

 

 

Cagliostro in Black Magic (1949)

 

 

Cesare Borgia in Prince of Foxes (1949)

 

 

Bayan in The Black Rose (1950)

 

 

Othello in Othello (1951)

 

 

King Lear in “King Lear,” Omnibus (1953)

 

 

Benjamin Franklin in Royal Affairs in Versailles aka Si Versailles M’Etait Conté (1954)

 

 

Sir Hudson Lowe in Napoleon (1955)

 

 

Father Mapple in Moby Dick (1956)

 

 

Jonathan Wilk in Compulsion (1959)

 

 

King Saul in David and Goliath (1960)

 

 

Robert Fulton in The Battle of Austerlitz (1960)

 

 

Burundai in The Tartars (1961)

 

 

Benjamin Franklin in Lafayette (1962)

 

 

Akerman in Marco the Magnificent (1965)

 

 

Sir John Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight (1965)

 

 

Consul Raoul Nordling in Is Paris Burning? (1966)

 

 

Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for All Seasons (1966)

 

 

Mr. Charles Clay in The Immortal Story (1968)

 

 

Tiresias in Oedipus the King (1968)

 

 

Emperor Justinian in The Last Roman (1968)

 

 

Colonel Cascorro in Tepepa (1969)

 

 

Plankett in The Southern Star (1969)

 

 

Chetnik senator in The Battle of Neretva (1969)

 

 

General Dreedle in Catch-22 (1970)

 

 

Louis XVIII in Waterloo (1970)

 

 

Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1972)

 

 

Jose Estedes in Voyage of the Damned (1976)

 

 

J.P. Morgan in The Secret Life of Nikola Tesla (1980)

 

 

Judge Rauch in Butterfly (1981)

 

 

How do you remember Orson Welles?