Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
Union
Nickname	Gridiron
First	November 6, 1869, Rutgers vs. Princeton
Contact	Full contact
Team	11 at a time
Category	Outdoor
Ball	Football
Olympic	No }}

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron. The ball can be advanced by running with it or throwing it to a teammate. Points can be scored by carrying the ball over the opponent's goal line, catching a pass thrown over that goal line, kicking the ball through the opponent's goal posts or tackling an opposing ball carrier in his own end zone.

In the United States, the major forms are high school football, college football and professional football. Each of these three are played under slightly different rules. High school football is governed by the National Federation of State High School Associations, while college football by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. The major league for professional football is the National Football League (NFL). Other minor professional leagues also exist in the U.S., and may also have slightly different rules from those of the NFL.

The sport is also played in Europe, Japan, Mexico, and several other countries. The International Federation of American Football acts as an international governing body for the sport, but the organization has little standing in the United States.

American football is closely related to Canadian football but with some differences in rules and the field. Both sports can be traced to early versions of association football and rugby football.

History

The history of American football can be traced to early versions of rugby football and association football. Both games have their origins in varieties of football played in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century, in which a ball is kicked at a goal and/or run over a line. Many games known as "football" were being played at colleges and universities in the United States in the first half of the 19th century.

American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby football, most notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp, considered the "Father of American Football". Among these important changes were the introduction of the line of scrimmage and of down-and-distance rules. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, game play developments by college coaches such as Eddie Cochems, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, and Glenn "Pop" Warner helped take advantage of the newly introduced forward pass.

The popularity of collegiate football grew as it became the dominant version of the sport for the first half of the twentieth century. Bowl games, a college football tradition, attracted a national audience for collegiate teams. Bolstered by fierce rivalries, college football still holds widespread appeal in the US.

The origin of professional football can be traced back to 1892, with William "Pudge" Heffelfinger's $500 contract to play in a game for the Allegheny Athletic Association against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. The first Professional "league" was the Ohio League, formed in 1903, and the first Professional Football championship game was between the Buffalo Prospects and the Canton Bulldogs in 1919. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association was formed. The first game was played in Dayton, Ohio on October 3, 1920 with the host Triangles defeating the Columbus Panhandles 14–0. The league changed its name to the National Football League (NFL) two years later, and eventually became the major league of American football. Initially a sport of Midwestern industrial towns in the United States, professional football eventually became a national phenomenon. Football's increasing popularity is usually traced to the 1958 NFL Championship Game, a contest that has been dubbed the "Greatest Game Ever Played". A rival league to the NFL, the American Football League (AFL), began play in 1960; the pressure it put on the senior league led to a merger between the two leagues and the creation of the Super Bowl, which has become the most watched television event in the United States on an annual basis.

Rules

Field and players

American football is played on a field . The longer boundary lines are ''sidelines'', while the shorter boundary lines are ''end lines''. Sidelines and end lines are out of bounds. Near each end of the field is a ''goal line''; they are apart. A scoring area called an ''end zone'' extends beyond each goal line to each end line. The end zone includes the goal line but not the end line. While the playing field is effectively flat, it is common for a field to be built with a slight crown—with the middle of the field higher than the sides—to allow water to drain from the field.

''Yard lines'' cross the field every , and are numbered every 10 yards from each goal line to the 50-yard line, or midfield (similar to a typical rugby league field). Two rows of short lines, known as inbounds lines or ''hash marks'', run at 1-yard (91.4 cm) intervals perpendicular to the sidelines near the middle of the field. All plays start with the ball on or between the hash marks. Because of the arrangement of the lines, the field is occasionally referred to as a ''gridiron'' in a reference to the cooking grill with a similar pattern of lines.

At the back of each end zone are two ''goalposts'' (also called ''uprights'') connected by a crossbar from the ground. For high skill levels, the posts are apart. For lower skill levels, these are widened to .

Each team has 11 players on the field at a time. Usually there are many more players off the field (an NFL team has a limit of 53 players on their roster, all of which can be dressed for a game). However, teams may substitute for any or all of their players during the breaks between plays. As a result, players have very specialized roles and are divided into three separate units: the offense, the defense and the special teams. It is rare for all team members to participate in a given game, as some roles have little utility beyond that of an injury substitute.

Start of halves

Similarly to association football, the game begins with a coin toss to determine which team will kick off to begin the game and which goal each team will defend. Unlike association football though, the options are presented again to start the second half; the choices for the first half do not automatically determine the start of the second half. The referee conducts the coin toss with the captains (or sometimes coaches) of the opposing teams. The team that wins the coin toss has three options: # They may choose whether to kick or receive the opening kickoff. # They may choose which goal to defend. # They may choose to ''defer'' the first choice to the other team and have first choice to start the second half. Whatever the first team chooses, the second team has the option on the other choice (for example, if the first team elects to receive at the start of the game, the second team can decide which goal to defend).

At the start of the second half, the options to kick, receive, or choose a goal to defend are presented to the captains again. The team which did not choose first to start the first half (or which deferred its privilege to choose first) now gets first choice of options.

Game duration

A standard football game consists of four 15-minute quarters (12-minute quarters in high-school football and often shorter at lower levels), with a 12-minute half-time intermission after the second quarter. At all levels, a down (play) that begins before time expires is allowed to continue until its completion, even after the clock reaches zero. The clock is also stopped after certain plays, therefore, a game can last considerably longer (often more than three hours in real time), and if a game is broadcast on television, TV timeouts are taken at certain intervals of the game to broadcast commercials outside of game action. If an NFL game is tied after four quarters, the teams play an additional period lasting up to 15 minutes. In a regular season NFL overtime game, the first team that scores wins, even if the other team does not get a possession; this is referred to as sudden death. However, in a post-season NFL game during the playoffs, if the first team with possession scores only a field goal, the other team is allowed the opportunity to match or better this score. This rule only affects playoff games in overtime in which the first team with possession scores a field goal: if the first team with possession scores a touchdown, the sudden death rules take effect. In a regular-season NFL game, if neither team scores in overtime, the game is a tie. In an NFL playoff game, additional overtime periods are played, as needed, to determine a winner. College overtime rules are more complicated.

Advancing the ball

Advancing the ball in American football resembles the ''six-tackle rule'' and the ''play-the-ball'' in rugby league. The team that takes possession of the ball (the offense) has four attempts, called downs, in which to advance the ball at least toward their opponent's (the defense's) end zone. When the offense succeeds in gaining at least 10 yards, it gets a first down, meaning the team starts a new set of four downs to gain yet another 10 yards or to score. If the offense fails to gain a first down (10 yards) after four downs, the other team gets possession of the ball at the point where the fourth down ended, beginning with their first down to advance the ball in the opposite direction.

Except at the beginning of halves and after scores, the ball is always put into play by a snap. Offensive players line up facing defensive players at the line of scrimmage (the position on the field where the play begins). One offensive player, the center, then passes (or "snaps") the ball backwards between his legs to a teammate behind him, usually the quarterback.

Players can then advance the ball in two ways: # By running with the ball, also known as rushing. # By throwing the ball to a teammate, known as a pass or as passing the football. If the pass is thrown down-field, it is known as a forward pass. The forward pass is a key factor distinguishing American and Canadian football from other football sports. The offense can throw the ball forward only once during a down and only from behind the line of scrimmage. However, the ball can be handed-off to another player or thrown, pitched, or tossed sideways or backwards (a lateral pass) at any time.

A down ends, and the ball becomes dead, after any of the following:

The player with the ball is forced to the ground (a tackle) or has his forward progress halted by members of the other team (as determined by an official).

A forward pass flies beyond the dimensions of the field (out of bounds) or touches the ground before it is caught. This is known as an incomplete pass. The ball is returned to the most recent line of scrimmage for the next down.

The ball or the player with the ball goes out of bounds.

A team scores.

Officials blow a whistle to notify players that the down is over.

Before each down, each team chooses a play, or coordinated movements and actions, that the players should follow on a down. Sometimes, downs themselves are referred to as "plays."

Change of possession

The offense maintains possession of the ball unless one of the following things occurs:

The team fails to get a first down— i.e., in four downs they fail to move the ball past a line 10 yards ahead of where they got their last first down. The defensive team takes over the ball at the spot where the 4th-down play ends. A change of possession in this manner is commonly called a turnover on downs.

The offense scores a touchdown or field goal. The team that scored then kicks the ball to the other team in a special play called a kickoff.

The offense punts the ball to the defense. A punt is a kick in which a player drops the ball and kicks it before it hits the ground. Punts are nearly always made on fourth down, when the offensive team does not want to risk giving up the ball to the other team at its current spot on the field (through a failed attempt to make a first down) and feels it is too far from the other team's goal post to attempt a field goal.

A defensive player catches a forward pass. This is called an interception, and the player who makes the interception can run with the ball until he is tackled, forced out of bounds, or scores.

An offensive player drops the ball (a fumble) and a defensive player picks it up. As with interceptions, a player recovering a fumble can run with the ball until tackled, forced out of bounds, or scoring. Passes that are thrown either backwards or parallel with the line of scrimmage (lateral passes) that are not caught do not cause the down to end as incomplete forward passes do; instead the ball is still live as if it had been fumbled. Lost fumbles and interceptions are together known as turnovers.

The offensive team misses a field goal attempt. The defensive team gets the ball at the spot where the previous play began (or, in the NFL, at the spot of the kick). If the unsuccessful kick was attempted from within of the end zone, the other team gets the ball at its own 20 yard line (that is, 20 yards from the end zone). If a field goal is missed or blocked and the ball remains in the field of play, a defensive player may pick up the ball and attempt to advance it.

While in his own end zone, an offensive ball carrier is tackled, forced out of bounds, loses the ball out of bounds, or the offense commits certain fouls in the end zone. This fairly rare occurrence is called a safety.

An offensive ball carrier fumbles the ball forward into the opposing end zone, and then the ball goes out of bounds. This extremely rare occurrence leads to a touchback, with the ball going over to the opposing team at their 20 yard line (Note that touchbacks during non-offensive special teams plays, such as punts and kickoffs, are quite common).

Scoring

A team scores points by the following plays: A touchdown (TD) is worth 6 points. It is scored when a player runs the ball into or catches a pass in his opponent's end zone. A touchdown is analogous to a try in rugby. Unlike rugby, a player does not have to touch the ball to the ground to score; a touchdown is scored any time a player has possession of the ball while any part of the ball is beyond the vertical plane created by the leading edge of the opponent's goal line stripe (the stripe itself is a part of the end zone).

After a touchdown, the scoring team attempts a try (which is also analogous to the conversion in rugby). The ball is placed at the other team's line (the line in the NFL). The team can attempt to kick it through the goalposts (over the crossbar and between the uprights) in the manner of a field goal for 1 point (an extra point or point-after touchdown (PAT)), or run or pass it into the end zone in the manner of a touchdown for 2 points (a two-point conversion). In college football, if the defense intercepts or recovers a fumble during a one or two point conversion attempt and returns it to the opposing end zone, the defensive team is awarded the two points.

A field goal (FG) is worth 3 points, and it is scored by kicking the ball through the goalposts defended by the opposition. Field goals may be place kicked (kicked when the ball is held vertically against the ground by a teammate) or drop kicked (extremely uncommon in the modern game due to the better accuracy of place kicks, with only two successful drop kicks in sixty-plus years in the NFL). A field goal is usually attempted on fourth down instead of a punt when the ball is close enough to the opponent's goalposts, or, when there is little or no time left to otherwise score. A safety, worth 2 points, is scored by the opposing team when the team in possession at the end of a down is responsible for the ball becoming dead behind its own goal line. For instance, a safety is scored by the defense if an offensive player is tackled, goes out of bounds, or fumbles the ball out of bounds in his own end zone. Safeties are relatively rare. Note that, though even more rare, the team initially on offense during a down can score a safety if a player of the original defense gains possession of the ball in front of his own goal line and then carries the ball or fumbles it into his own end zone where it becomes dead. However, if the ball becomes dead behind the goal line of the team in possession and its opponent is responsible for the ball being there (for instance, if the defense intercepts a forward pass in its own end zone and the ball becomes dead before the ball is advanced out of the end zone) it is a touchback: no points are scored and the team last in possession keeps possession with a first down at its own 20 yard line. In amateur football, in the extremely rare instance that a safety is scored on a try, it is worth only 1 point.

Kickoffs and free kicks

Each half begins with a kickoff. Teams also kick off after scoring touchdowns and field goals. The ball is kicked using a kicking tee from the team's own line in the NFL and college football (as of the 2007 season). The other team's kick returner tries to catch the ball and advance it as far as possible. Where he is stopped is the point where the offense will begin its drive, or series of offensive plays. If the kick returner catches the ball in his own end zone, he can either run with the ball, or elect for a touchback by kneeling in the end zone, in which case the receiving team then starts its offensive drive from its own 20 yard line. A touchback also occurs when the kick goes out-of-bounds in the end zone. (Punts and turnovers in the end zone can also result in a touchback). A kickoff that goes out-of-bounds anywhere other than the end zone before being touched by the receiving team is a foul, and the ball will be placed within the hash marks of the yard line where it went out of bounds, or from the kickoff spot, depending on which is more advantageous to the receiving team. Unlike with punts, once a kickoff goes 10 yards and the ball has hit the ground, it can be recovered by the kicking team. A team, especially one who is losing, can try to take advantage of this by attempting an onside kick.

After safeties, the team that gave up the points must free kick the ball to the other team from its own 20 yard line.

Penalties

Fouls (a type of rule violation) are punished with penalties against the offending team. Most penalties result in moving the football towards the offending team's end zone. If the penalty would move the ball more than half the distance towards the offender's end zone, the penalty becomes half the distance to the goal instead of its normal value.

Most penalties result in replaying the down. Some defensive penalties give the offense an automatic first down. Conversely, some offensive penalties result in loss of a down (loss of the right to repeat the down). If a penalty gives the offensive team enough yardage to gain a first down, they get a first down, as usual. The only penalty that results in points is if a team on offense commits a certain fouls, such as holding, in its own end zone, which results in a safety.

If a foul occurs during a down (after the play has begun), the down is allowed to continue and an official throws a yellow penalty flag near the spot of the foul. When the down ends, the team that did not commit the foul has the option of accepting the penalty, or declining the penalty and accepting the result of the down.

Variations

Limited contact

* touch football. A play ends when a defender touches the ball carrier (sometimes with two hands).

* flag football. A play ends when a defender removes a designated token ("flag") worn by the ball carrier.

* Wrap. A play ends when a defender wraps his arms round the ball carrier.

Fewer players

*nine-man football

*eight-man football

*six-man football

Smaller field

: The Arena Football League is a league that plays eight-man football, but also plays indoors and on a much smaller playing surface with rule changes to encourage a much more offensive game.

Catch and Run

: In this game, the children split into two teams and line up at opposite sides of the playing field. One side throws the ball to the other side. If the opposing team catches the ball, that player tries to run to the throwing teams touchdown without being tagged/tackled. If no one catches the ball or if the player is tagged/tackled, then that team has to throw the ball to the opposing team. This repeats until time runs out or the players decide to quit.

Players

Most football players have highly specialized roles. At the college and NFL levels, most play only offense or only defense.

Offense

The offensive line (OL) consists of five players whose job is to protect the passer and clear the way for runners by blocking members of the defense. The lineman in the middle is the center. Outside the center are the guards, and outside them are the tackles. Except for the center, who snaps the ball to one of the backs, offensive linemen generally do not handle the ball.

The quarterback (QB) receives the snap from the center on most plays. He then hands or tosses it to a running back, throws it to a receiver or runs with it himself. The quarterback is the leader of the offense and calls the plays that are signaled to him from the sidelines.

Running backs (RB) line up behind or beside the QB and specialize in running with the ball. They also block, catch passes and, on rare occasions, pass the ball to others or even receive the snap. If a team has two running backs in the game, usually one will be a halfback (HB) (or tailback (TB)), who is more likely to run with the ball, and the other will usually be a fullback (FB), who is more likely to block.

