That is a great clip to watch. Thanks for posting it.

Welles got his start as I remember in England when he auditioned for a part

in a show and got it . He was about 17 .

Father Neptune as Lincoln called Welles.

Wrote the best diary to come out of the Lincoln administration.

I know nothing about Welles" personal life, but according to Wiki, he's not related to Gideon Welles:

Quote:

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Despite an urban legend promoted by Welles,he was not related to Abraham Lincoln's wartime Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. The myth dates back to the first newspaper feature ever written about Welles"Cartoonist, Actor, Poet and only 10"in the February 19, 1926, issue of The Capital Times. The article falsely states that he was descended from "Gideon Welles, who was a member of President Lincoln's cabinet". As presented by Charles Higham in a genealogical chart that introduces his 1985 biography of Welles, Orson Welles's father was Richard Head Welles (born Wells), son of Richard Jones Wells, son of Henry Hill Wells (who had an uncle named Gideon Wells), son of William Hill Wells, son of Richard Wells

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[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles#cite_note-Higham-12][/url]

I just read through his Wikipedia and it doesn't seem he was in Europe (at least when he might have been there with a teacher) until he was around 16-17 years old in 1931-32 and by then he was already acting in Ireland.

The Hitler piece of the story sounds/seems made up.

I too think the Hitler story is bogus, or at least mis-remembered. He says there's a "big Nazi rally near Innsbruck."
He also says it was when the Nazis were a minor party, sort of a joke. That rings wrong.

Innsbruck is in Austria, not Germany. Hitler had basically jumped the draft from Austria to go to Germany (where he joined up in their army). But he was basically still facing potential charges in Austria right after the war.

Now, if the Nazis were still a minor party, that tells me it's before say 1925. I am not aware that Hitler visited Austria at all before the Anschluss in 1938, when he was already chancellor. I almost wonder if Wells, who said he didn't remember Hitler at all (which is not the impression you get from anyone who met him) didn't meet some local Austrian Nazi ruler like this guy, and then later after the Nazis came to power, remembered it and thought he was Hitler.

On another note, YouTube can get you down a lot of side alleys:

Orson Wells on Hemmingway.

And my favorite
Orson Wells trying to do a wine commercial while drunk
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