Orson Welles, Volume 2: Hello Americans

Description

From Citizen Kane to Macbeth, the second volume of Simon Callow's brilliant, definitive biography of Orson Welles explores the beginning of the end of Welles' Hollywood career. The reason for the decline of Orson Welles's career is a hotly debated issue, but decline it certainly did. When Citizen Kane, his first film, opened in 1941, Welles was universally acclaimed as the most audacious filmmaker alive. But instead of marking the beginning of a triumphant career in Hollywood, the film still regularly voted the greatest ever made proved to be an exception in Welles's life and work. In 1947 Welles left America for Europe and lived for the best part of twenty years in self-imposed exile. Welles himself famously quipped 'I started at the top and worked my way down' - the second volume of Simon Callow's compelling biography tells the story of that complex and protracted descent from grace.

Simon Callow is an actor, director and writer. He has appeared on the stage and in many films, including the hugely popular Four Weddings and a Funeral. His books include Being an Actor, Shooting the Actor, Love is Where it Falls, the first two volumes of his four-volume life of Orson Welles, his theatrical memoir My Life in Pieces, and, most recently, the highly acclaimed Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World.

Simon Callow is to be commended for Hello Americans, as it is not only the best biography of Welles that we can possibly have, it is also one of the best biographies in any field I've read in years -- Sunday Express * Roger Lewis * The research is breathtaking. The book is bursting with details, references and anecdotes -- James Christopher * The Times * Hello Americans is full of witty asides...As a biographer, Callow is a match for his subject in terms of showmanship, but he has gifts of analysis that eluded Welles... enchanting -- Christopher Silvester * Sunday Times * There is here some of the most vivid and instructive writing on the craft of movie and stage acting I've ever read -- Philip French * Observer * This is a bitter-sweet book: we say goodbye to the very best of company but we also look forward to Callow bringing that company back to life in his third volume -- Tom Dewe Matthews * Independent on Sunday *