13. Orson Welles, Media Opposition
Possibly the most talked about man in America at one time because of the hysteria his radio reading of “War of the Worlds” caused, Orson Welles received an incredible contract to try his hand at directing. After years on Broadway, he took the lessons he’d learned and an uncanny ability to tell stories and then wrote, produced, directed and starred in Citizen Kane, the film often cited as the best ever. Involved in only a handful of important films, despite his obvious intellect, including The Third Man,Touch of Evil and F for Fake which are considered amazing, why did his career hit the skids?
Despite the fact that he would appear in several new projects a year, he would never receive the opportunities or attention he deserved because of his decision to make an extremely powerful enemy. The film that Orson is best known for also caused his career to nosedive. Basing much of the story ofCitizen Kane on the life story of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, he would find that the man he’d scorned would work hard to keep his film away from the public. Absolutely shredded by the critics under Hearst’s employ, the movie wasn’t allowed to be advertised in Hearst newspapers, something imperative to a film’s success at the time and was barely seen upon its release. Forced to battle his own studio to force them to release the film at all, it seems obvious that nobody wanted to take the same chance on him again and Welles’ spotlight all but fully receded.
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