Wide receivers (WR) line up near the sidelines. They specialize in catching passes, though they also block for running plays or downfield after another receiver makes a catch.

Tight ends (TE) line up next to the offensive line. They can either play like wide receivers (catch passes) or like offensive linemen (protect the QB or create spaces for runners). Sometimes an offensive lineman takes the tight end position and is referred to as a tackle eligible.

At least seven players must line up on the line of scrimmage on every offensive play. The other players may line up anywhere behind the line. The exact number of running backs, wide receivers and tight ends may differ on any given play. For example, if the team needs only one yard, it may use three tight ends, two running backs and no wide receivers. On the other hand, if it needs 20 yards, it may replace all of its running backs and tight ends with wide receivers.

Defense

In contrast to members of the offense, the rules of professional football (NFL Rulebook) and American college football (NCAA Rulebook) do not specify starting position, movement, or coverage zones for members of the defensive team, except that they must be in the defensive zone at the start of play. The positions, movements and responsibilities of all defensive players are assigned by the team by selection of certain coverages, or patterns of placement and assignment of responsibilities. The positional roles are customary. These roles have varied over the history of American football. The following are customary defensive positions used in many coverages in modern American football.

The defensive line consists of three to six players who line up immediately across from the offensive line. They try to occupy the offensive linemen in order to free up the linebackers, disrupt the backfield (behind the offensive line) of the offense, and tackle the running back if he has the ball before he can gain yardage or the quarterback before he can throw or pass the ball. They are the first line of defense.

Behind the defensive line are the linebackers. They line up between the defensive line and defensive backs and may either rush the quarterback or cover potential receivers.

The last line of defense is known as the secondary, comprising at least three players who line up as defensive backs, who are either cornerbacks or safeties. They cover the receivers and try to stop pass completions. They occasionally rush the quarterback.

Special teams

The units of players who handle kicking plays are known as special teams. Three important special-teams players are the punter, who handles punts, the placekicker or kicker, who kicks off and attempts field goals and extra points, and the long snapper, who snaps the ball for extra points, field goals, and punts. Also included on special teams are the returners. These players return punts or kickoffs and try to get in good field position. These players can also score touchdowns.

Uniform numbering

In the NFL, ranges of uniform numbers are (usually) reserved for certain positions: 1–19: Quarterbacks, punters and placekickers 20–49: Running backs and defensive backs 50–79: Offensive and defensive linemen 10–19, 80–89: Wide receivers 40–49, 80–89: Tight ends 50–59, 90–99: Linebackers and defensive linemen (90–99) Players who switch positions in their career can keep their number if they played their prior position for at least a year and move from a position that is eligible to receive passes to another eligible position, or if he is moving from one ineligible position to another ineligible position.

NCAA and high school rules specify only that offensive linemen must have numbers in the 50–79 range, but the NCAA "strongly recommends" that quarterbacks and running backs have numbers below 50 and wide receivers numbers above 79. This helps officials, as it means that numbers 50 to 79 are ineligible receivers, or players that may not receive a forward pass (except in the rare instance when a Tackle lines up as the outermost lineman on his side of the line and the officials are notified that he will be an eligible receiver for that particular play). There are no numbering restrictions on defensive players in the NCAA, other than that a team may not have two players on the field at the same time with the same jersey number.

Basic strategy

Because the game stops after every down, giving teams a chance to call a new play, strategy plays a major role in football. Each team has a playbook of dozens to hundreds of plays. Ideally, each play is a scripted, strategically sound team-coordinated endeavor. Some plays are very safe; they are likely to get only a few yards. Other plays have the potential for long gains but at a greater risk of a loss of yardage or a turnover.

Generally speaking, rushing plays are less risky than passing plays. However, there are relatively safe passing plays and risky running plays. To deceive the other team, some passing plays are designed to resemble running plays and vice versa. These are referred to as play-action passes and draws, respectively. There are many trick or gadget plays, such as when a team lines up as if it intends to punt and then tries to run or pass for a first down. Such high-risk plays are a great thrill to the fans when they work. However, they can spell disaster if the opposing team realizes the deception and acts accordingly.

The defense also plans plays in response to expectations of what the offense will do. For example, a "blitz" (using linebackers or defensive backs to charge the quarterback) is often attempted when the team on defense expects a pass. A blitz makes downfield passing more difficult but exposes the defense to big gains if the offensive line stems the rush.

Many hours of preparation and strategizing, including film review by both players and coaches, go into the days between football games. This, along with the demanding physicality of football (see below), is why teams typically play at most one game per week.

Physicality

American football is a collision sport. To stop the offense from advancing the ball, the defense must tackle the player with the ball by knocking or pulling him down. As such, defensive players must use some form of physical contact to bring the ball-carrier to the ground, within certain rules and guidelines. Tacklers cannot kick or punch the runner. They also cannot grab the face mask of the runner's helmet or lead into a tackle with their own helmet ("spearing"). Despite these and other rules regarding unnecessary roughness, most other forms of tackling are legal. Blockers and defenders trying to evade them also have wide leeway in trying to force their opponents out of the way. Quarterbacks are regularly hit by defenders coming on full speed from outside the quarterback's field of vision. This is commonly known as a blindside.

To compensate for this, players must wear special protective equipment, such as a padded plastic helmet, shoulder pads, hip pads and knee pads. These protective pads were introduced decades ago and have improved ever since to help minimize lasting injury to players. An unintended consequence of all the safety equipment has resulted in increasing levels of violence in the game. Players may now hurl themselves at one another at high speeds without a significant chance of injury. The injuries that do result tend to be severe and often season or career-ending and sometimes fatal. In previous years with less padding, tackling more closely resembled tackles in Rugby football. Better helmets have allowed players to use their helmets as weapons. This form of tackling is particularly unwise, because of the great potential for brain or spinal injury. All this has caused the various leagues, especially the NFL, to implement a complicated series of penalties for various types of contact. Most recently, virtually any contact with the helmet of a defensive player on the quarterback, or any contact to the quarterback's head, is now a foul. During the late 1970s, the penalty in high school football for spearing included ejection from the game.

Despite protective equipment and rule changes to emphasize safety, injuries remain very common in football. It is increasingly rare, for example, for NFL quarterbacks or running backs (who take the most direct hits) to make it through an entire season without missing some time to injury. Additionally, 28 football players died from direct football injuries in the years 2000–05 and an additional 68 died indirectly from dehydration or other examples of "non-physical" dangers, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research. Concussions are common, with about 41,000 suffered every year among high school players according to the Brain Injury Association of Arizona. In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who played football in high school, commented on the contact of the sport: "Football is the last thing left in civilization where men can literally fling themselves bodily at one another in combat and not be at war."

Extra and optional equipment such as neck rolls, spider pads, rib protectors (referred to as "flak jackets"), and elbow pads help against injury as well, though they do not tend to be used by the majority of players due to their lack of requirement.

The danger of football, and the equipment required to reduce it, make regulation football impractical for casual play. Flag football and touch football are less violent variants of the game popular among recreational players.

Nutrition and dehydration

Football players typically begin their season while the weather is still extremely warm and with the dangerous combination of warm weather and high humidity, dehydration is a great risk for the players. The players are usually required to follow a hydration schedule. It is extremely important for players to drink enough fluids because dehydration can seriously reduce athletic performance and increase the risk of heat illnesses. Most trainers and coaches make it imperative for their players to drink fluids before they are thirsty.

Organization in the United States

In the United States, the major forms are high school football, college football and professional football. Most American high schools field football teams. In general, high school teams play only against other teams within the same state, but there are some exceptions like nearby schools located on opposite sides of a state line.

Most of college football in the United States is governed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and most colleges and universities around the country have football teams. These teams mostly play other similarly sized schools, through the NCAA's divisional system, which divides the schools into four divisions: Division I Bowl Subdivision, Division I Championship Subdivision, Division II, and Division III. Unlike the three smaller NCAA football divisions, the Division I Bowl Subdivision does not have an organized tournament to determine its national champion. Instead, teams are invited to compete in a number of post-season bowl games. In addition, the champions of six conferences in the Division I Bowl Subdivision receive automatic bids, and four other schools receive "at-large" bids, to those five bowl games under the highly lucrative Bowl Championship Series to help determine the national champion.

The highest level major professional league in the United States is the 32-team National Football League (NFL). Another professional league, the 5-team United Football League, also currently operates. Several semi-professional, women's semi-professional football, and indoor football leagues are also played across the country.

Calendar

Traditionally, football is an autumn sport. A season typically begins in mid-to-late August and runs through December, into January. The NFL playoffs run further through January, and the Super Bowl is often played in the first week of February. As such, the sport is played in a wide range of weather conditions, from the heat and humidity of late summer, to the cold winds and snow in mid-winter. Unlike rainouts in baseball, play is only generally postponed or canceled in very extreme conditions such as lightning and hurricanes.

The NFL draft is usually held in April, in which eligible college football players are selected by NFL teams, the order of selection determined by the teams' final regular season records.

It is a long-standing tradition in the United States (though not universally observed) that high school football games are played on Friday night, college games on Saturday, and professional games on Sunday.

In the 1970s, the NFL began to schedule one game on Monday nights. Beginning in 2006, the NFL began scheduling games on Thursday and Saturday nights after the college football regular season concludes in mid-November, aired on the NFL Network.

Nationally televised Thursday-night college games have become a weekly fixture on ESPN, and most nights of the week feature at least one college game, though most games are still played on the traditional Saturday.

Certain fall and winter holidays—such as the NFL's Thanksgiving Classic and numerous New Year's Day college bowl games—have traditional football games associated with them.

Despite this, there are a few professional leagues that have played in the spring, mainly to avoid competition with the established leagues. Examples include the now defunct XFL, the United States Football League, and the proposed All American Football League. Indoor football is played primarily in spring for this same reason.

At most levels of competition, college football teams hold several weeks of practices in the spring. These practices typically end with an intramural scrimmage open to the public. In certain areas, high school football teams also hold spring practices.

Outside the United States

Outside the United States, the sport is referred to as "American football" (or a translation thereof) to differentiate it from other football codes such as association football (soccer), rugby football, Australian rules football and Gaelic football. In Australia and New Zealand the game is also known as gridiron football, or more commonly as gridiron, although in the United States the term ''gridiron'' refers only to the playing field itself. The term ''gridiron'' has also been used in the UK to describe the game. In much of the world, the term football is unambiguous and refers to association football (known commonly as 'soccer' in the United States).

Exportation by the established U.S. leagues and organizations

In 1977, the semi-pro football teams Newton Nite Hawks and Chicago Lions completed a five-game tour in Europe. These were the first professional or semi-professional American football teams to play organized games on the European continent. Games were played in Versailles, France; Lille, France; Landstuhl, Germany; Gratz Austria; and Vienna, Austria.

In 1985, Bethany College head coach and future College Football Hall of Fame member Ted Kessinger brought the first American football team to play in Sweden. The Bethany "Terrible Swedes" defeated the Swedish all-star team 72–7 in Stockholm Olympic Stadium.

The NFL has attempted to introduce the game to other nations and operated a developmental league, NFL Europa (also known as the World League of American Football and NFL Europe) with teams in various European cities, but this league was closed down following the 2007 season. The professional Canadian Football League and collegiate Canadian Interuniversity Sport play under the slightly different Canadian rules.

Major American leagues have also held some regular season games outside of the United States. On October 2, 2005, the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers played the first regular season NFL game outside of the United States, in Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, From 2007, the NFL has played or has plans to play at least one regular season game outside of the United States during each season. The NCAA will also play games outside of the U.S. In 2012, The United States Naval Academy will play the University of Notre Dame in Dublin, Ireland.

Leagues by country

 — Gridiron Australia is the overall governing body for American football in Australia. The country is actually divided into state-level leagues instead of one national-level league by itself: ACT Gridiron (Australian Capital Territory), Gridiron NSW (New South Wales), Gridiron Queensland (Queensland), South Australian Gridiron Association (South Australia), Gridiron Victoria (Victoria), and Gridiron West (Western Australia).

 — The Belgian Football League fields 16 teams. The finalists from the playoffs determine the champion during the Belgian Bowl.

 — The Brazilian American Football League has 14 teams partitioned into north and south conferences.

 — The Vaahteraliiga or the ''Maple League'' has eight teams. The league's name comes from the name of the championship trophy ''Vaahteramalja'' ("Maple Bowl"), which was donated to the newly formed association by the embassy of Canada in Finland.

 — The German Football League has 12 teams partitioned into north and south conferences. The finalists from the playoffs determine the German champion during the German Bowl.

 — 18 registered teams participate in the MAFL's two-division league structure. The sport has grown significantly since 2004 and with some top Division I teams participating in the CEFL.

 — The Elite Football League of India (EFLI) is a proposed professional league in India. When play begins in late 2012, there will be eight teams, representing various cities across India with populations of one million or more. The ELFI will be India's first professional American football league, and its launch is backed by the Government of India and the Sports Authority of India. All of the first season's games will be held in Pune at the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex.

 — The Irish American Football League consists of 14 teams. Its championship game is the Shamrock Bowl.

 — Games are governed by the Israeli Football League.

 — The Italian Football League was founded in 2008, taking over previous league (National Football League Italy). It has 9 teams for the 2010 season.

 — The X-League is a professional league with 60 teams in four divisions, using promotion and relegation. After the post-season playoffs, the X-League champion is determined in the Japan X Bowl. There are also over 200 universities fielding teams, with the national collegiate championship determined by the Koshien Bowl. The professional and collegiate champions then face each other in the Rice Bowl to determine the national champion.

 — The ONEFA is a college league with 26 teams in 3 conferences.

 — American Football Wellington comprises five teams located in the Wellington area.

 — A rising number of teams (11 in 2010) compete in a two division league structure (division I which determines a national champion by a postseason playoff, and division 2 where newer and smaller teams are allowed to mature). Two teams (Oslo Vikings and Eidsvoll 1814s) regularly compete in either the European Football League or the EFAF Cup. Eidsvoll was the runner-up in EFAF Cup 2006.

 — Games are governed by the Polish American Football League.

 — Teams in the Nacionalna Liga Srbije compete in the Serbian Bowl.

 — The LNFA was founded in 1995, and currently consists of 15 clubs.

 — 70 amateur teams play in the BAFA Community Leagues (BAFACL) across a number of age ranges. The senior (adult) league has three levels: the Premiership, comprising six teams; Division 1, comprising 18 teams split across three regional conferences; and Division 2, comprising 23 teams split across four regional conferences. While the lower level teams have their own championship games during BritBowl Weekend, only Premier Division teams face each other in the BritBowl which is held in Worcester's Sixways Stadium. Unlike the NFL, the BAFACL season is played through the summer (April to September), with the British university season spanning the autumn and winter.

The IFAF and the American Football World Cup

The International Federation of American Football (IFAF) is the ''de facto'' governing body for American football, with 45 member associations from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. The organization is headquartered in La Courneuve, France. Although the IFAF has relatively little standing in the U.S. compared to the NFL, NCAA, and the other established aforementioned bodies, these same organizations also give support to USA Football, the designated U.S. representative to the IFAF.

The IFAF also oversees the American Football World Cup, which is held every four years. Japan won the first two World Cups, held in 1999 and 2003. Team USA, which had not participated in the previous World Cups, won the title in 2007.

A long term goal of the IFAF is for American football to be accepted by the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic sport. The only time that the sport was played was at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, but as a demonstration sport.

See also

American football on Thanksgiving

Comparison of American and Canadian football

Comparison of American football and rugby league

Fantasy football (American)

Glossary of American football

Lists of American football players

List of American football stadiums by capacity

List of American football teams in Belgium

List of American football teams in Germany

List of American football teams in the Netherlands

List of defunct sports leagues

Pro Football Hall of Fame

Sports nutrition

Sprint Football

Steroid use in American football

Strat-O-Matic Football

Street football (American)

References

Notes

Bibliography

Further reading

''Sports Illustrated'' magazine dated December 4, 2005; "Football America", a series of articles attesting to the pervasive popularity of American football in the United States at all levels.

