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career but helped launch their own company, the Mercury Theatre. Hardly missing stride,a they staged Caesar (1937), a modern-dress version of Shake- speare's Julius Caesar in which Caesar and his fol- lowers wore quasi-Fascist uniforms. Another resounding success, it brought an offer from CBS— a weekly "Mercury Theatre on the Air" radio series. With no SPONSOR available, CBS looked on it as a bow to culture and was scarcely prepared for what followed. On Halloween 1938 Welles directed and narrated a free adaptation by Howard Koch of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds. News flashes that seemed to be program interruptions spoke of strange astronomical phenomena and then of land- ings in New Jersey, apparently by Martians, which were described by "eyewitnesses." In New Jersey and environs the program caused thousands to flee their homes in widespread panic (see RUMOR). This head- line event was thought by some to have ruined WeIles's career. Instead it brought in Campbell's Soups as sponsor, transforming "Mercury Theatre on the Air" into "The Campbell Playhouse." It also brought Welles a HOLLY WOOD offer to make MO- TION PICTURES for RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum). At the age of twenty-three, Welles received one of the most liberal contracts ever offered a film director. With virtually freea hand, he led his Mercury troupe westward. WeIles's astonishing first feature for RKO, Citizen Kane (1941), is widely considered one of the finest films ever made. It is remarkable on many levels: its complex, fluidly constructed script by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz; the technical brilliance of the CINE MATOGRAPHY by Gregg Toland, utilizing deep-focus and wide-angle shooting; the stimulating, imaginative FILM EDITING; and the ACTING of largelya unknown cast, including Welles as Charles Kane, a newspaper tycoon. But, though Citizen Kane was a Figure 1. (Welles, Orson) Orson Welles, sketches trom critical triumph and made Welles worlda celebrity, the margins of an edition of Shakespeare's plays, anno- it won him the deep enmity of WILLIA M RANDOLPH tated by Welles and his high school principal. From HEARsT, on whose life the script was loosely based. Roger Hill and Orson Welles, Everybody's Shakespeare: Three Plays: Edited for Reading and Arranged for Stag- The attacks Hearst was able to launch against the ing, Woodstock, Ill.: The Todd Press, 1934, pp. 50, 32, film through his newspapers and motion picture and 58. Copyright 1934 by Roger Hill and Orson holdings hampered distribution and made Citizen Welles. Kane a financial loss for RKO. For Welles it had serious consequences. He was unable to maintain creative control over his subsequent RKO films. The a director and Houseman as a producer into the Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and Journey into Fear Broadway spotlight. But yeara later their plans for (1943) were finished and altered by other hands after The Cradle Will Rock, Marc Blitzstein's politically Welles had moved on to other projects. Mounting radical musical, alarmed authorities, who sought to frustration marked his Hollywood sojourn. halt it. At the last moment the production was offi- During World War II, Welles, rejected for military cially canceled by orders from Washington, but House- service, staged occasional magic shows for troops. man and Welles led an audience of hundreds to After the war he spent most of his life in Europe, another theater where, performing from auditorium working independently, scrambling for funds. A stream seats, the cast went on with the show. of projects followed, some successful and others not. The cause célèbre ended the team's Federal Theatre His European Shakespeare films, Othello (1952) and