The Battle Over "Citizen Kane" Trancript （2） 　　 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [press conference] Do you want me to speak now? Im sorry. Of course, we are deeply shocked and deeply regretful about the results of last nights broadcast. It came rather as a great surprise to us that a story, a fine H.G. Wells classic-- 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: We absolutely were not prepared for the kind of reaction it got, but--but Orson was giving an interview and he said, I had no idea what we were doing. Thats not true. He knew fifteen minutes in, you know, when Davidson Taylor came out and said, Make an announcement, make an announcement, and he--he wouldnt. 　　 　　REPORTER: [press conference] Were you aware of terror at the time you were giving this role--were you aware that terror was going on throughout the nation? 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: Oh, no. Oh, no. Of course not. I was frankly terribly shocked to learn that--that it did. 　　 　　RICHARD FRANCE: The immediate thing that it got him was--was a sponsor--thereafter it became known as the Campbell Soup Playhouse--but the big thing it got him was Hollywood, sure. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [1982] And then, of course, they passed a lot of laws. Now you cant do it. You cant give a news broadcast--say, This is the news, without--all that. But the people who tried it in other countries were all put in jail, and I got a contract--Hollywood. It really is the truth. 　　 　　NARRATOR: His New York theater was a shambles, but now that didnt matter. Welles was offered the greatest contract in the history of Hollywood: unprecedented freedom. It was just what he wanted, and the worst thing that could have happened to him. 　　 　　[Intermission] 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [Citizen Kane] What are you doing? Jigsaw puzzles? 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE, Actress: Charlie, what time is it? 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: Eleven-thirty. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: In New York? 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: Hmm? 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: I said what time is it in New York? 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: Eleven-thirty. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: Night? 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: Mm-hmm. Bulldogs just gone to press. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: Well, hooray for The Bulldog. 　　 　　NARRATOR: In 1941, Orson Welles depicted William Randolph Hearst as a stiff old man, cut off from the world, ossified in attitudes that had no bearing outside of his own castle. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: [Citizen Kane] Well, a person could go crazy in this dump--nobody to talk to, nobody to have some fun with. 　　 　　NARRATOR: It was a cruel picture, but in fifty years of building an empire, Hearst had endured worse without complaint. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: [Citizen Kane] Im lonesome. 　　 　　NARRATOR: But Welles didnt mean to stop there. He saved his most savage portraiture for the woman who shared Hearsts life. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: [Citizen Kane] You make a joke out of everything. Charlie, I want to go to New York. Im tired of being a hostess. I want to have fun. Please, Charlie. Charlie, please. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: Our home is here, Susan. I dont care to visit New York. 　　 　　NARRATOR: This was the real Marion Davies. The collision between Hearst and Orson Welles--the battle over Citizen Kane--was, in large part, a fight over the honor of this woman, for when the real William Randolph Hearst fell in love, he did it to scale. Mountains would move, palaces would be built, the nation as a whole was going to love this woman. He saw her in a chorus line in 1915. Hearst was fifty-two, with his wife pregnant at home, but he still haunted the theaters, second row--one seat for him, one for his hat. He was familiar to the showgirls--one of the wealthy men whod give a girl something nice if she favored him with her company. Marion was eighteen, but a practiced hand at this game. When she lost his first gift, a Tiffany watch, she called Hearst up and got another. She was a gold-digger and made no bones about it, but she knew how to make Hearst laugh. 　　 　　NANCY LOE: She was incredibly, heart-breakingly beautiful, and she had been raised much in the tradition of Colette, where her mother encouraged her to pay a lot of flattering attention to men of incredible means. 　　 　　DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, Jr.: Marion was absolutely enchanting. Everybody loved her. She was cheery, jolly, generous, and full of humor and wit. She was just a glorious gal. 　　 　　NARRATOR: When Hearst finally realized he was never going to be President, there was this consolation--he was now free to live as he chose. Hearst meant to move to California, to the ranch hed known as a boy. Without giving up his wife, his children, or any piece of his business empire. He was going to add a new life of impossible scale. He would turn San Simeon into a palace. He would take on the movie business--not to dabble, but to become a movie giant, a mogul--and he would live openly with a showgirl thirty-five years his junior, but she wasnt going to stay a showgirl. 　　 　　NANCY LOE: The first film that he produced for Marion Davies was his favorite historical romantic epic, and in order to premiere the film, he goes to the theater and completely remodels the theater and even surrounds the entire movie screen with hundreds of thousands of pink roses and fans that are strategically place to waft the scent of roses across the audience. 　　 　　NARRATOR: For another Davies epic, When Knighthood Was in Flower, Hearst spent fifteen times the normal budget, an amount he then publicized in his papers. 　　 　　NANCY LOE: Its well known how much he used his papers to feature her. This overwhelming diet of Marion Davies every day in Hearst papers really almost became kind of a joke. Literally, he was shoving her down the publics throat. 　　 　　