External links

Movie of 1903 football game between the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan

National Football League Official Signals.

Brief explanation of the sport by the BBC aimed at a non-american audience

American Youth Football

Category:Sports originating in the United States Category:1869 introductions Category:Football codes

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Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Orson Welles
birth date	May 06, 1915
birth place
death date	October 10, 1985
death place
death cause	Heart attack
alma mater	Todd School for Boys
occupation	Actor, director, writer, producer, voice actor
years active	1931–85
spouse	Virginia Nicholson (1934–40)Rita Hayworth (1943–48)Paola Mori (1955–85)
height	6'1"
partner	Dolores del Río (1938–41)Oja Kodar (1966–85)
parents	Richard Hodgdon Head Welles,Beatrice Ives
awards	1941 Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for ''Citizen Kane'' 1970 Academy Honorary Award
influences	John Ford, William Shakespeare, Fritz Lang, Joseph Conrad
influenced	Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, John Carpenter, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese }}

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."

After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of ''Macbeth'' and ''The Cradle Will Rock'', Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel ''The War of the Worlds'' performed for the radio drama anthology series ''Mercury Theatre on the Air''. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.

''Citizen Kane'' (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942), ''The Lady from Shanghai'' (1947), ''Touch of Evil'' (1958), ''Chimes at Midnight'' (1965), and ''F for Fake'' (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.

In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.

Early life

Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Hodgdon Head Welles (1873, Missouri – December 28, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) and Beatrice Ives (1882 or 1883, Springfield, Illinois – May 10, 1924, Chicago, Illinois). His family was raised Roman Catholic. Despite his parents' affluence, Welles encountered many hardships in childhood. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago. His father, who had made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother, a concert pianist, played during lectures by Dudley Crafts Watson at the Chicago Art Institute to support her son and herself (the oldest Welles boy, "Dickie", had been institutionalized at an early age because he had learning difficulties). Beatrice died of jaundice in 1924 in a Chicago hospital a few days after Welles's ninth birthday. After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing his interest in music. He was taken in by Dudley Crafts Watson and lived with the family at Watson's family home, "Trillium Dell", on Marshman Avenue in Highland Park, Illinois. At the age of ten, Orson with Watson's third daughter, Marjorie (of the same age), ran away from home. They were found a week later, singing and dancing for money on a street corner in Milwaukee. His father died when Orson was 15 during the summer after Orson's graduation from Todd School for Boys, an independent school in Woodstock, Illinois. Maurice Bernstein, a physician from Chicago, became his guardian.

At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who later became Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an ''ad hoc'' educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged his first theatrical experiments and productions there. Following graduation from Todd, Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University. Rather than enrolling, he chose to travel. Later, he briefly studied for a time at the Art Institute of Chicago. He returned a number of times to Woodstock to direct his alma mater's student productions.

Early career (1931–1934)

After his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe with the aid of a small inheritance. Welles later reported that while on a walking and painting trip through Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of Gate, Hilton Edwards, later said he didn't believe him but was impressed by his brashness and some impassioned quality in his audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate in 1931, appearing in ''Jew Suss'' as the Duke. He acted to great acclaim, which reached the United States. He performed smaller supporting roles as well. On returning to the United States he found his fame ephemeral and turned to a writing project at Todd School that would become the immensely successful ''Everybody's Shakespeare'' and subsequently, ''The Mercury Shakespeare''. Welles traveled to North Africa while working on thousands of illustrations for the ''Everybody's Shakespeare'' series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades.

An introduction by Thornton Wilder led Welles to the New York stage. In 1933, he toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company, including two roles in ''Romeo and Juliet''. Restless and impatient when the planned Broadway opening of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was canceled, Welles staged a drama festival of his own with the Todd School, inviting Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear, along with New York stage luminaries. It was a roaring success. The subsequent revival of Cornell's ''Romeo and Juliet'' brought Welles to the notice of John Houseman, who was casting for an unusual lead actor for the lead role in the Federal Theatre Project.

By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theater as a radio actor in Manhattan, working with many of the actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre. He married Chicago actress Virginia Nicholson in 1934 and that year he shot an eight-minute silent short film, ''The Hearts of Age'' with her. The couple had one daughter, Christopher. She made her only film appearance in 1948, taking the role of Macduff's son in Welles's film ''Macbeth'' and later became known as Chris Welles Feder, an author of educational materials for children.

Theatre and radio (1936–1940)

Federal Theatre Project

''Macbeth''

In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theater performers and employees to work. Welles was hired by John Houseman and assigned to direct a play for the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Theater Unit. He offered them ''Macbeth'', in a production that became known as the ''Voodoo Macbeth'', because Welles set it in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe, with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters. Jack Carter played Macbeth. The incidental music was composed by Virgil Thomson. The play was received rapturously and later toured the nation. When the lead actor, Maurice Ellis, fell ill on tour, Welles quickly boarded an airplane to fly to the location and stepped into the part playing the role in blackface. At the age of twenty, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. A few minutes of the Welles production of Macbeth was recorded on film in a 1937 documentary called ''We Work Again''.

Collaboration with Aaron Copland

The young actor/director was chosen by the American composer Aaron Copland in 1937 to direct what is one of Copland's least known works, the opera ''The Second Hurricane'' composed for high school students of The Henry Street Settlement Music School in New York. Among the few adult performers in the production was actor Joseph Cotten, Welles's longtime friend and collaborator, who was paid $10 for his performance.

''The Cradle Will Rock''

After the success of ''Macbeth'', Welles mounted the absurd farce ''Horse Eats Hat'', an adaptation by Welles and Edwin Denby of Eugène Labiche's play, ''Un Chapeau de Paille d'Italie''. He consolidated his "White Hope" reputation with ''Dr. Faustus'', which used light as a prime unifying scenic element in a nearly blacked-out stage.

In 1937, he rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's highly political operetta, ''The Cradle Will Rock''. Because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was canceled. The theater was locked and guarded to prevent any of the government-purchased materials being used for a commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, about twenty blocks away. Some cast, as well as some crew and audience, walked the distance on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the Federal Theater Project and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking the participation of the union members, ''The Cradle Will Rock'' began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing their parts from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience. It afterward played at the Venice for two weeks in the same informal way.

Mercury Theatre

Resigning from the Federal Theatre, Welles and Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre, of which Welles became executive producer and whose repertory company eventually included actors such as Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Río, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Frank Readick, Everett Sloane, Eustace Wyatt and Erskine Sanford, all of whom would continue to work for Welles for years. The first Mercury Theatre production was a melodramatic and heavily edited version of William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Julius Caesar,'' set in a contemporary frame of fascist Italy. Cinna the Poet dies at the hands not of a mob but of a secret police force. According to Norman Lloyd, who played Cinna the Poet, "it stopped the show." The applause lasted more than ten minutes and the production was widely acclaimed.

In the second year of the Mercury Theater, Welles shifted his interests to radio as an actor, director and producer. He played Hamlet for CBS on The Columbia Workshop, while adapting and directing the play. In July 1937, the Mutual Network gave him a seven-week series to adapt ''Les Misérables,'' which he did with great success. That September, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, aka ''The Shadow,'' anonymously and in the summer of 1938 CBS gave him (and the Mercury Theatre) a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. The show was titled ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air,'' with original music by Bernard Herrmann, who would continue working with Welles on radio and in films for years.

''The War of the Worlds'' broadcast

Their October 30, 1938 radio adaptation of ''The War of the Worlds'' by H. G. Wells brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners from the rival and far more popular ''Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy program,'' was later reported in the media to have created widespread confusion among listeners who failed to hear the introduction, although the extent of this confusion has recently come into question. Panic was reported to have spread (after citation from rumors) among many listeners who believed the news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech a few months later. The 1970s "docu-drama" ''The Night That Panicked America'' was based on events centering around the production of, and events that resulted from, the program.

Welles's growing fame soon drew Hollywood offers, lures which the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air,'' which had been a "sustaining show" (without sponsorship) was picked up by Campbell Soup and renamed ''The Campbell Playhouse.''

On October 28, 1940, Welles met H.G. Wells in San Antonio, Texas; a local radio station KTSA recorded the conversation, which was likely the only meeting between the two.

Hollywood (1939–1948)

RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered Welles what generally is considered the greatest contract ever offered to an untried director: complete artistic control. RKO signed Welles in a two-picture deal; including script, cast, crew, and most importantly, final cut, although Welles had a budget limit for his projects. With this contract in hand, Welles (and nearly the entire Mercury Theatre troupe) moved to Hollywood. He commuted weekly to New York to maintain his commitment to ''The Campbell Playhouse''.

Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO Radio Pictures, settling on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'', which he worked on in great detail. He planned to film the action with a subjective camera (a technique later used in the Robert Montgomery film ''Lady in the Lake''). When a budget was drawn up, RKO's enthusiasm cooled because it was greater than the previously agreed limit. RKO also declined to approve another Welles project, ''The Smiler With the Knife'', based on the Cecil Day-Lewis novel, ostensibly because RKO executives lacked faith in Lucille Ball's ability to carry the film as the leading lady.

In a sign of things to come, Welles left ''The Campbell Playhouse'' in 1940 due to creative differences with the sponsor. The show continued without him, produced by John Houseman. In perhaps another sign of things to come, Welles's first experience on a Hollywood film was narrator for RKO's 1940 production of ''The Swiss Family Robinson''.

''Citizen Kane''

Production

RKO, having rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, agreed on the third offer, ''Citizen Kane,'' for which Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and performed the lead role.

Welles found a suitable film project in an idea he conceived with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, (who was then writing radio plays for ''The Campbell Playhouse''). Initially entitled ''The American'', it eventually became Welles's first feature film (also his most famous and honored role), ''Citizen Kane'' (1941).

Mankiewicz based his original notion on an ''exposé'' of the life of William Randolph Hearst, whom he knew socially but came to hate, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Mankiewicz had been banished from her company because of his perpetual drunkenness. Mankiewicz, a notorious gossip, exacted revenge with his unflattering depiction of Davies in ''Citizen Kane'' for which Welles bore most of the criticisms. Welles also had a connection with Davies through his first wife.

Kane's megalomania was modeled loosely on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. The use of multiple narrative perspectives in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'' influenced the treatment.

Supplying Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes, Welles urged him to write the first draft of a screenplay under John Houseman, who was posted to ensure Mankiewicz stayed sober. On Welles's instruction, Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of ''The March of Time'' newsreels. Orson Welles explained to Peter Bogdanovich about the writers working separately by saying, "I left him on his own finally, because we'd started to waste too much time haggling. So, after mutual agreements on storyline and character, Mank went off with Houseman and did his version, while I stayed in Hollywood and wrote mine." Taking these drafts, Welles drastically condensed and rearranged them, then added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one making the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own."

Charles Foster Kane is based loosely on parts of Hearst's life. Nonetheless, autobiographical allusions to Welles were worked in, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood and particularly, regarding his guardianship. Welles then added features from other famous American lives to create a general and mysterious personality, rather than the narrow journalistic portrait intended by Mankiewicz, whose first drafts included scandalous claims about the death of the film director Thomas Ince.

Once the script was completed, Welles attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland, who walked into Welles's office and announced he wanted to work on the picture. Welles later described Toland as "the fastest cameraman who ever lived." For the cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. He invited suggestions from everyone but only if they were directed through him. Filming ''Citizen Kane'' took ten weeks.

Reaction

Mankiewicz handed a copy of the final shooting script to his friend, Charles Lederer, husband of Welles's ex-wife, Virginia Nicholson, as well as the nephew of Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper saw a small ad in a newspaper for a preview screening of ''Citizen Kane'' and went. Hopper, realizing immediately that the film was based on features of Hearst's life, reported this back to him and he threatened to give "Hollywood, Private Lives" if that was what it wanted. Thus began the struggle over the attempted suppression of ''Citizen Kane''.

Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film. They exerted enormous pressure on the Hollywood film community by threatening to expose fifteen years of suppressed scandals and the fact that most of the studio bosses were Jewish. At one point, the heads of the major studios jointly offered RKO the cost of the film in exchange for the negative and all existing prints, fully intending to burn them. RKO declined and the film was given a limited release. Hearst intimidated theater chains by threatening to ban advertising for any of their other films in any of his papers if they showed ''Citizen Kane''.

The film was well-received critically, with Bosley Crowther, film critic for the ''New York Times'' calling it "close to being the most sensational film ever made in Hollywood". By the time it reached the general public, though, the publicity had waned. It garnered nine Academy Award nominations (Orson nominated as a producer, director, writer, and actor), but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. Although it was largely ignored at the Academy Awards, ''Citizen Kane'' now is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Andrew Sarris called it "the work that influenced the cinema more profoundly than any American film since ''The Birth of a Nation''."

The delay in its release and its uneven distribution contributed to its average result at the box office, making back its budget and marketing, but RKO lost any chance of a major profit. The fact that ''Citizen Kane'' ignored many Hollywood conventions also meant that the film confused and angered the 1940s cinema public. Exhibitor response was scathing; most theater owners complained bitterly about the adverse audience reaction and the many walkouts. Only a few saw fit to acknowledge Welles's artistic technique. RKO shelved the film and did not re-release it until 1956.

During the 1950s, the film came to be seen by young French film critics such as François Truffaut as exemplifying the "auteur theory", in which the director is the "author" of a film. Truffaut, Godard and others inspired by Welles's example made their own films, giving birth to the Nouvelle Vague. In the 1960s ''Citizen Kane'' became popular on college campuses as a film-study exercise and as an entertainment subject. Its frequent revivals on television, home video, and DVD have enhanced its "classic" status and ultimately it recouped its costs. The film still is considered by most film critics and historians to be one of the greatest motion pictures in cinema history.

''The Magnificent Ambersons''

Welles's second film for RKO was ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. George Schaefer hoped to make money with this film, since he lost money with ''Citizen Kane''. ''Ambersons'' already had been adapted for ''The Campbell Playhouse'' by Welles for the stage, and he then wrote the screen adaptation. Toland was not available, so Stanley Cortez was named cinematographer. The meticulous Cortez, however, was slow and the film lagged behind schedule and over budget. Prior to production, Welles's contract was renegotiated, revoking his right to control the final cut.

At RKO's request, simultaneously, Welles worked on an adaptation of Eric Ambler's spy thriller, ''Journey into Fear'', which he co-wrote with Joseph Cotten. In addition to acting in the film, Welles was also producer. Direction was credited solely to Norman Foster. Welles later stated that they were in such a rush that the director of each scene was determined by whoever was closest to the camera.

CBS then offered Welles a new radio series called ''The Orson Welles Show''. It was a half-hour variety show of short stories, comedy skits, poetry, and musical numbers. Joining the original Mercury Theatre cast for the show, was Cliff Edwards, the voice of Jiminy Cricket, "on loan from Walt Disney". The variety format was unpopular with listeners and Welles soon was forced to limit the content of the show simply to telling a one half-hour story for the entirety of each episode.

''It's All True''

To further complicate matters during the production of ''Ambersons'' and ''Journey into Fear'', Welles was approached by Nelson Rockefeller and Jock Whitney to produce a documentary film about South America. This was at the behest of the federal government's Good Neighbor policy, a wartime propaganda effort designed to prevent Latin America from allying with the Axis powers. Welles saw his involvement as a form of national service, since his physical condition excused him from direct military service.

Expected to film the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Welles rushed to finish the editing on ''Ambersons'' and his acting scenes in ''Journey into Fear''. Ending his CBS radio show, he lashed together a rough cut of ''Ambersons'' with Robert Wise, who had edited ''Citizen Kane'', and left for Brazil. Wise was to join him in Rio to complete the film, but never arrived. A provisional final cut arranged via phone call, telegram, and shortwave radio was previewed without Welles's approval in Pomona in a double bill, to a mostly negative audience response, particularly to the character of Aunt Fanny played by Agnes Moorehead. Whereas Schaefer argued that Welles be allowed to complete his own version of the film, and that an archival copy be kept with the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, RKO disagreed. With Welles in South America, there was no practical means of having him edit the film.

