Orson Welles portrait. (Aberdeen collection)

Orson Welles

Hollywood Renegade  &  Founding Member of The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers

By the time Orson Welles co-founded SIMPP at age 26, his experience as an entrepreneur brought him success on stage, radio, recording, publishing, and film. He had orchestrated one of the most famous broadcasts in radio history. He had one Academy Award under his belt (for writing Citizen Kane). And he headed one of the most auspicious independent companies in Hollywood — Mercury Productions, Inc.

Welles parlayed the public attention from "The War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938 into a Hollywood contract that gave him his independence as a filmmaker, and resulted in his landmark debut film Citizen Kane (1941). Like Charlie Chaplin, Welles' skill as writer-producer-director-actor could be matched by few in the arts. His revolutionary film directing has overshadowed many of the important contributions he made to the industry as a producer.

MORE:

• Orson Welles: Biography (Written by the Publicity Department of RKO Radio Pictures in 1942)

• Orson Welles: The SIMPP Years

• John Huston on Orson Welles

• DOCUMENT:  Was Citizen Kane Really About Hearst? by Orson Welles (1975)