PETER BOGDANOVICH: The trouble was that Hearst liked her to be kind of genteel and use her in kind--liked to see her in costume pictures, and that wasnt what she was like. She was actually quite mischievous and had a great sense of humor, and really is charming. Its just the stuff that Hearst didnt like to see her do. 　　 　　NANCY LOE: She was beautiful, but she had the ability to be comic, and I think that, without Hearst fettering her, she could have gone on and had a great comedic career, and that just didnt happen. 　　 　　NARRATOR: In Hollywood, they said shed be nothing without Hearst. Marion was the sort whod say so herself. She never complained about his twelve-page telegrams dictating every scene in her films, as she never complained publicly when Hearsts wife would appear in California, and Marion had to move out of the ranch. She had her own way of making her points to Hearst, or Pops, as she called him. She knew he had his private detectives reporting on her when she had affairs with Charlie Chaplin, Leslie Howard, Dick Powell. Well, Marion would say, that should give him something to think about. She liked champagne, liked a crowd. He made San Simeon into a palace, but it was she who turned it into the gathering place for Hollywood. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ, Son of Herman Mankiewicz: They went there for parties, he and my mother. And my mother used to say it was just an amazing event. I mean, youd get there, youd be shown to your room. You would have two servants. And Saturday night, you had to come to dinner, because it was a costume party. And when you got there, they would have your costume ready. And you, Mrs. Mankiewicz, will be Pierrot, and you, Mr. Mankiewicz are going to be a knight, and heres your armor. 　　 　　NANCY LOE: There are a lot of accounts of people being driven up there and saying, Were on Mr. Hearsts ranch now, and they couldnt see anything. And they drove for miles and miles and miles. Its about half the size of Rhode Island, is what he owned. He had the largest private zoo in the world. Most of the comparisons--at least that his guests made--were to a feudal lord, really presiding over his own kingdom. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Hearst would slip away from his guests to his study, where hed spread out fourteen Hearst papers on the floor. The old man was still about acquisition--more of everything, Marion and movies, newsreels, magazines, more homes, more artwork--and he was still riding his editors--more readers. When Fatty Arbuckle was falsely accused of rape, Hearst invented a new sensation: private lives of the stars. He rode the story for months until Arbuckle was acquitted. When his Hollywood guests asked Hearst how he could do that--Fatty was ruined--Hearst said it was simply business. More and more, he was squeezing his papers for cash. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: Hearsts attitude towards his money was the attitude of a nineteenth-century self-made man. This was his money. He had earned it. He had earned it, and therefore he was going to spend it. 　　 　　NARRATOR: George Bernard Shaw said that San Simeon was the place God would have built if Hed had the money. Twenty years after hed made it his home, Hearst was still building. Anything he saw that he liked, he had ripped out, crated and shipped to his ranch. A row of cypress trees he drove by in California--Hearst took them all. A twelfthth-century monastery in Spain--Hearst had it disassembled and built his own road and a railroad to carry the stones to port. And San Simeon was just one of eight homes. Hearst sent a wire to his editor in London: Buy Saint Donats Castle. There was no mention of price. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: Hearst, in all his life, if he saw something that he liked, he would say, Buy it, and if there was no place to put it, he would have it stored in warehouses. He had warehouses in--all over the country. He had warehouses in the Bronx, warehouses in San Simeon, warehouses in San Francisco, filled. 　　 　　NARRATOR: At his peak, Hearst was said to account for twenty-five percent of the worlds art market, until the stock market crashed and people told him to slow down. Of course, he wouldnt. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: He just kept spending and spending and spending and spending, and expecting that his newspapers would supply the money, and for a long time, he never had to worry about it. His newspapers and his magazines and his other enterprises were hurt by the Depression. He cant pay for it anymore. 　　 　　NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Sale director Dr. Armand Hammer, left, and merchant Frederick Gimbel, look at the twenty-five thousand dollar Cellini cup. And heres the original itself, as the fifty-million-dollar Hearst art collection goes on sale, the fruits of fifty years of search for art treasures. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: They sell of some of his antiques. More important, they sell some of his newspapers, which he doesnt want to part with. 　　 　　JOHN TEBBEL: Hearst, for the first time, began to see the tremendous empire hed built up begin to crumble and melt away. It was as though he were on an island and the waves were lapping up on the shore and taking away a bit of shore every time they rolled. 　　 　　NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Rare tapestries, too, and ladies, a china-and-gold service, only twenty-five thousand dollars. Did you say charge it? Ah, to dream of the grandeur of centuries gone by. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: Oh, this is an enormous setback. The man is seventy-five years old. Theres a bit of embarrassment, theres a bit of humiliation, and he has to watch his pennies. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Hearst, the old defender of the working man, was now railing about taxes and unions and all the encroachments on his enterprise that were called the New Deal. At his papers, reporters who joined the Guild were fired. Lavatory doors were ripped out so that Hearst employees would get back to their desks. Cut off in his castle, Hearst became a Depression-era symbol of all that was hateful about the rich. As F.D.R. signed into law a new tax on incomes over half a million, he said, through his trademark grin, This ones for Hearst. Of course, that only drove the lord of San Simeon closer to bankruptcy. 　　 　　WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST: My friends, this whole system of income taxation has degenerated into a racket. The sooner this impudent, intrusive, despotic, discriminatory and perhaps revolutionary system of taxation is repealed, the better it will be for the honesty, the industry, the wealth and the welfare of the whole American people. 　　 　　NARRATOR: There was nothing to hold Marion Davies at San Simeon anymore. She wasnt married, and was now, in her own right, wealthy enough to get along with ease. As creditors closed in, she sold jewelry and real estate, and gathered a million dollars in cash. Then she turned it all over to Hearst. I started out a gold-digger, she said, but I fell in love with him. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: [Citizen Kane] Youre awful funny, arent you? Well, I can tell you one thing youre not going to keep on being funny about, and thats my singin. Im through! I never wanted to do it in the first place! 　　 　　NARRATOR: There had always been unfair whispers about Marion--that she was a floozie without much talent--but it was Citizen Kane that would brand her forever. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE; [Citizen Kane] What about me? Im the one thats got to do the singin. Im the one that gets the raspberries! Oh, why dont you leave me alone? 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: My reasons satisfy me, Susan. You seem unable to understand them. 　　 　　[1982 interview] Well, I thought we were very unfair to Marion Davies, because we had somebody very different in the place of Marion Davies, and it seemed to me to be something of a dirty trick, and does still strike me as being something of a dirty trick, what we did to her. And I anticipated the trouble from Hearst for that reason. 　　 　　RICHARD FRANCE: Welles was always interested in bigger and better things, and, having conquered radio and having conquered theater, the next logical step in his evolution was Hollywood, where he could be--where he arrived as the biggest thing in town. He arrived at the height of his--of his importance. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: Complete cript control, director control, producer control, cast control--everything, you know--and no questions asked. And this was unheard of. 　　 　　PETER BOGDANOVICH: The contract was one that people in Hollywood, you know, would kill to have, and they gave it to a twenty-five-year-old radio actor, theater producer, as far as they were concerned, and who came to Hollywood with a beard and looking like--he was smoking a pipe and, you know, they hated him. They just hated him the minute he got here. He said to me he wore the beard cause hed been doing some kind of performance or something, or hadnt had time to shave, and then he saw it irritated people, he decided to keep it. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [1982] I never said I was a genius. Nobody ever called me a genius seriously, certainly not in those days, but Louella Parsons called me the would-be genius. And she called me that--she was a Hearst columnist. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: They were always saying, Well, whats the boy genius going to do? Oh, why we understand that hes--you know, hes over--hes not going to get the budget he wants, or Hes doesnt know what hes doing--all kinds of gossipy--little pieces of gossip about the fact that we were a bunch of amateurs from New York, and here we were, marching around there, you know, as though we owned the place. 　　 　　NARRATOR: As his clippings piled up, so did the pressure. Welles contract demanded two films, but Welles demanded that they be revolutionary. He announced he would bring to the screen Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, but with the camera in the place of the central character--very highbrow. 　　 　　NORMAN LLOYD: Orson and Houseman wanted me to come out and be in this picture, The Heart of Darkness for five hundred dollars a week, and it would be six weeks. Well, there was this first reading. We werent called back to read anymore. We stayed there six weeks, we were paid regularly, I played a lot of tennis, and finally, after six weeks, RKO said to Orson they didnt want to make the picture. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Halfway through his contract, Welles announced his second project, Smiler With a Knife, a British thriller, but this time the news was greeted with less fanfare and more doubt. Theyre laying bets over on the RKO lot, The Hollywood Reporter insisted, that the Welles deal will end without Orson ever doing a picture. Faced with failure, Welles reacted with a characteristic round of parties. 　　 　　SAM LEVE: He was always posing. One time I remember he left a hundred-dollar bill for a Coca-Cola. They brought a Coca-Cola to him and left a hundred-dollar bill for the waiter. I was there! Im not telling you any stories! And I tell you, I was almost a point of tears. How could a person be so vainglorious? 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: They rented a house in Hollywood for him, and by this time he was seeing Delores Del Rio. He--he did a lot of drinking, he did a lot of chasing around, but he also did a lot of work, particularly at night. He worked on the cripts, he worked on sketches. 　　 　　NARRATOR: But his time was running out. When RKO refused to pay his idle actors anymore, Welles, Houseman and their staff held a crisis meeting at Chasens Restaurant. Welles lashed out at everyone--it was all their fault. When Houseman protested, Welles picked up a flaming can of Sterno and threw it at his face. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: In Chasens Restaurant, second floor--I was there--he threw it at Jack. I think it hit a curtain and started a little bit of a fire. Somebodys holding Orson, somebodys holding Jack, and it was a mêlée. 　　 　　