As a result of the difficult financial circumstances that RKO found itself in across the period 1940–42, major changes occurred at the studio in 1942 Floyd Odlum took over control of RKO and began changing its direction. Rockefeller, the most significant backer of the Brazil project, left the RKO board of directors. Around the same time, the principal sponsor of Welles at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. The changes throughout RKO caused reevaluations of many projects. RKO took control of ''Ambersons'', formed a committee, which was ordered to edit the film into what the studio considered a commercial format. They removed fifty minutes of Welles's footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and added a happy ending. Koerner released the shortened film on the bottom of a double-bill with the Lupe Vélez comedy, ''Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost''. ''Ambersons'' was an expensive flop for RKO, although it received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead.

Welles's South American documentary, entitled ''It's All True'', budgeted at one million dollars with half of its budget coming from the U.S. Government upon completion, grew in ambition and budget while Welles was in South America. While the film originally was to be a documentary on Carnaval, Welles added a new story which recreated the journey of the ''jangadeiros'', four poor fishermen who had made a journey on their open raft to petition Brazilian President Vargas about their working conditions. The four had become national folk heroes; Welles first read of their journey in ''TIME''. Their leader, Jacare, died during a filming mishap. RKO, in limited contact with Welles, attempted to rein in the production. Most of the crew and budget were withdrawn from the film. In addition, the Mercury staff was removed from the studio in the U.S.

Welles requested resources to finish the film. He was given a limited amount of black-and-white stock and a silent camera. He completed the sequence, but RKO refused to support any further production on the film. Surviving footage was released in 1993, including a rough reconstruction of the "Four Men on a Raft" segment. Meanwhile, RKO asserted in public that Welles had gone to Brazil without a screenplay and that he had squandered a million dollars. Their official company slogan for the next year was, "Showmanship in place of Genius" – which was taken as a slight against Welles.

Director for hire (1943–1946)

On returning to Hollywood, Welles found no studios interested in hiring him as a film director after the twin disasters of ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' and ''It's All True''. Welles next worked on radio. CBS offered him two weekly series, ''Hello Americans'', based on the research he'd done in Brazil, and ''Ceiling Unlimited'', sponsored by Lockheed, a wartime salute to advances in aviation. Both featured several members of his original Mercury Theatre troupe. Within a few months, ''Hello Americans'' was canceled and Welles was replaced as host of ''Ceiling Unlimited'' by Joseph Cotten. Welles guest-starred on a great variety of shows, notably guest-hosting Jack Benny shows for a month in 1943. He took an increasingly active role in American and international politics and used journalism to communicate his forceful ideas widely.

In 1943, Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other directors' films. He starred in the 1944 film adaptation of ''Jane Eyre'', trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute ''Follow the Boys'', in which he performed his ''Mercury Wonder Show'' magic act and "sawed" Marlene Dietrich in half after Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to allow Hayworth to perform.

In 1944, Welles was offered a new radio show, broadcast only in California, ''Orson Welles' Almanac''. It was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. After the success of his stand-in hosting on ''The Jack Benny Show'', the focus was primarily on comedy. His hosting on the Jack Benny show included several self-deprecating jokes and story lines about his being a "genius" and overriding any ideas advanced by other cast members. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts. When Welles started his ''Mercury Wonder Show'' a few months later, traveling to armed forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took on a decidedly wartime flavor. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead remained working with him. The series was cancelled by year's end due to poor ratings.

While he found no studio willing to hire him as a film director, Welles's popularity as an actor continued. Pabst Blue Ribbon gave Welles their radio series ''This Is My Best'' to direct, but after one month he was fired for creative differences. He started writing a political column for the ''New York Post'', again called ''Orson Welles's Almanac''. While the paper wanted Welles to write about Hollywood gossip, Welles explored serious political issues. His activism for world peace took considerable amounts of his time. The ''Post'' column eventually failed in syndication because of contradictory expectations and was dropped by the ''Post''.

Post-war work (1946–1948)

''The Stranger''

In 1946, International Pictures released Welles's film ''The Stranger'', starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Welles. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in America. While Anthony Veiller was credited with the screenplay, it had been rewritten by Welles and John Huston. Disputes occurred during the editing process between Spiegel and Welles. The film became a box office success and it helped his standing with the studios.

In the summer of 1946, Welles directed a musical stage version of ''Around the World in Eighty Days'', with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven. When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles alone supported the finances. When he ran out of money at one point, he convinced Columbia president Harry Cohn to send him enough to continue the show, and in exchange, Welles promised to write, produce, direct, and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show soon failed, due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. The complicated financial arrangements concerning the show, its losses, and Welles's arrangement with Cohn, resulted in a tax dispute with the IRS.

At the same time in 1946 he began two new radio series, ''The Mercury Summer Theatre'' for CBS and ''Orson Welles Commentaries'' for ABC. While ''Summer Theatre'' featured half-hour adaptations of some of the classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his ''Around the World'' stage play, and remains the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. It only was scheduled for the summer months, and Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play. ''Commentaries'' was a political vehicle for him, continuing the themes from his New York Post column. Again, Welles lacked a clear focus, until the NAACP brought to his attention the case of Isaac Woodard. Welles brought significant attention to Woodard's cause. Soon Welles was being hanged in effigy in the South and theaters refused to show ''The Stranger'' in several southern states.

''The Lady from Shanghai''

The film Welles was obliged to make for Cohn helping him complete ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' ended up being ''The Lady from Shanghai'', filmed in 1947 for Columbia Pictures. Intended to be a modest thriller, the budget skyrocketed after Cohn suggested that Welles's then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-star. Cohn disliked Welles's rough-cut, particularly the confusing plot and lack of close-ups, and was not in sympathy with Welles's Brechtian use of irony and black comedy, especially in a farcical courtroom scene. Cohn ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. After heavy editing by the studio, approximately one hour of Welles's first cut had been removed, including much of a climactic confrontation scene in an amusement park funhouse. While expressing displeasure at the cuts, Welles was appalled particularly at the musical score. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release, though the closing shootout in a hall of mirrors has since become one of the touchstones of film noir. Not long after release, Welles and Hayworth finalized their divorce. Although ''The Lady From Shanghai'' was acclaimed in Europe, it was not embraced in the U.S. for several decades. Influential modern critics including David Kehr have subsequently declared it a masterpiece, with Kehr calling it "the weirdest great movie ever made." A similar situation occurred when Welles suggested to Charlie Chaplin that he star in a film directed by Welles based on the life of the French serial killer, Henri Désiré Landru. Instead, Chaplin adapted the idea for his own film, ''Monsieur Verdoux'', with Welles officially credited for the idea.

''Macbeth''

In 1948, Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of ''Macbeth'', which featured extremely stylized sets and costumes, and a cast of actors lip-syncing to a prerecorded soundtrack, one of many innovative cost-cutting techniques Welles deployed in an attempt to make an epic film from B-movie resources. The script, adapted by Welles, is a violent reworking of the Shakespearean original, freely cutting and pasting lines into new contexts via a collage technique, and recasting ''Macbeth'' as a clash of pagan and proto-Christian ideologies. Some of the voodoo trappings of the famous Welles/Houseman Negro Theatre stage adaptation are also visible, especially in the film's characterization of the Weird Sisters, who create an effigy of Macbeth as a charm to enchant him. Of all Welles's post-''Kane'' Hollywood productions, ''Macbeth'' is closest to ''Citizen Kane'' in its use of long takes and deep focus photography. Shots of the increasingly isolated Scottish king looming in the foreground while other characters address him from deep in the background overtly reference ''Kane''.

Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents on the soundtrack and held up general release for almost a year after early negative press reaction, which included ''Life'''s comment that Welles's film "doth foully slaughter Shakespeare." Welles left for Europe, while his co-producer and life-long supporter Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles ultimately returned and cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover the gaps. The film was decried as another disaster. ''Macbeth'' had its share of influential fans in Europe, especially the French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, who hailed the film's "crude, irreverent power" and careful shot design, and described the characters as haunting "the corridors of some dreamlike subway, an abandoned coal mine, and ruined cellars oozing with water." In the late 1970s, a fully restored version of ''Macbeth'' was released that followed Welles's original vision, and all prints of the truncated continuity have gradually been withdrawn from circulation, turning Welles's compulsory recut, which has the distinction of being created by the director himself, into something of a lost work.

Welles in Europe (1948–1956)

Welles left Hollywood for Europe in late 1947, enigmatically saying that he had chosen "freedom." In Italy he starred as Cagliostro in the 1948 film ''Black Magic''. His co-star, Akim Tamiroff, impressed Welles so much that Tamiroff would appear in four of Welles's own productions during the 1950s and 1960s.

''The Third Man''

The following year, Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's ''The Third Man'', alongside Joseph Cotten, his good friend and co-star from ''Citizen Kane'', with a script by Graham Greene and a memorable zither score by Anton Karas. The film was an international smash hit, but unfortunately Welles had turned down a percentage of the gross in exchange for a lump-sum advance. A few years later British radio producer Harry Alan Towers would resurrect the Lime character for radio in the series ''The Lives of Harry Lime''. The 1951 series included new recordings by Karas, was very successful, and ran for 52 weeks. Welles claimed to write a handful of episodes—a claim disputed by Towers, who maintains they were written by Ernest Borneman—which later would serve as the basis for the screenplay by Welles, ''Mr. Arkadin'' (1955).

Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the 1949 Italian film ''Prince of Foxes'', with Tyrone Power and Mercury Theatre alumnus Everett Sloane, and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in the 1950 film version of the novel ''The Black Rose'' (again with Tyrone Power).

''Othello''

During this time, Welles was channeling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. From 1949 to 1951, Welles worked on ''Othello'', filming on location in Europe and Morocco. The film featured Welles's old friends, Micheál Mac Liammóir as Iago and Hilton Edwards as Desdemona's father Brabantio. Suzanne Cloutier starred as Desdemona and Campbell Playhouse alumnus Robert Coote appeared as Iago's associate Roderigo.

in the 1952 film ''Othello''.]]

Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left to find other acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's published memoir ''Put Money in Thy Purse''. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but was not given a general release in the United States until 1955 (by which time Welles had re-cut the first reel and re-dubbed most of the film, removing Cloutier's voice entirely), and it played only in New York and Los Angeles. The American release prints had a technically flawed soundtrack, suffering from a complete drop-out of sound at every quiet moment. It was one of these flawed prints that was restored by Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith in 1992 for a wide re-release. The restoration included reconstructing Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original musical score (which was inaudible) and adding ambient stereo sound effects (which weren't in the original film). The subject of great controversy among film scholars, the restoration went on to a successful theatrical run in America. A print of the U.S. version was released on laser-disc in 1995 and soon withdrawn after a legal challenge by Beatrice Welles-Smith. The original Cannes version has survived, but is not available commercially.

In 1952 Welles continued finding work in England, after the success of the ''Harry Lime'' radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, ''The Black Museum'', with Welles as host and narrator, and this would also run 52 weeks. Director Herbert Wilcox offered him the part of the murdered victim in ''Trent's Last Case'', based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953 the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem ''Song of Myself''. Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series, ''The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'', starring John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson.

Late in 1953, Welles returned to America to star in a live CBS ''Omnibus'' television presentation of Shakespeare's ''King Lear''. The cast included MacLiammóir and the British actor, Alan Badel. While Welles received good notices, he was guarded by IRS agents, prohibited to leave his hotel room when not at the studio, prevented from making any purchases, and the entire sum (less expenses) he earned went to his tax bill. Welles returned to England after the broadcast.

In 1954, director George More O'Ferrall offered Welles the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of ''Three Cases of Murder'', co-starring Badel. Herbert Wilcox cast him as the antagonist in ''Trouble in the Glen'' opposite Margaret Lockwood, Forrest Tucker, and Victor McLaglen. Old friend John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in his 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's ''Moby-Dick'', starring Gregory Peck.

''Mr. Arkadin''

Welles's next turn as director was the film ''Mr. Arkadin'' (1955), which was produced by his political mentor from the 1940s, Louis Dolivet. It was filmed in France, Germany, Spain and Italy on a very limited budget. Based loosely on several episodes of the Harry Lime radio show, it stars Welles as a billionaire who hires a man to delve into the secrets of his past. The film stars Robert Arden, who had worked on the Harry Lime series; Welles's third wife, Paola Mori, whose voice was dubbed by actress Billie Whitelaw; and guest stars Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Katina Paxinou and Mischa Auer. Frustrated by his slow progress in the editing room, producer Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished the film without him. Eventually five different versions of the film would be released, two in Spanish and three in English. The version that Dolivet completed was retitled ''Confidential Report''. In 2005 Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum oversaw a reconstruction of the surviving film elements. Included in a DVD box set (''The Complete Mr. Arkadin'') released by The Criterion Collection, it is considered by Welles scholar and director Peter Bogdanovich to be the best version of Welles's original intentions for the film.

In 1955 Welles also directed two television series for the BBC. The first was ''The Orson Welles Sketchbook'', a series of six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera (including such topics as the filming of ''It's All True'' and the Isaac Woodard case), and the second was ''Around the World with Orson Welles'', a series of six travelogues set in different locations around Europe (such as Venice, the Basque Country between France and Spain, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations (a technique he would continue to explore). A seventh episode of this series, based on the Gaston Dominici case, was suppressed at the time by the French government, but was reconstructed after Welles's death and released to video in 1999.

In 1956 Welles completed ''Portrait of Gina'', posthumously aired on German television under the title ''Viva Italia'', a 30-minute personal essay on Gina Lollobrigida and the general subject of Italian sex symbols. Dissatisfied with the results—Welles recalled he had worked on it a lot and the result looked like it—he left the only print behind at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The film cans would remain in a lost-and-found locker at the hotel for several decades, where they were discovered after Welles's death.

Return to Hollywood (1956–1959)

In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood, guesting on radio shows (notably as narrator of ''Tomorrow'', a nuclear holocaust drama produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration). He guest starred on television shows, including ''I Love Lucy,'' and began filming a projected pilot for Desilu, owned by Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, who had recently purchased the former RKO studios. The film was ''The Fountain of Youth'', based on a story by John Collier. Originally deemed not viable as a pilot, the film wasn't aired until 1958. It won the Peabody Award for excellence. Welles's next feature film role was in ''Man in the Shadow'' for Universal Pictures in 1957, starring Jeff Chandler. Around this time period, however, Welles began to suffer from weight problems that would eventually cause a deterioration in his health.

''Touch of Evil''

Welles stayed on at Universal to direct (and co-star with) Charlton Heston in the 1958 film ''Touch of Evil'', based on Whit Masterson's novel ''Badge of Evil'' (Welles, who wrote the screenplay for the film, claimed never to have read the book). Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal Studios at the insistence of Charlton Heston. Reuniting many actors and technicians with whom he'd worked in Hollywood in the 1940s (including cameraman Russell Metty (''The Stranger''), make-up artist Maurice Siederman (''Citizen Kane''), and actors Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich, and Akim Tamiroff), filming proceeded smoothly, with Welles finishing on schedule and on budget, and the studio bosses praising the daily rushes. After the end of production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. Welles wrote a 58-page memo outlining suggestions and objections. The studio followed a few of the ideas, but cut another 30 minutes from the film and released it. The film was widely praised across Europe, awarded the top prize at the Brussels World's Fair.

In 1978, the long preview version of the film was rediscovered and released. In 1998, editor Walter Murch and producer Rick Schmidlin, consulting the original memo, used a workprint version to attempt to create a version of the film as close as possible to that outlined in the memo. This is at best a compromise that should not be mistaken for Welles's original intent. Welles stated in that memo that the film was no longer his version—it was the studio's, but as such, he was still prepared to help them with it.

As Universal reworked ''Touch of Evil'', Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel ''Don Quixote'' in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project.

Welles continued acting, notably in ''The Long, Hot Summer'' (1958) and ''Compulsion'' (1959), but soon returned to Europe.

