It was on 10 October, 1985, that Orson Welles died. Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 1915. He attended Madison Public Schools for a time and lived at the Baskerville on S. Hamilton St.
When he was just 26, Welles would win the Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ for the film, ‘Citizen Kane’, which continuously tops the lists of best films ever made.
As part of the Works Progress Administration, Welles took part in the Federal Theater Project, and would later found the Mercury Theater in New York along with his collaborator, John Housman.
In 1941, Welles was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador to Latin America. Welles would expand his travels in the region to include; Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.
Welles was an ardent New Dealer, actively supporting the re-election of President Roosevelt in 1944. So prominent was he as an FDR campaigner that many urged him to run in the US Senate election in Wisconsin in 1946. Welles opted to pass on this opportunity and the eventual winner of the contest would be Joseph R. McCarthy.
In 2014, a documentary on his life and career would be released, the trailer for the film appears below…