Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles

by David Thomson (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $3.25

  Rosebud is a riveting and powerful portrait of the rise and fall of one of Hollywood's greatest innovators - the man who brought us Citizen Kane and then lost himself to obesity, small talk and conjuring tricks on daytime television.
  With humour, pace and the twists of a mystery story, acclaimed film critic and writer David Thomson probes the essential questions surrounding Welles, exploring the ferocious energy and demonic intellect behind the boy genius. Challenging, idiosyncratic, compelling: Rosebud understands Welles as no other study has, and in a way that leaves the reader breathless, amused and deeply moved by the wonder that was once Orson.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1996

  $3.25

  This work charts the life of a man who stilled the world with his performance in Citizen Kane in 1941. It traces the rise and fall of one of Hollywood's greatest innovators - raconteur nonpareil, gifted with invention and awesome talent whose early success bored him and triggered the long decline into excess and self-destruction. This biography probes the essential questions surrounding Welles, realizing the ferocious energy and demonic intellect behind the boy genius. Despite his production of dazzling Broadway theatre and radio drama, and his performance - perhaps the best in his career - as Harry Lime in The Third Man , he lived in a strange twilight world where he felt rejected and hopelessly unfulfilled. The work ends with the final rootless years, when he yielded to obesity and the genius Welles became a tragic figure.