Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kane (81 page)

The panic was routinely cited as a product of radio’s sweeping power, although the
New York Times
was among the outlets that patiently pointed out the role of willful ignorance. Any listener fooled by the drama would have had to ignore the clear newspaper listings for the show (“Today: 8:00–9:00—Play—H.G. Wells’s ‘War of the Worlds’—WABC”), its explicit introduction, and three additional announcements during the broadcast “emphasizing its fictional nature.” The freethinking journalist and broadcaster Dorothy Thompson, named the second most influential woman in the United States (after Eleanor Roosevelt) in a poll the following year, spoke for America’s more sophisticated citizenry when she declared that Welles and his actors had “shown up the incredible stupidity, lack of nerve and ignorance of thousands.” Or as Orson’s early booster, Alexander Woollcott, teased him in a telegram: “This only goes to prove, my beamish boy, that the intelligent people were all listening to a dummy, and all the dummies were listening to you.”

One undeniable result of the panic was that Orson Welles was suddenly a household name. Heretofore, his name had been known only to Broadway aficionados and readers of the theater press and
Radio Daily.
Even when Orson had appeared on the cover of
Time
, the profile was relegated to the magazine’s theater section. Now the broadcast and panic had made front-page headlines not only in every state of the union but around the globe. (According to Welles, even Adolf Hitler referred scathingly to the “War of the Worlds” panic in a Munich speech, offering it as evidence of the corrupt and decadent state of democracies.)

Orson’s fame had spilled beyond the realm of show business; the potential audience for his future projects had grown exponentially. For the first time, his name became grist for editorialists, political columnists, humorists, and even sports reporters, who now compared the odds in horse races to the odds of Martians landing in New Jersey. “On Broadway, he was well known, all right,” wrote
Radio Mirror.
“But Broadway isn’t America, and it’s doubtful if all his excellent work on the New York stage would ever have made him matter much to the rest of the country. And then, an accident, an innocent mistake, a blunder . . . And everybody in the country knew who he was.

“Overnight.”

Fate. Everything was fate.

The days leading up to a Broadway premiere were always make-or-break for Orson. They were a time for final adjustments and improvements. That was true of many Broadway shows, but especially of Mercury productions. Could Orson have worked some crucial eleventh-hour magic to save
Danton’s Death
? We’ll never know. The “War of the Worlds” maelstrom took over. Three days after the broadcast, on the day of the opening that would seal the Mercury’s fate, he and Houseman were still unsure if they would be jailed, sued, or fired by CBS.

The critics and columnists covering theater in New York, who were all loyal to print, saw the “War of the Worlds” controversy as another episode in a fractious year for the Mercury, after the summer of rumored discontent, the changing of the guard among the actors, the widely reported crises causing the postponement of
Too Much Johnson,
and the months-long problems and delays plaguing
Danton’s Death.
The broadcast and panic enlarged the bull’s-eye that had hung on the boy wonder’s back since the Voodoo
Macbeth.

At the end of the November 2 premiere, the huge elevator contraption rose to its highest level above the stage floor, the guillotine blade emerged under the gleam of a single bright light, and the blade fell on Danton. The stage went to black, the curtain fell, and the play ended—as dead as Danton.

Reporting their negative verdicts, some critics referred to the broadcast and panic. “Having loosed the Martians upon us,” the previously supportive Richard Watts Jr. began in the
New York Herald Tribune
, “Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre now attempt to turn us over to the blood-letting leaders of the French Revolution.” Watts went on to describe the production as mannered, stately, and artificial, and its message as fuzzy. Welles the actor was “merely oratorical” in his role. “For the Mercury,” Watts said (a self-fulfilling prediction), “the honeymoon is over.”

Some aimed mockery at Orson himself. Beginning his review by joking about the boy wonder’s actual age (“Orson is 23 years old. Or is it 22. No, he was 22 last year . . .”), Arthur Pollock of the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
turned his review into a meditation on onetime prodigies past their prime. “He has grown tired of being spoken of as a slip of a boy, treated as a phenomenon and a prodigy,” wrote Pollock. However, Welles remained “a little precious” and
Danton’s Death
therefore seemed “the product of a boy playing with blocks, doing stunts with them.”

