BIBLIO WATCHDOG
ORSON WELLES REMEMBERED
Interviews with his Actors, Editors, Cinematographers, and Magicians By Peter Prescott Tonguette
2007, McFarland and Company, Inc.,
www.mcfarlandpub.com, Box 611, Jefferson NC 28640, 216 pp., Softcover, $35.
Reviewed by Brett Taylor
So much has been published about the life and work of Orson Welles—by Simon Callow, Barbara Leaming, Joseph McBride, Peter Bogdanovich, and Frank Brady, to name a few—that there might seem little left to explore, but, in this unpretentious com- pendium, Peter Prescott Tonguette offers a serv- ing of anecdotes and recollections that aren’t always essential or particularly enlightening but are usually entertaining. Those seeking an in-depth analysis of Welles’ films will have to look elsewhere, and there are many other places to look, but those who want a glimpse of Welles the human being will want to browse here. ORSON WELLES REMEMBERED is an apt title, insofar as the book concerns the man more than the films. But it’s really the later, independent Orson Welles who is remembered, rather than the brash wunderkind of the WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast and CITIZEN KANE. Since Tonguette interviewed his subjects from 2003 to 2005, they are naturally mostly people who worked on the director’s later projects, which means the portrait presented is largely of the post-TOUCH OF EVIL Welles. Tonguette includes a short chapter in which he interviews Robert Wise on CITIZEN KANE, but, especially in light of Wise’s sometimes terse com- ments, it seems rather perfunctory. Also some- what out-of-place are chapters on The Mercury Theatre, the RKO MACBETH, and an unsuccess- ful production of KING LEAR. Though these inter- views (including half-a-page with Sonny Bupp, who played the small role of Charles Foster Kane, Jr.) have their points of interest, these sections might just as well have been excised to focus entirely on the later Welles, which is pretty much what Tonguette winds up doing anyway. These early
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parts could have been saved for another book on Welles—it won’t be surprising if Tonguette does another, considering the esteem in which he holds the director. At the start, he writes that his heroes are peace activist minister William Sloane Coffin, Roosevelt (I think he means Franklin, not Theodore), Winston Churchill and Welles. The expected guests like Wise and Bogdanovich are here (though, surprisingly, not Henry Jaglom), but who would have predicted finding impressionist Rich Little? It turns out he was cast in THE OTHER
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