Return to Europe (1959–1970)

He continued shooting ''Don Quixote'' in Spain, but replaced Mischa Auer with Francisco Reiguera, and resumed acting jobs. In Italy in 1959, Welles directed his own scenes as King Saul in Richard Pottier's film ''David and Goliath''. In Hong Kong he co-starred with Curt Jürgens in Lewis Gilbert's film ''Ferry to Hong Kong''. In 1960, in Paris he co-starred in Richard Fleischer's film Crack in the Mirror. In Yugoslavia he starred in Richard Thorpe's film ''The Tartars''.

By this time he had ceased filming ''Quixote''. Though he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1970s, he never completed the film. As the process went on, Welles gradually voiced all of the characters himself and provided narration. In 1992, the director Jesús Franco constructed a film out of the portions of ''Quixote'' left behind by Welles. Some of the film stock had decayed badly. While the Welles footage was greeted with interest, the post-production by Franco was met with harsh criticism.

In 1961 Welles directed ''In the Land of Don Quixote'', a series of eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network RAI. Similar to the ''Around the World with Orson Welles'' series, they presented travelogues of Spain and included Welles's wife, Paola, and their daughter, Beatrice. Though Welles was fluent in Italian, the network was not interested in him providing Italian narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by which time the network had added Italian narration of its own. Ultimately, versions of the episodes were released with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.

''The Trial''

In 1962 Welles directed his adaptation of ''The Trial'', based on the novel by Franz Kafka and produced by Alexander Salkind and Michael Salkind. The cast included Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Paola Mori and Akim Tamiroff. While filming exteriors in Zagreb, Welles was informed that the Salkinds had run out of money, meaning that there could be no set construction. No stranger to shooting on found locations, Welles soon filmed the interiors in the Gare d'Orsay, at that time an abandoned railway station in Paris. Welles thought the location possessed a "Jules Verne modernism" and a melancholy sense of "waiting", both suitable for Kafka. The film failed at the box-office. Peter Bogdanovich would later observe that Welles found the film riotously funny. During the filming, Welles met Oja Kodar, who would later become his muse, star and mistress for the last twenty years of his life. Welles also stated in an interview with the BBC that it was his best film.

Welles played a film director in ''La Ricotta'' (1963)—Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the ''Ro.Go.Pa.G.'' movie, although his renowned voice was dubbed by Italian writer Giorgio Bassani. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming ''Chimes at Midnight'', which was completed in 1966. Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff and his relationship with Prince Hal. The cast included Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey and Margaret Rutherford, with narration by Ralph Richardson. Music was again by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. Jess Franco served as second unit director.

''Chimes at Midnight''

''Chimes at Midnight'' was based on Welles's play ''Five Kings'' which condensed five of Shakespeare's plays into one show in order to focus on the story of Falstaff. Welles produced the show in New York in 1939 but the opening night, where part 1 was acted, was a disaster and part 2 was never put on. He revamped the show and revisited it in 1960 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. But again, it was not successful. However, this later production was used as the base for the movie. The script contained text from five plays: primarily ''Henry IV, Part 1'' and ''Henry IV, Part 2'', but also ''Richard II'', ''Henry V'', and ''The Merry Wives of Windsor''. Keith Baxter played Prince Hal, and internationally respected Shakespearean interpreter, John Gielgud, played the King, Henry IV. The film's narration, spoken by Ralph Richardson, is taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed. According to Jeanne Moreau, Welles delayed filming for two weeks due to stage fright. Welles held this film in high regard and considered it, along with ''The Trial'', his best work. As he remarked in 1982, "If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I'd offer up."

In 1966, Welles directed a film for French television, an adaptation of ''The Immortal Story'', by Karen Blixen. Released in 1968, it stars Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio and Norman Eshley. The film had a successful run in French theaters. At this time Welles met Kodar again, and gave her a letter he had written to her and had been keeping for four years; they would not be parted again. They immediately began a collaboration both personal and professional. The first of these was an adaptation of Blixen's ''The Heroine'', meant to be a companion piece to ''The Immortal Story'' and starring Kodar. Unfortunately, funding disappeared after one day's shooting. After completing this film, he appeared in a brief cameo as Cardinal Wolsey in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of ''A Man for All Seasons''—a role for which he won considerable acclaim.

In 1967 Welles began directing ''The Deep'', based on the novel ''Dead Calm'' by Charles Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1968 Welles began filming a TV special for CBS under the title ''Orson's Bag'', combining travelogue, comedy skits and a condensation of Shakespeare's play ''The Merchant of Venice'' with Welles as Shylock. Funding for the show sent by CBS to Welles in Switzerland was seized by the IRS. Without funding, the show was not completed. The surviving film clips portions were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1969, Welles authorized the use of his name for a cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Orson Welles Cinema remained in operation until 1986, with Welles making a personal appearance there in 1977. Also in 1969 he played a supporting role in John Huston's ''The Kremlin Letter''. Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles abandoned the editing of ''Don Quixote'' and moved back to America in 1970.

Final years (1970–1985)

Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his own film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on talk shows, and made frequent appearances for Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, and Merv Griffin. Welles's primary focus in this period was filming ''The Other Side of the Wind'', a project that took six years to film but has remained unfinished and unreleased. An early role was portraying Louis XVIII of France in ''Waterloo'' (1970). Welles also narrated the beginning and ending scenes of the Bud Yorkin historical comedy ''Start the Revolution Without Me'' (1970), which starred Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, and Hugh Griffith, among others. In 1971 Welles directed a short adaptation of ''Moby-Dick'', a one-man performance on a bare stage, reminiscent of his stage production ''Moby Dick Rehearsed'' from the 1950s. Never completed, it was eventually released by the Filmmuseum München. He also appeared in ''La Décade prodigieuse'', co-starring with Anthony Perkins and directed by Claude Chabrol, based on a detective novel by Ellery Queen. That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary award "For superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures". Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles while they refused to give him any work.

In 1972, Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the film documentary version of Alvin Toffler's 1970 book ''Future Shock''. Working again for a British producer, Welles played Long John Silver in director John Hough's ''Treasure Island'' (1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, which had been the second story broadcast by ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' in 1938. Welles also contributed to the script, his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O. W. Jeeves'. Welles original recorded dialog was re dubbed by Robert Rietty.

In 1973, Welles completed ''F for Fake'', a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving. Based on an existing documentary by François Reichenbach, it included new material with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart and William Alland. An excerpt of Welles's 1930s ''War of the Worlds'' broadcast was recreated for this film, however none of the dialogue heard in the film actually matches what was originally broadcast. Welles filmed a five minute trailer, rejected in the US, that featured several shots of a topless Kodar.

Welles hosted and narrated a syndicated anthology series, ''Orson Welles's Great Mysteries,'' over the 1973–1974 television season. It did not last beyond that season; however, the program could be perceived as a television revival of the Mercury Theatre whose executive producer Welles had been in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1975, Welles narrated the documentary ''Bugs Bunny: Superstar'', focusing on Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s. Also in 1975, the American Film Institute presented Welles with its third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two going to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). At the ceremony, Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished ''The Other Side of the Wind''. Filming had begun in 1972 and by 1976, Welles had almost completed the film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed. Written by Welles, the story told of a destructive old film director looking for funds to complete his final film. It starred John Huston and the cast included Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, and Dennis Hopper. While there have been several reports of all the legal disputes concerning ownership of the film being settled, enough disputes still exist to prevent its release. The Showtime cable network has promised support for the project should the various entanglements associated with it be resolved.

In 1976, Paramount Television purchased the rights for the entire set of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories for Orson Welles. Welles had once wanted to make a series of Nero Wolfe movies, but Rex Stout — who declined Hollywood adaptations during his lifetime after two disappointing 1930s films — turned him down. Paramount planned to begin with an ABC-TV movie and hoped to persuade Welles to continue the role in a mini-series. Frank D. Gilroy was signed to write the television script and direct the TV movie on the assurance that Welles would star, but by April 1977 Welles had bowed out. In 1980 the Associated Press reported "the distinct possibility" that Welles would star in a Nero Wolfe TV series for NBC television. Again, Welles bowed out of the project due to creative differences and William Conrad was cast in the role.

In 1979 Welles completed his documentary ''Filming Othello'', which featured Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. That same year, Welles completed his self-produced pilot for ''The Orson Welles Show'' television series, featuring interviews with Burt Reynolds, Jim Henson and Frank Oz and guest-starring The Muppets and Angie Dickinson. Unable to find network interest, the pilot was never broadcast. In 1979 Welles also appeared in the biopic ''The Secret of Nikola Tesla'', and a cameo in ''The Muppet Movie'' as Lew Lord.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television commercial advertisements. For two years he was on-camera spokesman for the Paul Masson Vineyards, and sales grew by one third during the time Welles intoned what became a popular catchphrase: "We will sell no wine before its time." He was also the voice behind the long-running Carlsberg "Probably the best lager in the world" campaign and promoted Domecq sherry on British television.

In 1981, Welles hosted the documentary ''The Man Who Saw Tomorrow'', about Renaissance-era prophet Nostradamus. In 1982 the BBC broadcast ''The Orson Welles Story'' in the ''Arena'' series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in great detail, and several people from his professional past were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as ''With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film''. Welles provided narration for the tracks "Defender" from Manowar's album Fighting the World and "Dark Avenger" on Manowar's 1982 album, ''Battle Hymns''. His name was misspelled on the latter album, as he was credited as "Orson Wells".

During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as ''The Dreamers'', based on two stories by Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and ''The Orson Welles Magic Show'', which reused material from his failed TV pilot. Another project he worked on was ''Filming The Trial'', the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot for these projects, none of them was completed. All of them were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1984, Welles narrated the short-lived television series ''Scene of the Crime''. During the early years of ''Magnum, P.I.'', Welles was the voice of the unseen character Robin Masters, a famous writer and playboy. Welles's death forced this minor character to largely be written out of the series. In an oblique homage to Welles, the ''Magnum, P.I.'' producers ambiguously concluded that story arc by having one character accuse another of having hired an actor to portray Robin Masters.

The last film roles before Welles's death included voice work in the animated films ''The Enchanted Journey'' (1984) and ''The Transformers: The Movie'' (1986), in which he played the planet-eating robot Unicron. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's 1987 independent film ''Someone to Love'', released after his death but produced before his voice-over in ''Transformers: The Movie''. His last television appearance was on the television show ''Moonlighting''. He recorded an introduction to an episode entitled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which was partially filmed in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory.

Personal life

Relationships and family

In 1934, Welles eloped with Chicago-born actress and socialite Virginia Nicolson. They divorced in 1940 after Welles's affair with Vera Zorina was vaguely mentioned in Walter Winchell's column.

Since 1932, Welles had fallen in love with Mexican actress, Dolores del Río. They lived a torrid romance between 1938 and 1942, though he was ten years her junior. They collaborated together in the movie ''Journey into Fear'' but the affair ended soon afterward.

Welles married Rita Hayworth in 1943. The couple became estranged during the making of ''The Lady from Shanghai''. After five years, Rita filed for divorce, her reason to the press being, "I can't take his genius any more." During his last interview and only two hours before his death, Welles answered Merv Griffin's suggestive comment "But one of your wives—oh, I have envied you so many years for Rita Hayworth", by calling her "one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived" and saying that he was "lucky enough to have been with her longer than any of the other men in her life."

In 1955 Welles married Italian actress Paola Mori (Countess Paola Di Girifalco). Estranged for decades, the couple were never divorced. Croatian-born actress Oja Kodar became Welles's longtime companion both personally and professionally from 1966 on. They lived together for the last twenty-four years of his life. A year after Orson's death, Paola and Oja finally agreed on the settling of his will. On the way to their meeting to sign the papers, however, Paola was killed in a car accident.

Welles had three children: author Christopher Welles, or Chris Welles Feder (born in 1938, with Virginia Nicolson), Rebecca Welles Manning (born December 17, 1944 – died October 14, 2004, with Rita Hayworth) and Beatrice Welles (born in 1955, with Paola Mori).

Some of Welles's claimed familial ties have not held up under scrutiny. Despite the persistent urban legend, promoted by Welles himself, he was not the great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln's wartime Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. Perhaps the genesis of the myth dates to a 1970 interview on ''The Dick Cavett Show'' during which Welles remarks about his venerable great-grandfather Gideon Welles. Orson Welles's father was Richard Head Welles, son of his paternal grandfather Richard Jones Welles; Gideon Welles had no son by that name. His sons were Hubert (1833–1862), John Arthur (1845–1883), Thomas G. (1846–1892), and Edgar Thaddeus Welles (1843–1914).

Physical characteristics

According to a 1941 physical exam taken when he was 26, Welles was tall and weighed . His eyes were brown. Other sources cite that he was tall, but the slates from costume tests made during the 1940s show him as . Welles gained a significant amount of weight in his 40s, eventually rendering him morbidly obese, at one point weighing nearly four hundred pounds (181.4 kg). His obesity was severe to the point that it restricted his ability to travel, aggravated other health conditions, including his asthma, and even required him to go on a diet in order to play the famously portly Sir John Falstaff. Some have attributed his over-eating and drinking to depression over his marginalization by the Hollywood system.

Religious beliefs

In April 1982, Merv Griffin interviewed Welles and asked about his religious beliefs. Welles replied, "I try to be a Christian, I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God." After the success of his 1941 film ''Citizen Kane'', Welles announced that his next film would be about the life of Jesus, and that he would play the lead role. However, Welles never got around to making the film. He narrated the Christian documentary ''The Late, Great Planet Earth'' as well as the 1961 Biblical film about the life of Christ, ''King of Kings''.

Politics

Welles was politically active from the beginning of his career. He remained a man of the left throughout his life, and always defined his political orientation as "progressive". He was a strong supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and often spoke out on radio in support of progressive politics. In particular, he was an early and outspoken critic of American racism and the practice of segregation. He campaigned heavily for Roosevelt in the 1944 election. For several years, he wrote a newspaper column on political issues and briefly toyed with running for office. In 1970, Welles narrated (but did not write) a satirical political record on the administration of President Richard Nixon entitled ''The Begatting of the President''.

In the 2006 book, ''Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?'', writer Joseph McBride made several controversial claims about Welles. Though Welles said otherwise during his lifetime, McBride claimed Welles left America in the late 1940s to escape McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklist. McBride also claimed, in spite of the sexual content of Welles's contemporary work (''F for Fake'' and the unfinished ''Other Side of the Wind''), that Welles was extremely puritanical about sex based on his comment to Peter Bogdanovich that ''The Last Picture Show'' was "a dirty movie".

Welles once told ''Cahiers du cinéma'' about sex in film, "In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God."

Death

On October 10, 1985, Welles did his final interview on ''The Merv Griffin Show''. He died two hours later of a heart attack at his home in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, the same day as his ''Battle of Neretva'' co-star Yul Brynner. Welles's ashes were buried on the property of a long time friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez, in Ronda, Spain.

Unfinished projects

Welles's reliance on self-production meant that many of his later projects were filmed piecemeal or were not completed. Welles financed his later projects through his own fundraising activities. He often also took on other work to obtain money to fund his own films.

''Don Quixote''

In the mid-1950s, Welles began work on ''Don Quixote'', initially a commission from CBS television. Welles expanded the film to feature length, developing the screenplay to take Quixote and Sancho Panza into the modern age. Filming stopped with the death of Francisco Reiguera, the actor playing Quixote, in 1969. Orson Welles continued editing the film into the early 1970s. At the time of his death, the film remained largely a collection of footage in various states of editing. The project and more importantly Welles's conception of the project changed radically over time. A version of the film was created from available fragments in 1992 and released to a very negative reception.

''The Merchant of Venice''

In 1969 Welles was given another TV commission to film a condensed adaptation of ''The Merchant of Venice''. Although Welles had actually completed the film by 1970 the finished negative was later mysteriously stolen from his Rome production office.