NARRATOR: It was hard to be friends with Welles in times of pressure. One of the few who managed was an old screenwriter, named Herman Mankiewicz, a gambler and a drinker who had as much contempt for the industry as Welles did. The difference was, Mank knew Hollywood from the inside. Hed even been a guest at San Simeon. Marion liked Mank because he was funny, and they drank together. But however drunk he got, Mankiewicz never forgot what he saw. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ: You know, my father was basically, I think, a reporter. I think that was how he looked at life, sort of how would this--how would this look in the retelling, either in some wonderful semi-sober anecdote or on the screen. I think he was probably writing a book or a movie about Hearst for maybe twenty years, in his head. 　　 　　NARRATOR: When Mankiewicz proposed the story of Hearst, Welles seized on this as his last best chance. It was perfect--an American saga, a giant who brings ruin to all and to himself. Houseman was dispatched to babysit Mank in a little desert town called Victorville. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: You know, Mankiewicz was a drunk, and the trick was to keep him off the booze while he wrote this thing. And Houseman and myself were sort of the go-betweens. We would drive up to Victorville, get part of the cript and bring it back to Orsons and back and forth. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Mank called his cript American, which was the title Hearst always claimed for himself, but as Houseman remembered, We were also creating a vehicle suited to a man who, at twenty-four, was only slightly less fabulous than the hero he would be portraying. And the deeper we penetrated into the heart of Charles Foster Kane, the closer we seemed to come to the identity of Orson Welles. As Welles got the pages from Victorville, he attacked the cript with all of his craft and with all of his life to that point. The boys loss of his mother--that never happened to Hearst, it happened to Welles. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: He visualized himself as that character, see? Once he could see himself playing that character--I mean, that was it, you know. I--I think they thought that they--that they could get away with it. I dont think they really realized how touchy the old man was and that this was Hollywood and you--and it would be hell to pay. 　　 　　NARRATOR: They knew enough to run it by the lawyers. From that point of view, they werent at risk. Anyway, if Hearst sued, that would be great. The film would be news everywhere. Theyd write in some lines about Marions drinking and those horrid puzzles. No one in Hollywood could miss the joke. Theyd even put in rosebud, the secret word which, they claimed, was Hearsts pet name for Marions private parts. Theyd drive the old man crazy, turn the town on its ear. 　　 　　ROBERT WISE, Editor, Citizen Kane: Got called in on Monday morning by Jim Wilkerson, the head of the editing department, my boss, saying, Listen, you know this fellow Orson Welles has come to the studio. I said, Yeah, I know. Ive seen him. He says, Well, hes pulled a fast one on the studio, and I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, hes got this new picture, and he asked them an okay to make three, what he called tests for this picture, and they gave him the okay and he shot the tests, so-called tests, and they said theyve looked at the scenes and realized theyre scenes from the picture, theyre not just tests, so theyve given him the green light to go ahead and make the picture. 　　 　　RUTH WARRICK, Actress: I never saw anybody more focused. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he and Gregg Toland were on a completely single wavelength. Ill never forget the day I came in and they have sawed a hole out of a board floor, which you could do, and they were both on their hands and knees, throwing out the dirt like children in a sandbox. 　　 　　ROBERT WISE: He was totally absorbed in himself and the picture, in what he was doing, but you couldnt look at those rushes coming in every day without realizing that we were getting something quite extraordinary--the photography and the angles and the shooting. It was marvelous. It was just marvelous. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: Here he was at RKO with his carte blanche deal, and he would not let the executives of that studio come anywhere near the set. They came in, and Orson said, Whos got a baseball? Lets play some catch, so everybody started playing catch. But, of course, it drove the brass absolutely loony. 　　 　　NARRATOR: With his soundstage closed, with control over everything on his set, Welles thought at last he had his project in hand. Nothing stopped him. After one fall down a flight of steps, he acted in steel ankle braces and directed from a wheelchair. He still said he hated Hollywood, but at the studio hed found the biggest magic kit on earth. But Welles had one problem he couldnt control. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ: Nobody would give you an argument if you said my father was a self-destructive man. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Maybe Mankiewicz just got careless, or maybe he was showing off, but he gave a copy of the cript to one of his old San Simeon pals, Charlie Lederer. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ: Lederer was a friend of fathers, but he was, in addition--which my father knew very well--he was Marion Davies nephew, and my father gave him a copy of the cript. Now, you want to talk self-destructive, I suppose thats--thats a pretty good example. Lederer says he never showed the cript to Hearst, but when it came back to my father, it was annotated, clearly by the Hearst lawyers, and I think thats probably how the old man learned that Citizen Kane was about him. 　　 　　NARRATOR: If Welles knew of trouble ahead, he showed no sign. As he worked, he was fusing the character, Charles Foster Kane, completely with himself. His own brilliance, his greed, arrogance, ambition he poured into Kane, and the cript made it easy. Mankiewicz, Houseman, they knew their man. Theyd seen him take over a room just by force of his charm. Theyd seen him cut people off without a second thought. Theyd seen him that night at Chasens when he went on a tear. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: One of his greatest acting performances, he didnt say a bloody word, and that was when, in Citizen Kane, he tore up the bedroom, you know, after his wife left. The master shot was unbelievable, and as he staggered off the set after doing this thing, you know, and he walked by me, I heard him say, so help me, God, I really felt it. By God, I really felt that scene. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: Hearst was a man who loved life. He had had some rough moments when he went bankrupt, but he loved a good time. The portrait of Hearst as this stolid, stooped, bitter old man is totally wrong. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Hearst had been a visionary publisher. He wrote for the poor and the immigrants--the people whose lips moved when they read--and he was right, they changed the world, but Hearst couldnt change. His papers were still instruments of his will. He used them for influence, publicity or cash. By 1940, Hearst papers had lost readers and reputation. They were low-paying, lowbrow, and often just low. 　　 　　VERN WHALEY: And I was reading copy on the old Herald Examiner. One night I had a crime story that was going to be featured in the ninety-six-point headline on page one. And in those days, we had a big book--it looked like a bible--and you could go through and check addresses. And when I found the address that was in the story, that address was a vacant lot. So I hollered over to the re-write desk. I had John Guyan, I said, You got the wrong address in this story. This is a vacant lot. The copy chief that night was a guy named Vic Barnes, and he says, Sit down, Vern, he says, The whole storys a fake. 　　 　　JIMMY BRESLIN: Instead of making it with his energy and the joy that he put into it, they were trying to make it with the gossip, with the divorce stories, and they just were not making it. You know, they lost in Chicago, they lost in Houston, they lost in--well, Detroit. They lost everywhere. 　　 　　NARRATOR: To hold onto readers, the Hearst papers now pedalled tidbits of movieworld gossip and glamour. For a man whod wanted the White House, it seemed a shabby end, but ironically thats how he held onto power in Hollywood. 　　 　　NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Well, folks, here they come. Hollywood moves to Illinois to help celebrate the homecoming of the First Lady of movieland, Dixons own Louella Parsons. 　　 　　NARRATOR: This was the executor of Hearsts Hollywood power. Louella Parsons was more than a reporter. She was a pillar of the industry, bringer of Tinseltowns news to millions through her radio show and her gossip column in every Hearst paper. 　　 　　DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, Jr.: Louella was a devoted slave of Mr. Hearst. She was very nice, you know, if you were on her side. And she could be very nice and could be charming, but, oh, boy, look out, 　　 　　NARRATOR: Louella was feared by everyone in Hollywood, but her number-one enemy was her younger and smarter rival, Hedda Hopper. It was Hedda who saw a tiny notice in The Hollywood Reporter--a screening of the unfinished Citizen Kane, January 3, 1941. When the film ended, Hedda rushed the news directly to San Simeon, and that sent Louella Parsons into a frenzy. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: Louella called and demanded that she see the film that afternoon, and when the lights came up, she was purple, and her wattles were wobbling like a turkey gobbler. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: She stormed out and said, you know, Youre going to hear from Hearst and their lawyers, and this and that and the other thing. She was--she was frantic--very, very distressed--and then took off. Within days, the word was out that Hearst was absolutely furious about this film, and wanted it destroyed, period. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Hearst maintained the public stance that he never saw the film, but he knew what was in it. Charlie Lederer said it was the portrayal of Marion as pitiful drunk--that Hearst would not abide. Whatever the reason, Louella Parsons took three weeks off from reporting her column, weeks she devoted to killing Citizen Kane. She called the office of RKO chief George Schaefer, and threatened one of the most beautiful lawsuits in history. Another RKO man quoted her thus: Mr. Hearst told me to tell you if you boys want private lives, hell give you private lives. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ: Hearst threatened the industry in every way he could think of. He recalled scandals, drunkenness, miscegenation, crimes of various kinds that he had, at the request of the studios, suppressed in his newspapers and which remained, I assume, in type somewhere. He reminded them that the--that the country that read his newspapers might not look kindly on the high percentage of Jews in the industry. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Hearst warned, through The Hollywood Reporter, that their papers would crusade against all the major studios for giving employment to refugees and immigrants instead of handing those jobs to Americans. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ: I think what he was saying was, You Hollywood people who crave respectability do not want the country to think about and talk about and dwell upon the fact that youre all Jews, and that many of your key executives and directors and writers are now refugees from Germany. And he was right, they didnt want that, so they pulled the movie. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Louis B. Mayer assembled his fellow studio chiefs and, in their name, he offered eight hundred thousand dollars to buy the negative for the express purpose of burning it. RKO begged for a meeting with Hearst, and nervously postponed the premiere. Meanwhile, the real owners of the studio--the money men who held the stock--gathered in New York. 　　 　　