As for
Danton’s Death
, Sidney B. Whipple wrote in the
New York World Telegram
, “Its only purpose . . . was to demonstrate the undeniable talent of one man.” “Except as a director’s holiday,” John Mason Brown complained in the
Evening Post
, “it proves a bore.” Richard Lockridge in the
New York Sun
said the Mercury production was “all switchboard and no soul.”

The left-wing press, already wary of
Danton’s Death
, threw the Mercury overboard. “It is dull as ditch water and completely muddled,” wrote Ruth McKenney in
New Masses.
“Unless you are a specialist in the French Revolution, which I’m not, it’s practically impossible to figure out what all the guillotining is about.” She questioned the production design—the elevator platform, the stage holes and dark lighting—saying it all made her as nervous as the actors must have been.

Not all the notices were poor. The play and Orson’s direction and performance came in for praise from several noted reviewers, including the usually influential Brooks Atkinson of the
New York Times.
Atkinson declared the production tingling and theatrical, crackling with relevance. Welles had vividly staged the production, while acting his role “with some of the melodramatic solemnity of The Shadow.” Atkinson too prefaced his review with a mention of the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, and closed it with a gentle gibe: “Ladies and gentlemen, you have been reading a review of a performance. . . . There is no occasion for harm.”

But
Danton’s Death
could not turn back the tide of adverse publicity. The play itself was part of the problem (“Actually, it’s not a great play, a piece of shit, really,” cheerfully admitted leading man Martin Gabel years later, though with “some wonderful things in it”), and the Mercury’s customary audience stayed away. “The ticket agencies ignored us,” wrote Houseman. “Half of our theatre parties were canceled.” The partners held on by their fingernails for a few weeks, their finances in free fall, until the final dagger was plunged—by one of Orson’s idols.

After one performance, the legendary Max Reinhardt came backstage to make the rounds of people he knew, including Vladimir Sokoloff, who had played Robespierre in his 1927 production. Slowly, Reinhardt made his way over to the director, forty years his junior. Before his idol, Welles felt acutely aware of the Mercury production’s shortcomings, and of his own limitations as an actor.

“You are the best
Schauspieler
in America,” Reinhardt told Welles.
³⁵
“You must do the great parts.”

A wonderful compliment—but only for his acting. “Nothing about the production,” Orson told Jaglom. “All he could do was tell me what a great actor I was.”

“So he didn’t like the production,” Jaglom remarked.

“Of course not. Couldn’t blame him.”

The partners closed
Danton’s Death
on November 19 after just twenty-one performances. Budgeted at $10,000, the production cost close to $50,000, Andrea Janet Nouryeh estimated. Two weeks later, after glumly talking it over, Welles and Houseman announced that the Mercury would lease its building and stage to other producers. The partners still intended to coproduce
Five Kings
with the Theatre Guild after the New Year, planning rehearsals to start in mid-December. A new Marc Blitzstein musical was also possible, and “that harum scarum production
Too Much Johnson
,” as the
New York Times
reported reassuringly, “has already been rehearsed and can be put on the stage very quickly when the auguries are propitious.” For now, though, the auguries were dismal.

Yet, in typical fashion, Orson managed quickly to shift gears. He, Virginia, and baby Christopher left for a monthlong stay on the Todd School campus. Barbara Leaming wrote that Welles was “exhausted and depressed, his personal and professional life [a] shambles,” although this assessment came from Roger Hill—not Welles, who relished the chance to get away from the defeat and recharge. He could please Virginia, who wanted to spend Thanksgiving in Wheaton with her family. He could find solitude on the Todd School grounds while working on the script for
Five Kings.
He could see his friend Ashton Stevens and hear Stevens’s advice. He would see his guardian and wrangle with the bank overseeing his trust fund.

And each week he could head to Chicago and fly back to New York for the radio show.

