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Quiz about Orson Welles Before the Movies
Quiz about Orson Welles Before the Movies

Orson Welles: Before the Movies Quiz


Even though he made his first film at the age of just 25, Orson Welles had already made quite a name for himself before the movies.

A multiple-choice quiz by Snowman. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
Snowman
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
321,156
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
573
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: Guest 136 (9/10), Smudge111 (8/10), bernie73 (8/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. What was Orson Welles' first given name? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Welles was "discovered" as an 18 month old by family physician, Dr. Bernstein. What was it that Welles supposedly said that convinced Bernstein he was a genius? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. After the death of his father, Dr. Bernstein became Orson's guardian. When Welles left school, he was sent to Europe on a walking and painting tour. The impatient Welles took his chance to begin his professional acting career. In which city's Gate Theatre did he make his debut, as a leading man, aged just 16? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. After Welles returned from his triumphs in Europe, he assumed he would find acting work in New York in a flash, but no-one showed any interest in him. He was persuaded by an old schoolteacher to try his hand as a playwright instead. His first play, which was never performed, was "Marching Song", based on the life of which US abolitionist and folk hero whose actions are seen by many as precipitating the US Civil War? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Having given up on any thoughts of a career as an actor, Welles began to refer to himself in social circles as a writer. This changed abruptly when he was spotted at a party by a Pulitzer Prize winning author and playwright who, recognising him from his European stage appearances, offered to find him work. Who was this writer, famous for such plays as "Our Town" and "The Skin of Our Teeth" and the novel, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. In 1936, Welles directed a play that he was to describe later as "By all odds, my great success in my life". An adaptation of a William Shakespeare play, translocated from the original Scottish setting to a Caribbean island and starring an all-black cast, what was the nickname given to this play? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. On the back of his acting and directorial successes, Welles set up his own theatre company in concert with producer John Houseman. The company employed a troupe of actors who were to work with Welles throughout his early Hollywood career. What was the name of the company he founded, that would also be given to his radio and movie productions? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. In order to fund his theatre company, Welles took work on the radio. His most successful show was one in which he appeared anonymously. Starring as Lamont Cranston who, under his alter ego, fought crime in New York City using his psychic powers. What was the name of this pulp fiction hero who knew "what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. In October 1938, Welles and his players made a broadcast that brought traffic to a standstill and caused widespread panic amongst its listeners. The adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel was performed in the style of a news bulletin and many listeners believed that what they were hearing was not fiction but was actually happening. What was the novel that had caused so much consternation? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. On the back of the fame gained through his radio successes, Hollywood came calling for Orson Welles. He was offered contracts with numerous studios but chose one that offered him complete artistic freedom to make pictures of his own choosing. Which studio, famous for such pictures as "King Kong" and the Astaire-Rogers musicals, offered this contract? Hint



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quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. What was Orson Welles' first given name?

Answer: George

George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin on May 6th, 1915. Conceived on a holiday in Rio de Janeiro, he was named after two of his parent's travelling companions, George Ade and Orson Wells. Soon after the birth, Welles' father Dick decided that George was an inappropriate name for a boy of his social standing and began calling him Orson.

Richard was the name of both Orson's father and his elder brother. Ives was his mother's maiden name and his brother Richard's middle name.
2. Welles was "discovered" as an 18 month old by family physician, Dr. Bernstein. What was it that Welles supposedly said that convinced Bernstein he was a genius?

Answer: "The desire to take medicine is one of the greatest features that distinguishes men from animals."

Maybe it's just me, but I suspect Dr Bernstein may have exaggerated this story ever so slightly. However, as there was no-one else in the room to bear witness to this event, we have only his word to take for it.

Orson's parents were delighted with the praise that Dr. Bernstein heaped upon their second son, especially given the difficulties they had found with their misbehaving eldest son. However, Bernstein soon developed an obsession with Orson (and quite probably with his mother too) and took to visiting regularly. He saw his mission as one of educating Orson in the arts and encouraging his genius, much to Dick Welles' dismay. Of particular concern to Dick was the nickname that Bernstein encouraged Orson to call him; "Dadda".
3. After the death of his father, Dr. Bernstein became Orson's guardian. When Welles left school, he was sent to Europe on a walking and painting tour. The impatient Welles took his chance to begin his professional acting career. In which city's Gate Theatre did he make his debut, as a leading man, aged just 16?

