"In the history of American popular culture, there is no more dramatic story--no swifter or loftier ascent to the pinnacle of success and no more tragic downfall--than that of Orson Welles. In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before. He chronicles Welles's early life growing up in Wisconsin and Illinois as the son of an alcoholic industrialist and a radical suffragist and classical musician, and...

"Based on long-lost recordings, a set of riveting and revealing conversations with America's great cultural provocateur. There have long been rumors of a lost cache of tapes containing private conversations between Orson Welles and his friend the director Henry Jaglom, recorded over regular lunches in the years before Welles died. The tapes, gathering dust in a garage, did indeed exist, and this book reveals for the first time what they contain. Here...

On the evening of October 30, 1938, radio listeners across the United States heard a startling report of a meteor strike in the New Jersey countryside. With sirens blaring in the background, announcers in the field described mysterious creatures, terrifying war machines, and thick clouds of poison gas moving toward New York City. As the invading force approached Manhattan, some listeners sat transfixed, while others ran to alert neighbors or to call...

Citizen Kane: Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance. The battle over Citizen Kane: American experience documentary about the making of Citizen Kane and about Orson Welles estate. RKO 281: Orson Welles produces his greatest film, Citizen Kane, despite the opposition of the film's de facto subject, William Randolph Hearst.