''The Other Side of the Wind''

In 1970 Welles began shooting ''The Other Side of the Wind''. The film relates the efforts of a film director (played by John Huston) to complete his last Hollywood picture and is largely set at a lavish party. By 1972 the filming was reported by Welles as being "96% complete", though it is likely that Welles had only edited about 40 minutes of the film by 1979. In that year, legal complications over the ownership of the film forced the negative into a Paris vault where it remained until 2004, when Peter Bogdanovich (who also acted in the film) announced his intention to complete the production. As of 2009, legal complications over the Welles estate have kept the film from being finished or released. Some footage is included in the documentary ''Working with Orson Welles'' (1993).

Other unfinished projects

''Heart of Darkness'': Welles's projected first film in 1940, planned in extreme detail and with some test shots filmed. (The footage is now lost.) It was planned to be entirely shot in long takes from the point of view of the narrator, Marlow, who would be played by Welles, seeing his own reflection in the window as his boat sailed down river. The project was abandoned because it could not be delivered on budget, and ''Citizen Kane'' was made instead. ''Mr. American'': Early 1940 drafts of ''Citizen Kane'' were based far more overtly on the life of Howard Hughes than on William Randolph Hearst, and would have made for a substantially different picture.

''It's All True'': Welles did not originally want to direct this 1942 documentary on South America, but after its abandonment by RKO, he spent much of the 1940s attempting to buy the negative of his material from RKO, so that he could edit and release it in some form. The footage remained unseen in vaults for decades, and was assumed lost. Over 50 years later, some (but not all) of the surviving material saw release in the 1993 documentary ''It's All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles''.

''Monsieur Verdoux'': In 1944, Welles wrote the first-draft script of this film, which he also intended to direct. Charlie Chaplin initially agreed to star in it, but later changed his mind, citing never having been directed by someone else in a feature before. Chaplin bought the film rights and made the film himself in 1947, with some changes (Welles said the gallows scenes were written by Chaplin, but that much of the film was unchanged from his own script). The final film credits Chaplin with the script, "based on an idea by Orson Welles".

''Cyrano de Bergerac'': Welles spent around nine months c. 1947-8 co-writing the screenplay for this along with Ben Hecht, a project Welles was assigned to direct for Alexander Korda. He began scouting for locations in Europe whilst filming ''Black Magic'', but Korda was short of money, so sold the rights to Columbia pictures, who eventually dismissed Welles from the project, and then sold the rights on to United Artists, who in turn made a film version in 1950, which was not based on Welles's script. ''Around the World in 80 Days'': After Welles's elaborate musical stageshow of this Jules Verne novel, encompassing 38 different sets, he began shooting some test footage in Morocco for a film version in 1947. The footage was never edited, funding never came through, and Welles abandoned the project. Nine years later, the stage show's producer Mike Todd made his own award-winning film version of the book. ''Moby Dick Rehearsed'': a film version of Welles's 1955 London meta-play, starring Gordon Jackson, Christopher Lee, Patrick McGoohan, and with Welles as Ahab. Using bare, minimalist sets, Welles alternated between a cast of nineteenth-century actors rehearsing a production of ''Moby Dick'', with scenes from ''Moby Dick'' itself. Kenneth Williams, a cast member who was apprehensive about the entire project, recorded in his autobiography that Welles's dim, atmospheric stage lighting made some of the footage so dark as to be unwatchable. The entire play was filmed, but is now presumed lost. The recording was made during one weekend at the Hackney Empire theatre. ''Histoires extraordinaires'': The producers of this 1968 anthology film, based on short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, announced in June 1967 that Welles would direct one segment based on both "Masque of the Red Death" and "The Cask of Amontillado" for the omnibus film. Welles withdrew in September 1967 and was replaced. The script, written in English by Welles and Oja Kodar, is in the Filmmuseum Munchen collection. ''One-Man Band'': This Monty Python-esque spoof in which Welles plays all but one of the characters (including two characters in drag), was made around 1968-9. Welles intended this completed sketch to be one of several items in a television special on London. Other items filmed for this special – all included in the "One Man Band" documentary by his partner Oja Kodar – comprised a sketch on Winston Churchill (played in silhouette by Welles), a sketch on peers in a stately home, a feature on London gentlemen's clubs, and a sketch featuring Welles being mocked by his snide Savile Row tailor (played by Charles Gray).

''Treasure Island'': Welles wrote two screenplays for this in the 1960s, and was eager to seek financial backing to direct it. Eventually, his own screenplay (under the pseudonym of O.W. Jeeves) was further rewritten, and formed the basis of the 1972 film version directed by John Hough, in which Welles played Long John Silver.

''The Deep'': An adaptation of Charles Williams' ''Dead Calm''. The picture was entirely set on two boats and shot mostly in close-ups, and was filmed off the coasts of Yugoslavia and the Bahamas, between 1966 and 1969, with all but one scene completed. Originally planned as commercially viable thriller, to show that Welles could make a popular, successful film. It was put on hold in 1970 when Welles worried that critics would not respond favourably to this film as his theatrical follow-up to the much-lauded ''Chimes at Midnight'', and Welles focused instead on ''F for Fake''. It was abandoned altogether in 1973 due to the death of its star Laurence Harvey. The Munich Film Museum holds a restored copy, with title cards filling out the missing scene. ''Saint Jack''. In 1978 Welles was lined up by his long-time protégé Peter Bogdanovich (who was then acting as Welles's ''de facto'' agent) to direct this adaptation of the 1973 Paul Theroux novel about an American pimp in Singapore. Hugh Hefner and Bogdnovich's then-partner Cybill Shepherd were both attached to the project as producers, with Hefner providing finance through his Playboy productions. However, both Hefner and Shepherd became convinced that Bogdanovich himself would be a more commercially viable director than Welles, and insisted that Bogdanovich take over. Since Bogdanovich was also in need of work after a series of box office flops, he agreed. When the film was finally made in 1979 by Bogdanovich and Hefner (but without Welles or Shepherd's participation), Welles felt betrayed and according to Bogdanovich the two "drifted apart a bit". ''Filming The Trial'': After the success of his 1978 film ''Filming Othello'' made for West German television, and mostly consisting of a monologue to the camera, Welles began shooting scenes for this follow-up film, but never completed it. What Welles did film was an 80 minute question-and-answer session in 1981 with film students asking about the film. The footage was kept by Welles's cinematographer Gary Graver, who donated it to the Munich Film Museum, which then pieced it together with Welles's trailer for the film, into an 83 minute film which is occasionally screened at film festivals.

''The Big Brass Ring'': A script of this project was eventually adapted and filmed by George Hickenlooper in 1999 as a play-within-a-film, about Orson Welles's production of the play. Welles's complete screenplay was one of his last projects, written in 1985.

''King Lear'': At the time of his death, Welles was in talks with a French production company to direct a film version of the Shakespeare play, in which he would also play the title role.

An adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel ''Ada'' for which Welles flew to Paris to discuss the project personally with the Russian author.

Legacy

The 1996 documentary ''The Battle Over Citizen Kane'' chronicles the battle between Welles and Hearst. A 1999 HBO docudrama, ''RKO 281'', tells the story of the making of ''Citizen Kane'', starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles.

Tim Robbins's 1999 film ''Cradle Will Rock'' chronicles the process and events surrounding Welles and John Houseman's production of the 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. In it, Welles is played by actor Angus MacFadyen.

Playwright and actor Austin Pendleton wrote the play ''Orson's Shadow'' about Welles and his collaboration with Laurence Olivier. It deals with the time that Welles directed Laurence Olivier in a production of Eugène Ionesco's play ''Rhinoceros''. According to this play, Welles privately disliked Olivier's film adaptations of Shakespeare's works (which were far more successful than Welles's), at one point stating that Olivier's film of ''Hamlet'' "looked like a Joan Crawford movie". Welles struggled with getting Olivier to play not merely someone lower-class (as he did in ''The Entertainer'') but getting Olivier to play someone utterly non-descript.

Author Kim Newman has featured Orson Welles as a character in several stories from his Anno Dracula series.

In the Tim Burton-directed biopic ''Ed Wood'' (1994), Welles (played by Vincent D'Onofrio and dubbed by Maurice LaMarche) makes a brief "cameo appearance", giving advice to director Edward D. Wood, Jr. who idolises Welles. Inspired, Wood proceeds to finish his film ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'', sometimes called one of the worst films of all time. Though ''Ed Wood'' is based on Wood's life, in reality the scene is entirely fictional: Wood never met Orson Welles. D'Onofrio would again portray Welles in the 2005 30-minute film ''Five Minutes Mr. Welles'' concerning Welles's role in the film ''The Third Man''.

Although the character Brain from the animated series ''Animaniacs'' and ''Pinky and the Brain'' was not initially modeled after Welles, Maurice LaMarche was shown a picture of Brain and tasked with finding a voice for the character. LaMarche immediately thought of Welles and decided to do his Welles impersonation. LaMarche also played Welles in ''The Critic'' (where his "later work", ads for such products as 'Mrs. Pell's Fishsticks', is referenced) and in the ''Futurama'' episode "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", in which he performs a ''WOTW''-like play.

One of the recurring celebrity characters on the influential Canadian sketch comedy TV show ''Second City Television'' (SCTV) was John Candy's impersonation of Welles. ON SCTV, Candy-as-Welles appeared in an embarrassing array of commercials, talk shows, and other low-budget productions. It's unknown whether or not Welles ever saw Candy's impersonation.

''Me and Orson Welles'', released in November 2009, stars Zac Efron as a teenager who convinces Welles (Christian McKay) to cast him in Welles's 1937 production of ''Julius Caesar'', based on Robert Kaplow's novel.

The final segment of ''The Simpsons'' "Treehouse of Horror XVII" features a parody of Welles's 1938 War Of The Worlds radio broadcast in which, having been fooled once, the people of Springfield refuse to believe that an actual alien invasion is taking place. Welles was again voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the episode.

Filmography

Awards

The American Film Institute ranked ''Citizen Kane'' as the greatest American movie. These other Welles films were nominated for their list: ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1942, director/producer/screenwriter); ''The Third Man'' (1949, actor); ''Touch of Evil'' (1958, actor/director/screenwriter); and ''A Man for All Seasons'' (1966, actor).

''Citizen Kane'' was nominated for numerous prizes at the 1941 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. The only Oscar won, however, was Best Original Screenplay, which Welles shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Welles later gave his statuette to cinematographer Gary Garver as payment for services rendered. Also, the film ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' was nominated for Best Picture, a year later.

''The Stranger'' was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1947. Welles himself was awarded a Career Golden Lion in 1970.

In 1952, Welles's ''Othello'' won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Welles was nominated for Best Foreign Actor in a Leading Role at the 1968 BAFTA Awards for his performance in ''Chimes at Midnight''.

Welles was given the first Career Golden Lion award in the Venice Film Festival in 1970.

In 1970, Welles won an Honorary Academy Award for "superlative and distinguished service in the making of motion pictures." In light of his poor treatment by the Academy and by the American film industry in general, Welles did not attend the ceremony. In 1970, he was awarded the French Légion d'honneur, the highest civilian decoration in France. Welles was also a distinguished Foreign Member of the Académie française, succeeded by Peter Ustinov.

Welles was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute in 1975.

In 1978, Welles was presented with the Los Angeles Film Critics Career Achievement Award.

n 1979, Welles was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

In 1982, Welles was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards for his role in ''Butterfly'', and won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his role on ''Donovan's Brain''.

Welles was awarded a Fellowship of the British Film Institute in 1983.

In 1984, Welles was given the D. W. Griffith Award of the Directors Guild of America.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Welles as the 16th Greatest Male Star of All Time.

When asked to describe Welles's influence, Jean-Luc Godard remarked: "Everyone will always owe him everything." (Ciment, 42)

A highly divergent genus of Hawaiian spiders "Orsonwelles" is named in his honor (Hormiga et al. 2003)

He won three Grammy Awards, each win in the category of Best Spoken Word Recording: in 1976, for "Great American Documents" (shared with Helen Hayes, Henry Fonda and James Earl Jones; in 1978, for the original motion picture soundtrack to ''Citizen Kane''; and in 1981, for a recording of ''Donovan's Brain''.

In 2008 a statue of Welles sculpted by Oja Kodar was erected in the town of Split, Croatia.

References

Bibliography

Anderegg, Michael: ''Orson Welles, Shakespeare and Popular Culture'', New York: Columbia University Press, 1999

Bazin, Andre: ''Orson Welles'', Harper and Row, 1978

Benamou, Catherine L.: ''It's All True: Orson Welles's Pan-American Odyssey'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007

Beja, Morris, ed.: ''Perspectives on Orson Welles'', G. K. Hall, 1995

Berg, Chuck and Erskine, Tom, ed.: ''The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles'', Checkmark Books, 2003

Bessy, Maurice: ''Orson Welles: An investigation into his films and philosophy'', Crown, 1971

Bogdanovich, Peter and Welles, Orson ''This Is Orson Welles'', HarperPerennial 1992, ISBN 0-06-092439-X

Brady, Frank: ''Citizen Welles'', New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989

Callow, Simon: ''The Road to Xanadu''. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.

Callow, Simon: ''Hello Americans''. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006.

Carringer, Robert: ''The Making of Citizen Kane'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985

Carringer, Robert: ''The Magnificent Ambersons: a Reconstruction'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993

Ciment, Michel: "Les Enfants Terribles" in ''American Film'', December 1984

Comito, Terry, ed.: ''Touch of Evil'', Rutgers, 1985

Conrad, Peter: ''Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life'', London: Faber and Faber, 2003

Cowie, Peter: ''The Cinema of Orson Welles'', Da Capo Press, 1973.

D'Angela, Toni (ed.), ''Nelle terre di Orson Welles'', Alessandria: Edizioni Falsopiano 2004.

Davies, Anthony: ''Filming Shakespeare's Plays'', Cambridge University Press, 1988

Drazin, Charles: ''In Search of the Third Man'', Limelight, 2000

Estrin, Mark: ''Orson Welles Interviews'', University Press of Mississippi, 2002

Feder, Chris Welles: ''In My Father's Shadow: a Daughter Remembers Orson Welles'', Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009

France, Richard, ed.: ''Orson Welles on Shakespeare'', London: Routledge, 2001

France, Richard: "The Theatre of Orson Welles", Bucknell University Press, 1977

Garis, Robert: "The Films of Orson Welles", Cambridge University Press, 2004

Gosling, John: "Waging the War of the Worlds", McFarland & Company, Inc, 2009

Gottesman, Ronald, ed.: ''Focus on Citizen Kane'', Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971

Gottesman, Ronald, ed.: ''Focus on Orson Welles'', Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976

Greene, Graham: ''The Third Man'', London: Faber and Faber, 1991

Heyer, Paul: ''The Medium and the Magician: Orson Welles, the Radio Years'', Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005

Heylin, Clinton. ''Despite the System: Orson Welles Versus the Hollywood Studios'', Chicago Review Press, 2005

Higham, Charles: ''The Films of Orson Welles'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970

Higham, Charles: "Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius", New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985

Hormiga, G., M.A. Arnedo & R.G. Gillespie, 2003, "Speciation on a Conveyor Belt: Sequential Colonization of the Hawaiian Islands by "Orsonwelles" spiders (Araneae: Linyphiidae)., Syst. Biol. 52, 89–109.

Howard, James: "The Complete Films of Orson Welles", Citadel Press, 1991

Ishaghpour, Youssef: ''Orson Welles, cinéaste, une caméra visible'', éditions de la différence, 2001

Jorgens, Jack J.: ''Shakespeare on Film'', Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977

Leaming, Barbara: ''Orson Welles'', New York: Viking, 1985

Lyons, Bridget Gellert, ed.: ''Chimes at Midnight'', Rutgers, 1988

Mac Liammóir, Micháel. ''Put Money in Thy Purse: The Filming of Orson Welles's Othello'', Virgin, 1994

McBride, Joseph: ''Orson Welles'', Harcourt Brace, 1977

McBride, Joseph: ''Orson Welles'', Da Capo Press, 1996.