Answer: Dublin

Orson's mother, Beatrice, died when he was just nine years old. By this time, his parents had separated and Dick Welles, suffering with alcoholism, had taken to travelling around the world. After Beatrice's death, Orson's father returned to take him away on his travels around Europe, Africa and Asia.

Wishing to continue his travels alone, but not wishing for Orson to be released back into "Dadda" Bernstein's grasp, Dick Welles sent Orson to Todd School for Boys, an independent boarding school. Shortly after completing his studies at Todd, where he was taken under the wing of Roger "Skipper" Hill, son of the school's headmaster, news came through that Dick Welles had died. Orson was 15 years old and was given the choice of who should be his guardian. Although Orson wished for it to be Skipper, Hill deferred and so the responsibility went to Dr. Bernstein.

Skipper and Dadda had originally wanted Orson to go to university, but a severe bout of hay fever prompted Bernstein to suggest a tour of Scotland and Ireland. Within two months of arriving in Ireland, Orson had made his way to Dublin. On his second night in the city he visited the Gate Theatre, managed to get backstage after the show and was spotted by theatre director, Hilton Edwards. He announced himself as a visiting actor from New York, was given an impromptu audition and was hired to play the part of Duke Karl Alexander in the play, "Jew Suss".
4. After Welles returned from his triumphs in Europe, he assumed he would find acting work in New York in a flash, but no-one showed any interest in him. He was persuaded by an old schoolteacher to try his hand as a playwright instead. His first play, which was never performed, was "Marching Song", based on the life of which US abolitionist and folk hero whose actions are seen by many as precipitating the US Civil War?

Answer: John Brown

According to the title page of Welles' script, John Brown was a "prophet, warrior, zealot - the most dramatic and incredible figure in American history." Brown's actions in leading an attempted insurrection amongst African American slaves, in what was then Virginia, in 1859, made him a hero to many and a hate figure to many others. His advocacy of armed struggle saw him tried for treason and hanged. The rebellion he attempted is seen by many historians as a crucial step in the path towards civil war in the US, only a few years later.

"Marching Song" was less about Brown's actions and more about the legends that had developed around him. What is particularly interesting about the play is that it uses the device of telling the story through a newspaper reporter, as he attempted to uncover the real truth about the central (absent) character. A similar device would be used by Welles and Herman Mankiewicz in the screenplay for "Citizen Kane" ten years later.
5. Having given up on any thoughts of a career as an actor, Welles began to refer to himself in social circles as a writer. This changed abruptly when he was spotted at a party by a Pulitzer Prize winning author and playwright who, recognising him from his European stage appearances, offered to find him work. Who was this writer, famous for such plays as "Our Town" and "The Skin of Our Teeth" and the novel, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"?

Answer: Thornton Wilder

Welles' inability to persuade casting directors to hire him, despite his good notices from Dublin, led him to concentrate on his writing. He had embarked upon the book series, "Everybody's Shakespeare", with Skipper Hill, the successful series that offered a guide to schools in how to stage Shakespeare's plays.

When Welles was asked "Are you an actor?" by a gentleman at a party in Chicago in 1933, he responded, "No, I'm a writer." The gentleman persisted, "Aren't you from Dublin? Aren't you Orson Welles?" The man introduced himself as Thornton Wilder and asked Welles about his activities in the two years since his Dublin successes. At the end of the evening, Wilder suggested that Welles should return to New York, accompanied by letters of recommendation from himself. He was put in touch with producer Guthrie McClintic who, on reading the letters, immediately cast him as Mercutio in his touring production of "Romeo and Juliet" and Octavius in "The Barretts of Wimpole Street". Welles was an actor one again.
6. In 1936, Welles directed a play that he was to describe later as "By all odds, my great success in my life". An adaptation of a William Shakespeare play, translocated from the original Scottish setting to a Caribbean island and starring an all-black cast, what was the nickname given to this play?

Answer: Voodoo Macbeth

Welles' production of "Macbeth" transported the action to a thinly-disguised Haiti and replaced the three witches with three Voodoo witch doctors. Opening initially in Harlem, New York, the play was hugely successful. The opening night saw ten blocks closed to traffic, as thousands descended upon the theatre. Soon, thousands were flocking to Harlem to see the play that everyone in New York was talking about.

