Orson Welles & Magic

[Joe Mckay]

Here is an interview with Jim Steinmeyer (from 2002) talking about the magic of Orson Welles, and his friendship with him.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040205144946/http://thefilmjournal.com/issue6/steinmeyer.html

The original link no longer works - so I have used the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to pull up the interview.

[Edward Pungot]

Orson Welles had that magical sounding voice with the theatrical laugh.

There is a 2018 documentary on Welles worth watching. The way it was put together gave it a feel that Orson was pulling off an intricate magic trick. The ending throws you a curve ball as the theatrical "house lights" slowly turns on on you with Welles having the last laugh.

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
https://www.netflix.com/title/80124722?preventIntent=true

Archive Wayback Machine
https://forums.geniimagazine.com/viewtopic.php?t=48681

[Bob Farmer]

For more on this watch his film, F Is For Fake:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_for_Fake

[Zig Zagger]

I may have mentioned it already elsewhere, but I'd really like to recommend Bart Whaley's monumental biography, Orson Welles: The Man Who Was Magic.

It's particularly interesting for magicians because a) it deals extensively with Welles's magic ties and ventures and b) it seeks to identify his thinking process as "always looking for a third option", which probably has a lot to do with magical thinking in general.

The book is available over at lybrary.com.

[MagicbyAlfred]

According to a short article about Wells written by David O'Connor, "The Magic of Orson Wells" (July 1 2016) (https://magictricksforkids.org/history- ... on-welles/) he got his first magic set at age three. That's an age where one usually doesn't have enough reality under one's belt to even understand the concept of defying reality - Wells, no doubt, being the exception. According to the article, Orson ran away from home at the age of 10 and was discovered two days later at a Chicago Street corner surrounded by a crowd while doing a magic act. You gotta love it!

[Paco Nagata]

Definitely his best magic trick was to made the entire Earth been invaded by aliens!
^_^

[MagicbyAlfred]

Definitely his best magic trick was to made the entire Earth been invaded by aliens!
^_^

You are certainly right about that, Paco! And he pulled off the trick on the radio!

Whenever I performed a trick on the radio, I always knew it was a huge success. Thousands of people would call in to the radio station saying they "just couldn't see how it was done."

[Paco Nagata]

Whenever I performed a trick on the radio, I always knew it was a huge success. Thousands of people would call in to the radio station saying they "just couldn't see how it was done."

Alfred, this could lead to a new interesting topic:
Magic and Radio

[Edward Pungot]

Next on our program we have a juggler and a mentalist. But first, a few words from our sponsor...

https://www.neh.gov/article/fake-news-orson-welles-war-worlds-80

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/10/30/241797346/75-years-ago-war-of-the-worlds-started-a-panic-or-did-it