Mulvey, Laura: ''Citizen Kane'', London: BFI, 1992

Naremore, James. ''The Magic World of Orson Welles'', Southern Methodist University Press, 1989.

Naremore, James, ed.: ''Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: a Casebook'', Oxford University Press, 2004

Noble, Peter: ''The Fabulous Orson Welles'', London: Hutchinson and Co., 1956

Perkins, V. F.: ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', London: BFI, 1999

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "Orson Welles's Essay Films and Documentary Fictions", in ''Placing Movies'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "The Battle Over Orson Welles", in ''Essential Cinema'', Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge" in ''Movie Wars'', A Capella Books, 2000

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: ''Discovering Orson Welles'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007

''Shakespeare Bulletin'', Volume 23, Number 1, Spring 2005: Special Welles issue.

Simon, William G., ed.: "Special Welles issue", in: ''Persistence of Vision: the Journal of the Film Faculty of the City University of New York''; Number 7, 1988

Simonson, Robert. "Orson's Shadow Talkback Series Continues May 4 with Welles's Daughter." May 3, 2005

Taylor, John Russell: ''Orson Welles: a Celebration'', Pavilion, 1986

Taylor, John Russell: ''Orson Welles'', Pavilion, 1998

Walsh, John Evangelist: ''Walking Shadows: Orson Welles, William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane'', Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004

Walters, Ben: ''Welles'', London: Haus Publishing, 2004 ISBN 978-1-904341-80-2

Welles, Orson: ''Les Bravades'', Workman, 1996

Welles, Orson and Bogdanovich, Peter: ''This is Orson Welles'', Da Capo Press, 1998.

Welles, Orson: ''Mr. Arkadin'', London: HarperCollins, 2006

Welles, Orson: ''The Big Brass Ring'', Black Spring Press, 1991

Welles, Orson: ''The Cradle Will Rock'', Santa Teresa Press, 1994

Welles, Orson: "The Other Side of the Wind", in: ''Cahiers du cinéma''/ Festival International du Film de Locarno, 2005

White, Rob: ''The Third Man'', London: BFI, 2003

Wood, Bret: ''Orson Welles: a Bio-Bibliography'', Greenwood Blue, 1990

External links

Wellesnet

Special about Orson Welles, ''La furia umana'', n°4, 2010, with pieces by James Naremore, Jonathan Rosenbaum,

Toni D'Angela, Richard Hell, Denis Lévy, Chris Fujiwara and others, lafuriaumana.it

''Orson Welles – The One Man Band'' (1995)

''Senses of Cinema'' Great Directors Critical Database: Orson Welles

Orson Welles bibliography

Orsonwelles.co.uk

Mercury Theatre on the Air

The Unseen Welles

Guide to the Orson Welles Materials: Lily Library, Indiana University

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ar:أورسون ويلز an:Orson Welles ast:Orson Welles bn:অরসন ওয়েলস be-x-old:Орсан Ўэлс bs:Orson Welles br:Orson Welles bg:Орсън Уелс ca:Orson Welles cs:Orson Welles da:Orson Welles de:Orson Welles et:Orson Welles es:Orson Welles eo:Orson Welles eu:Orson Welles fa:اورسن ولز fr:Orson Welles ga:Orson Welles gl:Orson Welles ko:오슨 웰스 hr:Orson Welles io:Orson Welles id:Orson Welles it:Orson Welles he:אורסון ולס ka:ორსონ უელსი sw:Orson Welles la:Orson Welles lt:Orson Welles hu:Orson Welles ml:ഓർസൺ വെൽസ് nl:Orson Welles ja:オーソン・ウェルズ no:Orson Welles oc:Orson Welles pl:Orson Welles pt:Orson Welles ro:Orson Welles qu:Orson Welles ru:Уэллс, Орсон sq:Orson Welles simple:Orson Welles sk:Orson Welles sl:Orson Welles sr:Орсон Велс sh:Orson Welles fi:Orson Welles sv:Orson Welles th:ออร์สัน เวลส์ tg:Орсон Уелс tr:Orson Welles uk:Орсон Уеллс vi:Orson Welles zh:奧森·威爾斯

thumb|Walter Mixa (2008)

Walter Mixa (born 25 April 1941) is a German Catholic priest, and Bishop Emeritus of Augsburg and Ordinary Emeritus of the Bundeswehr. He resigned as Bishop of Augsburg in 2010 due to allegations of fraud and violence towards children who had been in his care.

Biography

Mixa was born in Königshütte, Silesia (today Chorzów, Poland). His family fled to Western Germany at the end of World War II. Mixa passed his Abitur in 1964 and studied Catholic theology in Dillingen and Fribourg. He was ordained in 1970 in Augsburg and thereafter he studied for his doctorate at the University of Augsburg. From 1973 to 1996 he also worked as a religion teacher in Schrobenhausen. In 1975 Mixa became a Parish priest in Schrobenhausen and bishop of Eichstätt in 1996. In August 2000 Mixa was appointed Catholic Military Bishop of the Bundeswehr by Pope John Paul II. In July 2005 Mixa became Bishop of Augsburg, to be succeeded in Eichstätt by Bp. Gregor Maria Hanke OSB.

Beliefs

Mixa is described as being conservative and close to Pope Benedict. According to the Times newspaper, Mixa is outspoken and "has railed against the German Government for making "birth machines" out of women" and has "compared abortion to the Holocaust". He has also condemned Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and has said of the 2010 child abuse scandal that "The sexual revolution of the 1960s is at least partly to blame for this".

Abuse allegations

In March 2010 he was accused of physical abuse by five ex-pupils of a children's care home, which Mixa served as a visiting priest in the 1970s and 1980s. He has denied the allegations. Further accusers have come forward and the bishop says that he cannot remember any of them. In April 2010 Mixa stated that he cannot exclude having slapped children 20–30 years ago saying he was "sorry for causing many people grief", though, according to BBC, he didn't explain what exactly he meant.
On 21 April, he offered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI, which was accepted on 8 May 2010. His successor in Augsburg would be Bp. Konrad Zdarsa formerly of Görlitz.

References

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:German priests Category:People from Chorzów Category:People from the Province of Silesia Category:University of Fribourg alumni Category:Members of the Bavarian Order of Merit

ar:فالتر ميكسا de:Walter Mixa la:Gualterius Mixa nl:Walter Mixa no:Walter Mixa fi:Walter Mixa

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Hamish & Andy
medium	Television, radio
nationality	Australian
active	2003–present
genre	talk radio
notable work	''The Hamish & Andy Show'', ''Rove', ''Afternoons with Hamish & Andrew''
footnotes	}}

Hamish & Andy are an Australian comedy duo formed in 2003 by Hamish Blake and Andy Lee. They currently host the radio program ''The Hamish & Andy Show'' which airs in Australia on the Today Network.

Most well-known for their work on television as correspondents on ''Rove'' from 2007 to 2009, they also created the sketch comedy series ''Radio Karate'' in 2003 and ''Real Stories'' in 2006, and hosted the variety show ''The Hamish and Andy Show'' in 2004. They were signed by the Nine Network in 2011.

In addition, they have made numerous appearances hosting events, and competing on game shows and in celebrity sporting events.

Background

The two met while studying commerce at the University of Melbourne, and entered comedy competitions.

Radio career

The duo began presenting radio on the Student Youth Network, in the Friday afternoon drivetime slot. They hosted a late-night radio program on Fox FM. The duo then hosted the Fox FM program, ''Almost Midday''. From 2006, they host the two-hour afternoon program, ''Hamish & Andy'', formerly ''The Hamish & Andy Show'', on the Today Network in all states and territories of Australia and in New Zealand. A weekly highlights package is also broadcast in Dubai.

The duo have presented two radio specials on BBC 6 Music in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2009 and 26 January 2010. On Friday 11 June it was announced on the Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show that Hamish & Andy would be presenting three shows in London during July 2010 to cover Christian's holiday. Hamish and Andy signed a deal to present a series of shows to air on Absolute Radio Sunday evenings.

''The Hamish & Andy Show''

The duo have hosted a two-hour weekday show, ''The Hamish & Andy Show'', since 2006. The show is broadcast in all the seven major cities of Australia, in the afternoon drivetime slot (and a compilation of the past week's best on Saturday mornings in New Zealand). The show is the highest-rated radio series in Australian history, with approximately two million listeners daily. Notable activities include the inventing of a new potato crisp, and the purchasing of a greyhound, Fred Basset. In addition, the group has made numerous trips: two domestic and two foreign caravan tours, Bass Strait sailboat trip, and trips to Afghanistan, Beijing, and India, recording live on location. The program has won 13 Australian Commercial Radio Awards.

The duo released a compilation album of segments from their radio show, ''Unessential Listening'', in 2008. The album peaked at on the Australian Top 100 Albums Chart, received platinum certification by the Australian Recording Industry Association and went on to win Best Comedy Release at the ARIA Music Awards of 2009. They released a second compilation album ''Celebrating 50 Glorious Years'' in 2010. The album debuted at number six and received gold certification.

Blake and Lee announced in August 2010 that they would be cutting down their show to a single program each week from 2011 onward. The final daily program aired on 3 December 2010.

Television career

Blake united with Lee in 2003 when they developed a Channel 31 sketch show, ''Radio Karate''. Blake reunited with Lee in 2004 when they were named hosts of a new Seven Network variety program, ''The Hamish and Andy Show'', a show described as a successor to ''Big Bite''. It premiered in 2004, and steadily built a moderate cult audience. However, due in part to poor programming, the show did not rate well and was cancelled after its initial run of six episodes.

In 2005, they were recruited by comedian Rove McManus, to develop the satirical television comedy series, ''Real Stories'', which aired on Network Ten in 2006 and 2007. From 2007 to 2009, the duo appeared fortnightly on ''Rove'' in pre-recorded segments. They hosted the Logie awards in 2007 and 2008, and the ARIA awards in 2008. They appeared on ''Joker Poker'' and ''Australia's Brainiest Comedian'' in 2005, ''Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?'' in 2009 and ''Good News Week'' in 2010. The group appeared on ''The Jay Leno Show'' twice in 2009, and on ''The 7PM Project'' numerous times from 2009, in a similar manner as they did on ''Rove''. They appeared on UKs ''The Graham Norton Show'' in June 2010.

Network Ten Specials

The duo have presented numerous televised clip show specials on Network Ten: ''Hamish and Andy: Re-Gifted'' on 19 November 2008 that was viewed by 1.136 million, ''Hamish & Andy's American Caravan of Courage'' on 10 September 2009 that was viewed by 1.307 million, ''Hamish & Andy: Re-Gifted, Another Very Early Christmas Special'' on 23 November 2009 that was viewed by 1.052 million and ''Hamish & Andy's Caravan of Courage: Great Britain and Ireland'' on 17 June 2010 that was viewed by 1.749 million. The ''Re-Gifted'' specials consisted primarily of excerpts from the duo appearances on previous episodes of ''Rove''. The pair presented a special for Network Ten for the 2010 Commonwealth Games entitled ''Learn India with Hamish and Andy''.

Nine Network

Following a series of media reports, the pair confirmed in February 2011 that they had joined the Nine Network on a two-year contract, to produce ''Hamish and Andy's Gap Year''. The show first aired on 28 July, 2011.

Other projects

On 7 July 2007 they presented the Australian leg of Live Earth. They played in the 2008 and 2009 E. J. Whitten Legends Game. They also made a mockumentary short film ''The Greystone 2800'', that won the 2005 Melbourne Comedy Festival Short Film competition. They also hosted FHM's ''Search for Australia's Funniest Man''.

They had a minor acting role on soap opera, ''Neighbours'', portraying radio presenters Fred and Big Tommo on the episode dated 27 August 2008. The episode featured them promoting university drop-out Ty Harper's (Dean Geyer) band, and interviewing schoolgirls Rachel Kinski (Caitlin Stasey) and Donna Freedman (Margot Robbie) about their situation with Harper. They make a cameo appearance in the upcoming 2010 short film ''IA: Interview Artist''.

See also

Hamish & Andy (radio show)

Frank Stallone

The People's Chip

References

External links

Hamish & Andy's official site

Real Stories

Category:Australian comedians Category:Australian radio personalities Category:Celebrity duos Category:Comedy duos Category:Hamish & Andy

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	David Foster Wallace
birth date	February 21, 1962
birth place	Ithaca, New York
death date	September 12, 2008
death place	Claremont, California
occupation	Novelist, short story writer, essayist, college professor
nationality	United States
period	1987–2008
genre	Literary fiction, nonfiction
movement	Postmodern literature, hysterical realism, metamodernism
notableworks	''Infinite Jest''
influences	Don Delillo, William Gaddis, Cynthia Ozick, Manuel Puig, David Lynch
influenced	Neal Stephenson
website	}}

David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was widely known for his 1996 novel ''Infinite Jest'', which ''Time'' included in its All-Time 100 Greatest Novels list (covering the period 1923–2006).

''Los Angeles Times'' book editor David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last 20 years".

Wallace's unfinished novel, ''The Pale King'', was published in 2011. A biography of Wallace by D. T. Max is projected for publication in 2012.

Biography

Personal

Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, to James Donald Wallace and Sally Foster Wallace. In his early childhood, Wallace lived in Champaign, Illinois. In fourth grade, he moved to Urbana and attended Yankee Ridge school and Urbana High School. As an adolescent, Wallace was a regionally ranked junior tennis player.

He attended his father's alma mater, Amherst College, and majored in English and philosophy, with a focus on modal logic and mathematics. His philosophy senior thesis on modal logic, titled ''Richard Taylor's 'Fatalism' and the Semantics of Physical Modality'' (described in James Ryerson's 2008 ''New York Times'' essay "Consider the Philosopher") was awarded the Gail Kennedy Memorial Prize. His other senior thesis, in English, would later become his first novel. Wallace graduated ''summa cum laude'' for both theses in 1985, and in 1987 received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Arizona.

Though he made little mention of it in his writing, Wallace belonged to a church wherever he lived.

Family

Wallace's father was James D. Wallace, who accepted a teaching job at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the fall of 1962 after finishing his graduate course work in philosophy at Cornell University. He received his PhD from Cornell in 1963 and is now Emeritus Professor at Urbana-Champaign. Wallace's mother, Sally Foster Wallace, attended graduate school in English Composition at the University of Illinois and became a professor of English at Parkland College—a community college in Champaign—where she won a national Professor of the Year award in 1996. Wallace's younger sister, Amy Wallace Havens of Tucson, Arizona, has practiced law since 2005.

In the early 1990s, Wallace had a relationship with the poet and memoirist Mary Karr (''The Liars' Club''). Wallace married painter Karen L. Green on December 27, 2004. Dogs played an important role in Wallace's life; he was very close to his two dogs, Bella and Warner, had spoken of opening a dog shelter, and according to Jonathan Franzen "had a predilection for dogs who'd been abused, and [were] unlikely to find other owners who were going to be patient enough for them."

Death

Wallace committed suicide by hanging himself on September 12, 2008. In an interview with ''The New York Times'', Wallace's father reported that Wallace had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive. When he experienced severe side effects from the medication, Wallace attempted to wean himself from his primary antidepressant, phenelzine. On his doctor's advice, Wallace stopped taking the medication in June 2007, and the depression returned. Wallace received other treatments, including electroconvulsive therapy. When he returned to phenelzine, he found it had lost its effectiveness. In the months before his death, his depression became severe.

Numerous gatherings were held to honor Wallace after his death, including memorial services at Pomona College, Amherst College, University of Arizona, and on October 23, 2008, at NYU—the latter with speakers including his sister, Amy Wallace Havens; his agent, Bonnie Nadell; Gerry Howard, the editor of his first two books; Colin Harrison, editor at ''Harper's Magazine''; Michael Pietsch, the editor of ''Infinite Jest'' and Wallace's later work; Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at ''The New Yorker''; as well as authors Don DeLillo, Zadie Smith, George Saunders, Mark Costello, Donald Antrim, and Jonathan Franzen.