The
Mercury Theater on the Air
was in the doghouse at CBS for several weeks after the “War of the Worlds” controversy. But the curse was lifted after an advertising agency representative, Ward Wheelock, approached Welles and Houseman on behalf of the Campbell soup company, with an offer to take over the series and sponsor it commercially, as a promising venue for advertising. The company wanted to rename the series
The Campbell Playhouse.
The program would stay on CBS but move to Fridays, with a prime one-hour slot at 9
P
.
M
. The partners would still control the series creatively, but under new strictures. In return for “big money” for salaries and productions, the sponsors wanted to reorient the radio show toward popular plays and novels, with guest stars from Broadway and Hollywood. The new budget would accommodate the rights to the stage hits and current best sellers that had previously been beyond the reach of the
Mercury Theatre on the Air.

Wearing their “most conservative suits and stiff collars,” according to Houseman, he and Welles visited Campbell’s New Jersey headquarters, touring the plant and lunching with company officials in the executive dining room, where the partners “smacked their lips over the thin, briny liquid of which we were about to become the champions.”

America’s greatest
Schauspieler
charmed the soup sellers, flattering their product and telling them, according to Frank Brady’s account, “This is a great big chance for me and a great big challenge. With my faith in radio and your display of confidence in me by becoming the sponsor we can possibly create something important. Let’s hope nobody’s mistaken.”

Orson declared radio to be “the best storyteller there is,” and when someone in the room referred to a radio script as similar to a stage play, Welles hastened to correct the remark. “It’s not a play,” he said. “It’s a story. Radio broadcasting is different from motion pictures and the theater and I’d like to keep it that way. The illusion I’d like to create is the illusion of the story.” (A version of this exchange would be incorporated into his patter for the first new broadcast.)

The deal with Campbell, which was consummated and announced before
Danton’s Death
had closed officially, tempered the demoralizing effect of the stage debacle—and opened a new channel of revenue for the strapped Mercury operation. Orson alone stood to rake in “approximately $1,500” weekly, Brady wrote, “depending on other fees and expenses.”

The
Mercury Theatre on the Air
continued on the air for only one month after the “War of the Worlds” episode. While Orson oversaw planning for the new
Campbell Playhouse
, he also hosted and starred in the final shows of the original series. Among them, on the Sunday after the broadcast and panic, was a program offering selections from both Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness
and Orson’s “especially funny and unbuttoned” turn (in Frank Brady’s words) as the patriarch in Clarence Day’s
Life with Father.
This was followed by “three first-class works”: another take on Charles Dickens,
The Pickwick Papers
; another Booth Tarkington, his 1919 stage hit
Clarence
, which had starred Alfred Lunt; and the last show on December 4, a powerful treatment of the Pulitzer Prize–winning
The
Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder, Orson’s early champion.

The Campbell Playhouse
was launched five days later, on December 9. With the enhanced budget now available to him, Orson scored a coup by arranging for the first dramatization of Daphne du Maurier’s thriller
Rebecca
, a best seller then in its ninth printing. (Producer David O. Selznick had just purchased the screen rights.) Margaret Sullavan, whose performance in
Three Comrades
would be nominated for an Oscar in 1938, flew from Hollywood to play the nameless wife of Maxim de Winter, who is haunted by the death of his first wife, Rebecca. Orson took the plane from Chicago to host the show and play de Winter.

The sponsor’s announcer for the renamed series introduced Orson as “the white hope of the American stage,” a young man who “writes his own radio scripts and directs them, and makes them live and breathe with the warmth of his genius,” and whose “magical” life story “combines the best features of Baron von Munchausen and Alice in Wonderland.” There was more such hyperbole, of the sort that both Houseman and Simon Callow would disapprove of in their later accounts of Welles’s career. In truth, Orson didn’t mind.

The show itself was excellent, with Orson broodingly romantic as de Winter and Sullavan touching as his fearful second wife. Mildred Natwick was the sinister Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper fanatically loyal to the dead wife, and other Mercury players acquitted themselves well in supporting parts. In addition to joining in the soup advertisements, Orson bantered with Sullavan at the end of the drama; brief interviews like those in Cecil B. DeMille’s
Lux Radio Theatre
were a new feature of the show. Then, via transatlantic shortwave, Welles and Sullavan conversed with du Maurier live from England, where the author had stayed up till three o’clock in the morning to listen in.