ROBERT WISE: I got a call from my boss one Monday morning, saying, Listen, theres a great urgency that you go to New York with this print of Kane because they need it back in New York very, very urgently. You must get on a plane and go. And I was told I was to take the print of the picture to the Music Hall, where they had a projection theater there. Now, these were the chairman of the boards, the head men of all the major studios, and their lawyers. The purpose of it was to see, after looking at the picture, whether the companies would say to RKO, In the interest of our film industry, put this film on the shelf, dont release it. That was the first time I realized the film was really in danger. 　　 　　Orson was there. Orson knew what was up; it wasnt that he was there just by accident. He knew that this was a very crucial point in the films history, and he spoke to them for a few minutes before we started, and I always have to laugh to myself to think that I was the only person in Hollywood that saw Orson give one of his greatest performances. 　　 　　NARRATOR: With a stirring oration about the tyranny loose in the world and value of free speech in the U.S., Welles won out in the New York meeting. The last thing these men of business needed was a public fight over the Bill of Rights. Citizen Kane would be released and now it was a real Orson Welles project. The film was a cause célèbre. 　　 　　WILLIAM HERZ: None of us were really concerned. We really didnt know what was in store. I went to--we went to a screening at Radio City in one of those private rooms. There were more celebrities than Ive ever seen in my life. We all felt it was the greatest picture wed ever seen. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Welles meant to ride this wave like every other--straight onto the front page. As RKO still delayed the release, Welles threatened his own lawsuit. He announced that his money men would go L.B. Mayer one better. Theyd buy Kane for a million dollars and show it themselves. Kanes delay gave him time for a new play on Broadway and a radio series. His ratings were soaring. And meanwhile, he planned another picture, no less than the life of Christ, Welles in the title role. When the theater chains started turning down Kane, Welles fired off a message to RKO: Show it in tents. Itll make millions--the film your theater wont let you see. 　　 　　PETER BOGDANOVICH: That was Orson. You know, that was a good example of Orsons personality. He liked to be challenged with--with, you know, impossible odds. He pushed it a bit far on that one, and he got burned quite a lot. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Within a month, the Hearst campaign had shifted. Now the target wasnt just the film. Hearsts American Weekly started researching an expos--on Welles private life--would he be available to talk about Delores Del Rio? Wasnt she married when he took up with her? A whisper campaign questioned Welles willingness to serve his country. Reporters started showing up at his draft board. 　　 　　JIMMY BRESLIN: Theres no secret to how you attack somebody. You call him a dirty son of a bitch, and if you cant use the word son of a bitch, you put it in something else in the paper. And you--you--you dont have any sidelines. I mean, you run out of bounds at all times. You always suggest sodomy, always. Thats important. And the Communism business, which was lousy, a cheap, rotten way to hurt somebody, and it would stick in America--you know, by pointing a finger and call him a Communist. That could stick. 　　 　　NARRATOR: When Welles opened his Broadway play, Native Son, the review in Hearsts Journal American called it propaganda that seems nearer to Moscow than to Harlem. That week, the FBI opened a file on Welles. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [on radio] This story happened in a small town near the Mexican border. Well call it Benton, because I never heard of any town by that name. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Two weeks later, when Welles joined a celebrated group of writers for a series of radio dramas, the Hearst press called Welles play Communistic. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [on radio] Right here, I want to say that this broadcast isnt intended to be uplifting or inspirational. It hasnt any moral at the end of it or any message. 　　 　　NARRATOR: These Hearst clippings formed the core of the FBI file that would be labeled, Welles, Orson, native-born, Communist, and the FBI file would stay open for years. 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: The FBI gave me a questionnaire and asked questions of me. Weeks later, they called me back and said, Now, look, you held out on us. What do you mean, held out on you? Well, we know that you and Orson had a house in Hollywood, and you lived together there. Are you both homosexuals? So I said, Absolutely not. Why did you rent it for Orson? Well, because he had a lady that he used to take there. Who was the lady? I said, Well, Id rather not say. Well, you better tell us. I said, Its Delores Del Rio. They also asked me some questions about, Is he a Communist? You know, they asked me that. It told me that they were very much suspicious of Orson on every level. 　　 　　NARRATOR: The FBI would conclude that Welles was a threat to the nations internal security. That alone might have ended Welles career in years to come when the Communist blacklist was the terror of Hollywood, but Hearsts blacklist worked quicker. The industry was closing ranks against Welles. Maybe it was a tribute from Hollywood to Hearst, or perhaps it was just fear of his papers. 　　 　　FRANK MANKIEWICZ: And then they turned on the pressure. They--they told them, If you run this movie in your theaters, we will not take your advertising for any other movies, the Hearst papers. Well, thats--thats a death knell. You dont--you just dont--you dont mess with that. 　　 　　PETER BOGDANOVICH: They couldnt get theaters. Some of them would book it and then not play it. 　　 　　DOROTHY COMINGORE: And RKO finally--they owned the Palace Theater, but they turned it into a movie house in order to be able to show it in New York. 　　 　　