Writing and other media

Career

Wallace's first novel, 1987's ''The Broom of the System'', garnered national attention and critical praise. Caryn James of ''The New York Times'' called it a successful "manic, human, flawed extravaganza", "emerging straight from the excessive tradition of Stanley Elkin's ''Franchiser'', Thomas Pynchon's ''V.'', John Irving's ''World According to Garp''." Wallace moved to Boston, Massachusetts, for graduate school in philosophy at Harvard University, but soon abandoned it. In 1991 he began teaching literature as an adjunct professor at Emerson College in Boston.

In 1992, at the behest of colleague and supporter Steven Moore, Wallace applied for and won a position in the English department at Illinois State University. He had begun work on his second novel, ''Infinite Jest'', in 1991, and submitted a draft to his editor in December 1993. After the publication of excerpts throughout 1995, the book was published in 1996.

Wallace published short fiction in ''Might'', ''GQ'', ''Playboy'', ''The Paris Review'', ''Harper's Magazine'', ''Mid-American Review'', ''Conjunctions'', ''Esquire'', ''Open City'', ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', ''The New Yorker'', and ''Science''.

In 1997, Wallace received a MacArthur Fellowship, as well as the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, awarded by editors of ''The Paris Review'' for one of the stories in ''Brief Interviews''—"Brief Interviews with Hideous Men #6"—which had appeared in the magazine.

In 2002, he moved to Claremont, California, to become the first Roy E. Disney Professor of Creative Writing and Professor of English at Pomona College. He taught one or two undergraduate courses per semester, and focused on his writing.

In May 2005, Wallace delivered the commencement address to the graduating class at Kenyon College. The speech was published as a book in 2009 under the title ''This Is Water''.

Bonnie Nadell was Wallace's literary agent through his entire career. Michael Pietsch was his editor on ''Infinite Jest''.

In March 2009, Little, Brown and Company announced that it would publish the manuscript of an unfinished novel, ''The Pale King'', that Wallace was working on at the time of his death. ''The Pale King'' was pieced together by editor Michael Pietsch from pages and notes the author left behind. Several excerpts from it were published in the ''New Yorker'' and other magazines. ''The Pale King'' was published on April 15, 2011, and received generally positive reviews.

In March 2010, it was announced that Wallace's personal papers and archives – drafts of books, stories, essays, poems, letters, and research, including the handwritten notes for ''Infinite Jest'' – had been purchased by the University of Texas at Austin and will reside at the University's Harry Ransom Center.

Themes and styles

Wallace's fiction is often concerned with irony. His essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction", originally published in the small-circulation ''Review of Contemporary Fiction'' in 1993, proposes that television has an ironic influence on fiction writing, and urges literary authors to eschew TV's shallow rebelliousness: "I want to convince you that irony, poker-faced silence, and fear of ridicule are distinctive of those features of contemporary U.S. culture (of which cutting-edge fiction is a part) that enjoy any significant relation to the television whose weird pretty hand has my generation by the throat. I'm going to argue that irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective, and that at the same time they are agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture, and that for aspiring fictionists they pose terrifically vexing problems". Wallace used many forms of irony, but focused on individuals' continued longing for earnest, unself-conscious experience and communication in a media-saturated society. Literary critic Adam Kirsch said that Wallace's "self-conscious earnestness" and "hostility to irony defined a literary generation."

Wallace's novels often combine various writing modes or voices, and incorporate jargon and vocabulary (sometimes invented) from a wide variety of fields. His writing featured self-generated abbreviations and acronyms, long multi-clause sentences, and a notable use of explanatory footnotes and endnotes—often nearly as expansive as the text proper. He used endnotes extensively in ''Infinite Jest'' and footnotes in "Octet" as well as in the great majority of his nonfiction after 1996. On the ''Charlie Rose'' show in 1997, Wallace claimed that the notes were used to disrupt the linearity of the narrative, to reflect his perception of reality without jumbling the entire structure. He suggested that he could have instead jumbled up the sentences, "but then no one would read it."

According to Wallace, "fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being," and he expressed a desire to write "morally passionate, passionately moral fiction" that could help readers "become less alone inside". In his Kenyon College commencement address, he describes the human condition of daily crises and chronic disillusionment and warns against solipsism, invoking compassion, mindfulness, and existentialism:

Nonfiction work

Wallace covered Senator John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign and had been commissioned shortly before his death to write a story about Barack Obama. He wrote about the September 11 attacks for ''Rolling Stone''; cruise ships (in what became the title essay of his first nonfiction book), state fairs, and tornadoes for ''Harper's Magazine''; the US Open tournament for ''TENNIS Magazine''; the director David Lynch and the pornography industry for ''Premiere'' magazine; the tennis player Michael Joyce for ''Esquire''; the special-effects film industry for Waterstone's magazine; conservative talk radio host John Ziegler for ''The Atlantic Monthly''; and a Maine lobster festival for ''Gourmet'' magazine. He also reviewed books in several genres for the ''Los Angeles Times'', ''The Washington Post'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The Philadelphia Inquirer''. In the November 2007 issue of ''The Atlantic'', which commemorated the magazine's 150th anniversary, Wallace was among the authors, artists, politicians and others who wrote short pieces on "the future of the American idea".

Other media

Twelve of the interviews from ''Brief Interviews With Hideous Men'' were adapted into a stage play in 2000, the first theatrical adaptation of Wallace's work. The play, ''Hideous Men'', adapted and directed by Dylan McCullough, premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival in August 2000.

A filmed adaptation of ''Brief Interviews'', directed by John Krasinski, was released in 2009 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Julianne Nicholson and an ensemble cast including Christopher Meloni, Rashida Jones, Timothy Hutton, Josh Charles, Will Forte and Corey Stoll.

The short story "Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko" from ''Brief Interviews With Hideous Men'' was adapted by composer Eric Moe into a 50-minute operatic piece, to be performed with accompanying video projections. The piece was described as having "subversively inscribed classical music into pop culture", but received tepid reviews overall.

Awards

Inclusion of "Good Old Neon" in ''The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002''

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, 1997–2002

Lannan Foundation Residency Fellow, July–August 2000

Named to Usage Panel, ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' 4th Edition et seq., 1999

Inclusion of "The Depressed Person" in Prize Stories 1999: The O. Henry Awards

Illinois State University, Outstanding University Researcher, 1998 and 1999

Aga Khan Prize for Fiction for the story "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men #6", 1997

''Time'' magazine's Best Books of the Year (Fiction), 1996

Salon Book Award (Fiction), 1996

Lannan Literary Award (Fiction), 1996

Inclusion of "Here and There" in Prize Stories 1989: The O. Henry Awards

Whiting Writers' Award, 1987

Selected bibliography

Novels

''The Broom of the System'' (1987)

''Infinite Jest'' (1996)

''The Pale King'' (2011) (unfinished)

Short story collections

''Girl with Curious Hair'' (1989) (published in Europe as ''Westward the Course of the Empire Takes Its Way'')

''Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'' (1999)

''Oblivion: Stories'' (2004)

Nonfiction

''Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race In the Urban Present'' (1990), coauthored with Mark Costello

''A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again'' (essays) (1997)

''Up, Simba!'' (2000)

''Everything and More'' (2003)

''Consider the Lobster'' (essays) (2005)

''McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope'' (paperback reprint of ''Up, Simba!'') (2008)

''This Is Water'' (2009)

''Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will,'' Eds. S. Cahn and M. Eckert, Columbia University Press (2010).

Further reading

Benzon, Kiki. "Darkness Legible, Unquiet Lines: Mood Disorders in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace." ''Creativity, Madness and Civilization.'' Ed. Richard Pine. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007: 187–198.

Boswell, Marshall. ''Understanding David Foster Wallace''. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. ISBN 1-57003-517-2

Bresnan, Mark. "The Work of Play in David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' 50:1 (2008), 51–68.

Burn, Stephen. "Generational Succession and a Source for the Title of David Foster Wallace's ''The Broom of the System''." ''Notes on Contemporary Literature'' 33.2 (2003), 9–11.

Burn, Stephen. ''David Foster Wallace's'' Infinite Jest'': A Reader's Guide''. New York, London: Continuum, 2003 (= Continuum Contemporaries) ISBN 0-8264-1477-X

Carlisle, Greg. "Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." Austin, L.A.: Sideshow Media Group Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9761465-3-7

Cioffi, Frank Louis. "An Anguish Becomes Thing: Narrative as Performance in David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Narrative'' 8.2 (2000), 161–181.

Delfino, Andrew Steven. "Becoming the New Man in Post-Postmodernist Fiction: Portrayals of Masculinities in David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest'' and Chuck Palahniuk's ''Fight Club''. MA Thesis, Georgia State University.

Dowling, William, and Bell, Robert. A Reader's Companion to Infinite Jest. Xlibris, 2004. ISBN 1-4134-8446-8 ()

Esposito, Scott, et al. Who Was David Foster Wallace? A Symposium on the Writing of David Foster Wallace

Ewijk, Petrus van. "'I' and the 'Other': The relevance of Wittgenstein, Buber and Levinas for an understanding of AA's Recovery Program in David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''English Text Construction'' 2.1 (2009), 132–145.

Goerlandt, Iannis and Luc Herman. "David Foster Wallace." ''Post-war Literatures in English: A Lexicon of Contemporary Authors'' 56 (2004), 1–16; A1-2, B1-2.

Goerlandt, Iannis. "Fußnoten und Performativität bei David Foster Wallace. Fallstudien." ''Am Rande bemerkt. Anmerkungspraktiken in literarischen Texten.'' Ed. Bernhard Metz & Sabine Zubarik. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2008: 387–408.

Goerlandt, Iannis. "'Put the book down and slowly walk away': Irony and David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' 47.3 (2006), 309–328.

Goerlandt, Iannis. "'Still steaming as its many arms extended': Pain in David Foster Wallace's ''Incarnations of Burned Children''." ''Sprachkunst'' 37.2 (2006), 297–308.

Harris, Jan Ll.'Addiction and the Societies of Control: David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest'''', paper delivered at ''Figuring Addictions/Rethinking Consumption'' conference, Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University, April 4–5, 2002

Harris, Michael. "A Sometimes Funny Book Supposedly about Infinity: A Review of ''Everything and More''." ''Notices of the AMS'' 51.6 (2004), 632–638. (full pdf-text)

Holland, Mary K. "'The Art's Heart's Purpose': Braving the Narcissistic Loop of David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' 47.3 (2006), 218–242.

Jacobs, Tim. "The Fight: Considering David Foster Wallace Considering You". ''Rain Taxi Review of Books.'' Online Edition, Part Two. Winter 2009.

Jacobs, Timothy. "The Brothers Incandenza: Translating Ideology in Fyodor Dostoevsky's ''The Brothers Karamazov'' and David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Contemporary Literary Criticism'' Vol. 271. Ed. Jeffrey Hunter. New York: Gale, 2009.

Jacobs, Timothy. "The Brothers Incandenza: Translating Ideology in Fyodor Dostoevsky's ''The Brothers Karamazov'' and David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Texas Studies in Literature and Language'' 49.3 (2007): 265–292.

Jacobs, Timothy. "American Touchstone: The Idea of Order in Gerard Manley Hopkins and David Foster Wallace." ''Comparative Literature Studies'' 38.3 (2001): 215–231.

Jacobs, Timothy. "David Foster Wallace's ''The Broom of the System''." Ed. Alan Hedblad. ''Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction''. Detroit: Gale Research Press, 2001. 41–50.

Jacobs, Timothy. "David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''The Explicator'' 58.3 (2000): 172–175.

Kelly, Adam. "David Foster Wallace: the Death of the Author and the Birth of a Discipline." ''Irish Journal of American Studies Online'' 2 (2010). Link.

LeClair, Tom. "The Prodigious Fiction of Richard Powers, William T. Vollmann, and David Foster Wallace." ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' 38.1 (1996), 12–37.

Lipsky, David. ''Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace''. New York: Broadway, 2010.

Mason, Wyatt. "Don't like it? You don't have to play." ''London Review of Books'' 26.22 (2004). http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n22/maso02_.html

Morris, David. "Lived Time and Absolute Knowing: Habit and Addiction from ''Infinite Jest'' to the ''Phenomenology of Spirit''." ''Clio: A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History'' 30 (2001), 375–415.

Nichols, Catherine. "Dialogizing Postmodern Carnival: David Foster Wallace's ''Infinite Jest''." ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' 43.1 (2001), 3–16.

Rother, James. "Reading and Riding the Post-Scientific Wave. The Shorter Fiction of David Foster Wallace." ''Review of Contemporary Fiction'' 13.2 (1993), 216–234. ISBN 1-56478-123-2

Tysdal, Dan. "Inarticulation and the Figure of Enjoyment: Raymond Carver's Minimalism Meets David Foster Wallace's 'A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life.'" ''Wascana Review of Contemporary Poetry and Short Fiction'' 38.1 (2003), 66–83.

See also

List of 20th-century writers

References

External links

Sources

Reprint of ''Consider the Lobster'', 2004 essay on lobsters for Gourmet magazine

New York Times "Play Magazine" article on Roger Federer, "Federer as Religious Experience"

Wallace pieces for ''Harper's Magazine''

Reprint of ''Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage'', 2001 essay for ''Harper's'' on usage dictionaries and Standard Written English

Biographical

"An Appraisal: Writer Mapped the Mythic and the Mundane", by Michiko Kakutani, ''The New York Times'', September 14, 2008

"On David Foster Wallace", by Dustin Luke Nelson, from ''Guernica Magazine'', September 14, 2008.

Modernism/modernity 16:1 (January 2009), "In Memoriam David Foster Wallace," 1–24. Featuring tributes from Steven Moore, Dave Eggers, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Marshall Boswell, Michael North, Stephen J. Burn, and Brendan Beirne.

"David Foster Wallace, 1962–2008", by David Gates, ''Newsweek'', September 14, 2008.

"The Unfinished" by D.T. Max, The New Yorker, March 9, 2009.

"Everything & More: The Work of David Foster Wallace" by Malcolm Knox, The Monthly November, 2008.

Wyatt Mason: "Smarter than You Think" The New York Review of Books

"David Foster Wallace and the Velveteen Rabbit" Identity Theory, August, 2011.

Interviews

Charlie Rose Show: An interview with Wallace following the publication of Infinite Jest and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Mar 27, 1997

Charlie Rose Show: A roundtable discussion on fiction with Wallace, Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner, May 17, 1996

This American Life Episode 160 broadcast May 19, 2000 "Character Assassination" Act 2 'Sonny Takes a Fall' – (19 minute radio where David Foster Wallace "reports on a turning point in 2000's Presidential primaries: the moment when John McCain failed to respond well to an attack by George Bush". Description of broadcast from thislife.org)

"David Foster Wallace: A Profile" – (by Bill Katovsky)

David Foster Wallace on Bookworm, Link to a set of lengthy radio interviews David Foster Wallace gave to KCRW's Bookworm over a period of ten years. The first is from April 11, 1996; the last March 2, 2006.

Portals

THE HOWLING FANTODS! – David Foster Wallace: News, Info, Links

''Infinite Jest'' Wiki

The Infinite Summer project

''Pomona College's David Foster Wallace Wiki

Fan art tribute

FOREVER DFW – A collection of art and other material in memory of David Foster Wallace

''A Failed Entertainment'': Film and art exhibit based on the James O. Incandenza Filmography from ''Infinite Jest''

Incandenza Filmography interpretations and other ''Infinite Jest''-inspired works online: "Infinite Jest IV", "Zero Gravity Tea Ceremony", "The Medusa v. The Odalisque", "The Cold Majesty of the Numb", "Kinds of Light", "Baby Pictures of Famous Dicatators 2: Eschatong", "Good-Looking Men In Small Clever Rooms That Utilize Every Centimeter Of Available Space With Mind-Boggling Efficiency", "Cage - Planar Version", "Various Small Flames", "The Exhibit and the Cage", "Après-Garde Film", "For Infinite Jest", "Sixty Minutes More or Less with Madame Psychosis", "Hal at Age 4", "Poor Yorick Entertainment" poster art

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