The driving force behind the production was the Federal Theatre Project set up as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal initiative. Welles was drawn to the project because, "I wanted to give the black actors the chance to play Shakespeare without it being funny or even exotic." He didn't give any of the actors any readings and most had never read or seen Shakespeare. As Welles stated, "It's wonderful how well Shakespeare sounds when acted by people who have never heard it spoken before."
7. On the back of his acting and directorial successes, Welles set up his own theatre company in concert with producer John Houseman. The company employed a troupe of actors who were to work with Welles throughout his early Hollywood career. What was the name of the company he founded, that would also be given to his radio and movie productions?

Answer: Mercury Theatre

Houseman had first hired Welles as an actor in 1934 for a play called "Panic". When Houseman was taken on by the Federal Theatre Project as a producer, he immediately hired Welles as a director. Their successes together included the Voodoo "Macbeth" and Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus". However, the working relationship between them had not been easy and Welles had decided to break away in the summer of 1937. Unfortunately, the work suddenly dried up for Welles and by the end of the summer, with his first child on the way, Welles decided to contact Houseman again. Houseman had just been fired from the Federal Theatre Project, so the offer of starting a new theatre company with Welles came at the right time.

The Mercury Theatre gathered together a troupe of actors, many of whom went on to have successful theatre and film careers, such as Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorhead and Vincent Price. The first Mercury production was a lavish staging of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", set in a contemporary Italy under the control of the Fascists. It was both a critical and a popular success.
8. In order to fund his theatre company, Welles took work on the radio. His most successful show was one in which he appeared anonymously. Starring as Lamont Cranston who, under his alter ego, fought crime in New York City using his psychic powers. What was the name of this pulp fiction hero who knew "what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

Answer: The Shadow

Welles took whatever work he could get on the radio to help fund his theatrical ambitions. At his busiest times, when his schedules were very tight, he would travel, by ambulance, across Manhattan, from radio studio to radio studio. This, he claimed, was because he discovered that there was no law that mandated that you had to be ill to be carried in an ambulance.

He begun appearing as "The Shadow" in 1937 and continued for one year before being replaced by Bill Johnstone. At the end of his run in the show, he was given his own show by CBS, "The Mercury Theatre Presents...".
9. In October 1938, Welles and his players made a broadcast that brought traffic to a standstill and caused widespread panic amongst its listeners. The adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel was performed in the style of a news bulletin and many listeners believed that what they were hearing was not fiction but was actually happening. What was the novel that had caused so much consternation?

Answer: The War of the Worlds

"The War of the Worlds" was broadcast as a Halloween special of "The Mercury Theatre Presents...". The programme started with an introduction that clearly stated the fictional content to follow. Had a listener missed this intro, they might have been convinced that they were listening to a light music programme interrupted by newsflashes. The newsflashes, which increased in frequency and agitation as the programme progressed, reported on a flaming object in the sky that came to land in Grover's Mill, New Jersey.

The revelation that the object contained Martians who zapped onlookers with a heat ray would no doubt indicate to a modern audience that they were listening to a radio play. However, the innovative style of Welles' broadcast fooled many listeners in 1938. Though the response of the audience is disputed, police received calls from the public alerting them to the presence of Martians in the city of New York and there were reports of attempted suicides and people taking to the streets in panic.

The story was splashed across the front pages of many newspapers the next day. The reports were frequently critical of the "hoax" that Welles had perpetrated against his audience. However damaging the attacks on Welles may have appeared, the broadcast made his name known around the country and prompted interest from executives in Los Angeles.
10. On the back of the fame gained through his radio successes, Hollywood came calling for Orson Welles. He was offered contracts with numerous studios but chose one that offered him complete artistic freedom to make pictures of his own choosing. Which studio, famous for such pictures as "King Kong" and the Astaire-Rogers musicals, offered this contract?

Answer: RKO Pictures

The contract with RKO was negotiated in New York in 1940, when Welles' star was at its brightest, due to "The War of the Worlds".

Welles had the advantage of indifference during the negotitation process; "This superb contract only happened because I didn't much want to make a movie. I thought the only way I could possibly make one would be without anyone interfering. So I asked for things that nobody had ever had. I was given a limited budget but unlimited control. The studio couldn't even see the rushes."

The arrival of the boy wonder in Hollywood, with the news of his contract arriving ahead of him, caused huge resentment amongst those already established in Tinseltown. Welles' contract allowed him to be the writer, director and producer as well as an actor on his films. Actors attacked him in restaurants but the greatest resentment came from movie producers. As Welles said, "If I could do all those things then what is the need for a producer?"
Source: Author Snowman

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor skunkee before going online.
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