VERN WHALEY: No Hearst newspaper ever published a review. No Hearst newspaper ever published an ad. The orders came from San Simeon that there was to be no advertising accepted for that movie. 　　 　　MASTER OF CEREMONIES, New York Film Critics Awards: On behalf of all our film critics, were very happy to present you these awards for Orson Welles production of Citizen Kane as the best picture of 1941-- 　　 　　WILLIAM ALLAND: When the film came out, as you know, it won every award in New York, it did everything, and immediately there was a blackout. They really wanted to destroy it and destroy him. 　　 　　NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Hollywood honors its own at the Motion Picture Academy Award dinner. There are glamorous Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Orson Welles had one last shot at vindication, the Academy Awards for 1941. 　　 　　NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Now the presentations theyre all waiting for. Ginger Rogers makes the presentation for Best Actress of 1941--the winner, Joan Fontaine. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Citizen Kane had nine nominations and Welles personally was nominated for four: best picture, best director, best actor, and, with Mankiewicz, best screenplay. 　　 　　ROBERT WISE: I went to the Academy Awards in 41, because I was one of the nine nominations that the picture got. And Ill never forget that evening, because the first time that Kane was mentioned as one of the nominees for whatever it was--I cant remember what category now--there were a certain number of very noticeable boos from the audience. And then other people shushed them down, and we went on for another category or two. And the second time that Kane came up, it was announced as--whoever nominated from Citizen Kane, more boos. 　　 　　NARRATOR: The voters of the Academy would grant Citizen Kane only one award, for the screenplay. That vote was really for Mank. Orson Welles lost for best picture, best actor, and best director. Kane lost for cinematography, editing, lighting, music, sound, art direction, after which RKO retired the film to its vault. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [on stage] Your kind indulgence. We trust you like to be fooled. We hope we fool you. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Orson Welles greatest magic act had always been his own career. That was his longest piece of stagecraft and the most melodramatic. He may never have learned tricks from Houdini, but he knew what the great illusionist knew. You dont get the gasp from the audience without putting yourself in ever greater danger. It was five years until his luck ran out. 　　 　　RICHARD FRANCE: Orson Welles period of phenomenal success--and, you know, we still, at this point in history, cant truly fathom the extent of that success. He--he was a name known in the same breath as Roosevelt. Thats how successful he was. Thats how prominent he was. Yes, it peaked at the age of twenty-five, and, indeed, he became known a year later as--a year or two later as Americas youngest has-been. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [1982] That year--its official stationery, RKO Pictures, and its slogan for that year printed on every piece of paper that went out from RKO was Showmanship instead of Genius. In other words, the reason you should buy an RKO picture was that you didnt get Orson Welles. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Welles second picture for RKO, The Magnificent Ambersons, was yanked from his control and finished by the studios regular staff. Orson Welles never got control of a major Hollywood production again. 　　 　　NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: The vast empire that he built headlines the passing, at eighty-eight, of William Randolph Hearst. 　　 　　NARRATOR: William Randolph Hearst died in 1951 in Marion Davies home, but his body was whisked away from the house while she slept. She was barred from his funeral--the family insisted for the sake of his reputation. But Hearsts reputation was beyond saving. It would all but disappear over time, to be replaced by the fiction he hated, the movie he thought hed killed, Citizen Kane. 　　 　　DAVID NASAW: Theres a sense in which Welles, the twenty-four-year-old who comes to town and does battle with the seventy-six-year-old Hearst--that Welles, the twenty-four-year-old wins, because its the images that he presents us with that have lasted longer than the achievements of Hearst, the real man. 　　 　　NARRATOR: In fact, there is only one winner in the story of Citizen Kane, and thats the film, which couldnt be killed. 　　 　　PETER BOGDANOVICH: It didnt come back into public consciousness until about the mid-fiftiess. Then it began to appear on international lists of the greatest films ever made. I think that started in the early sixties. Its not like any movie made at that time. It was very much ahead of its time. In fact, you could say it was, you know, forty years ahead of its time. 　　 　　NARRATOR: Kane was also forty years ahead of its time in its portrayal, not of Hearst, but of the man who made it. It was Welles who lived out his life in isolation. 　　 　　ROBERT WISE: Well, I thought often afterwards--only in recent years when I saw the film again two or three years ago when they had the fiftieth anniversary, and I suddenly thought to myself, well, Orson was doing an autobiographical film and didnt realize it, because its rather much the same, you know. You start here, and you have a big rise and tremendous prominence and fame and success and whatnot, and then tail off and tail off and tail off. And at least the arc of the two lives were very much the same. 　　 　　NARRATOR: In latter years, Welles was a vagabond, trying to patch together his low-budget films. He begged or borrowed from everyone he knew, including two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from an old pal, Charlie Lederer, Marion Davies nephew. The money came from her estate. Welles never paid it back. Hed do bit parts for money--ads for airlines or Paul Masson wine--between fits of temper at the journeymen filmmakers or junior execs who were now directing him. Sometimes he was so overweight he had to be ferried about in a wheelchair. He hated the fat man jokes. He hated it worse when people asked him what had he done with himself after Kane. 　　 　　