The Orson Welles Show radio show (1941-1942, United States)
Original title
The Orson Welles Theater
Episode time
30 minutes
Language
English
The Orson Welles Show presented a wide range of material: dramatic adaptations of the classic and contemporary stories, poetry, history, music, comedy, and a segment with commentary on current events titled "Almanac".
Although many actors and personalities took part in the show, the core crew was the same in every of 19 episodes: Conrad Binyon, Hans Conried, Dolores del Rio, Brenda Forbes and Blanche Yurka. In a few episodes, Cliff Edwards recreated the voice of Jiminy Cricket (from the Disney animated adaptation of "Talking Cricket") and bantered with Welles between segments.
The series is mostly remembered for presenting the first adaptation of The Hitch-Hiker, a play by Lucille Fletcher, that later became a classic of the mystery genre and was dramatized in several other radio and TV shows.
Welles concluded the final broadcast of The Orson Welles Show February 2, 1942, with a statement: "Tomorrow night the Mercury Theatre starts for South America. The reason, put more or less officially, is that I’ve been asked by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to do a motion picture especially for Americans in all the Americas, a movie which, in its particular way, might strengthen the good relations now binding the continents of the Western Hemisphere."
He was persuaded by RKO and the government officials to make a movie entitled "It’s All True" about Latin America, which was supposed to improve the relations between the United States and countries from that part of the world. To start filming this movie, Welles cancelled his contract with CBS for The Orson Welles Show and travelled to Brazil. However, when a major shake-up took place in RKO, the new studio president cancelled the whole project, but it was too late to bring back The Orson Welles Show.
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Cast of The Orson Welles Show
Trivia about The Orson Welles Show
Rita Hayworth
On the broadcast of December 29, 1941, Rita Hayworth was the guest performer on The Orson Welles Show. This was the first meeting between Welles and Hayworth, who were married in September 1943.