PETER BOGDANOVICH: Orson used to tell the story that Billy Rose, the entrepreneur, saw Citizen Kane, and then, when he saw Orson afterwards, said, Quit, kid. Youll never top it. Quit while youre ahead. And Orson said, You know, maybe he was right. 　　 　　ORSON WELLES: [1982] I think I made essential a mistake in staying in movies, because I--but its a mistake I cant regret, because its like saying I shouldnt have stayed married to that woman, but I did because I love her. I would have been more successful if Id left movies immediately, stayed in the theater, gone into politics, written, anything. I have--I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox, which is a movie. And Ive spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. Its about two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent hustling. Its no way to spend a life. 　　 　　 　　 　　 　　CREDITS 　　Produced by THOMAS LENNON, MICHAEL EPSTEIN 　　 　　Written by RICHARD BEN CRAMER & THOMAS LENNON 　　 　　Edited by KEN ELUTO 　　 　　Narrated by RICHARD BEN CRAMER 　　 　　Associate Producer JULIE SACKS 　　 　　Researcher HELEN WEISS 　　 　　Directors of Photography GREG ANDRACKE 　　 　　MICHAEL CHIN 　　 　　Original Music Composed & Orchestrated 　　 　　by BRIAN KEANE 　　 　　Additional Music by MAURICE WRIGHT 　　 　　Music Consultant/Rights Coordinator 　　 　　RENA C. KOSERSKY 　　 　　Sound JUAN RODRIGUEZ, FELIPE BORRERO 　　 　　Sound Editor KEN ELUTO 　　 　　Production Coordinator JANET SIMONELLI 　　 　　Additional Research KATHRYN POPE 　　 　　Historical Advisers JAMES NAREMORE 　　 　　ANDREA NOURYEH, JOYCE MILTON 　　 　　Gaffer DUNCAN FORBES 　　 　　Assistant Camera OTIS W. BESS, Jr. 　　 　　On-Line Editor CALEB OGLESBY 　　 　　Mixer MICHAEL RUSCHAK 　　 　　Animation ALEX RADNOTI 　　 　　 　　Musicians: 　　Flutes, Woodwinds LAWRENCE FELDMAN 　　Cello DAN BARRETT 　　Bassoon DAVID CARROLL 　　Violins ROBERT TENCA, SUSAN TENCA 　　Oboe, English Horn SHELLEY WOODWORTH 　　Drums ARTI DIXON 　　All other instruments BRIAN KEANE 　　 　　Assistant Music Engineer JEFF FREZ-ALBRECHT 　　 　　Location Scouts ABRA GRUPP, FLORA MOON 　　 　　CHRISTOPHER SPECK 　　 　　Production Assistants: 　　JIM COLLIER 　　CAROL CONNOLLY, RAYMOND HAYDEN 　　JEFF LOWENTHAL 　　 　　Special Thanks to: 　　Leonard Finger 　　Richard Gerdau 　　Nancy Loe 　　Don Ray 　　Black Bass, New York 　　Minetta Lane Theater, New York 　　Reminiscent Bar/Grill, Chicago 　　SPERDVAC 　　 　　 　　Photographs: 　　Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 　　AP/Wide World Photos 　　Archive Photos 　　The Bancroft Library 　　The Bettmann Archive 　　The Billy Rose Theatre Collection, 　　New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 　　Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations 　　Brown Brothers 　　California Historical Society 　　Columbia University 　　Culver Pictures, Inc. 　　Department of Special Collections, 　　University Research Library, UCLA 　　Fred Lawrence Guiles Film Archives, 　　from the Davies-Lederer Collection 　　The Hagley Museum and Library 　　Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, 　　University of Southern California Library 　　Los Angeles Public Library 　　Hopewell Museum 　　The Huntington Library 　　Library of Congress 　　Lilly Library, Indiana University, 　　Bloomington, Indiana 　　Library of Moving Images, Inc/Michael Peter Yakaitis 　　Marc Wanamaker-Bison Archives 　　Motion Picture & Television Photo Archive 　　Museum of the City of New York 　　National Archives 　　Photofest 　　Robert Board 　　San Francisco History Room, 　　San Francisco Public Library 　　Seaver Center For Western History Research, 　　National History Museum of Los Angeles County 　　Special Collections, 　　California Polytechnic State University 　　Special Collections, 　　University of Southern California Library 　　USC Cinema-Television Library and 　　Archives of Performing Arts 　　 　　 　　Film Footage and Audio Archives: 　　A.R.I.Q. Footage Archive Films 　　BBC Worldwide Americas 　　Cinemateca Brasileira 　　Classic images 　　Creative Arts Television Archive 　　Film/Audio Services, Inc. 　　Grinberg Film Libraries Inc. 　　Hearst Castle Video Archives 　　Library of Congress 　　Charles Michelson, Inc. 　　National Archives 　　Producers Library Service 　　Radio Yesteryear 　　Library of Moving Images, Inc./Michael Peter Yakaitis 　　University of South Carolina Newsfilm Library 　　UCLA Film and Television Archive 　　 　　 　　 　　Audio segment of original 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast -- 　　Howard Koch -- under exclusive license from Metacom, Inc. 　　 　　Materials from Citizen Kane, Blondie of the Follies, 　　The Patsy, and MGM Presents Another Romance of Celluloid 　　provided by Turner Entertainment Co. 　　 　　 　　Special Thanks to Turner Entertainment Co. 　　for cooperating in this production, and for 　　making available from its library film clips 　　and other materials from Citizen Kane. 　　 　　 　　 　　For THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: 　　 　　Post-production Supervisor FRANK CAPRIA 　　Post-production Assistants MAUREEN BARDEN 　　REBECCA BARNES 　　Field Production LARRY LeCAIN 　　DENNIS McCARTHY, CHAS NORTON 　　Series Designers ALISON KENNEDY, CHRIS PULLMAN 　　Title Animation SALVATORE RACITI, Wave, Inc. 　　On-Line Editors DAN WATSON, MARY E. FENTON 　　DOUG MARTIN, STEVE BARACSI 　　Series Theme CHARLES KUSKIN 　　Series Theme Adaptation MICHAEL BACON 　　Unit Manager MARI LOU GRANGER 　　Project Administration NANCY FARRELL 　　HELEN R. RUSSELL, ANN SCOTT 　　Publicity DAPHNE NOYES, JOHANNA BAKER 　　Coordinating Producer SUSAN MOTTAU 　　Series Editor JOSEPH TOVARES 　　Senior Producer MARGARET DRAIN 　　Executive Producer JUDY CRICHTON 　　 　　A Lennon Documentary Group film for 　　THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE 　　 　　THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE 　　is a production of WGBH/Boston. 　　 　　Major funding for this series is provided by the 　　Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 　　 　　Additional funding provided by 　　the Corporation for Public Broadcasting 　　and public television viewers. 　　 　　Corporate funding is provided by 　　Scotts/Miracle-Gro. 　　 　　©1997 　　WGBH Educational Foundation 　　All rights reserved

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