Orson Welles’ Last Interview and Final Moments Captured on Film

in Film | March 30th, 2012 4 Comments

The clip brings you back to the final inter­view and moments of the great film­mak­er Orson Welles. On Octo­ber 10, 1985, Welles appeared on The Merv Grif­fin Show. He had just turned 70 and, rather omi­nous­ly, the con­ver­sa­tion brought Welles to take stock of his life. Again and again, the con­ver­sa­tion returned to aging and the decline of his lovers and friends. Just two hours lat­er, Welles would die of a heart attack at his home in Los Ange­les. And gone was the tal­ent who gave us Cit­i­zen Kane, The Stranger (watch in full), and The Tri­al (dit­to), not to men­tion the famous War of the Worlds radio broad­cast and great nar­ra­tions of works by Pla­to, Kaf­ka and Melville…

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Comments (4)
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  • Hugo says:
    March 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm

    I like his [Les Mis­er­ables] (1937) broad­cast.…..

    Reply
  • Patrick Caddick says:
    April 1, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    A stun­ning­ly cre­ative mind, but a tor­tured soul.…He was a genius who, unique­ly, lived his life back­wards

    Reply
  • Len Hummel says:
    August 3, 2015 at 6:14 am

    Welles tru­ly deserves the acco­lade of “genius” and ‘mav­er­ick.” He lived life on his own terms, but was also very con­flict­ed and hin­dered by his lim­its of rais­ing funds for his projects, … and then com­plet­ing them.
    Along with Cha­p­lan, he was, per­haps, THE MAIN GIANT of 20th Cen­tu­ry Cin­e­ma. I think it is fair to say that his life was remark­able on just about every lev­el you could imag­ine.
    he was dif­fi­cult, bril­liant, and intense­ly pas­sion­ate about his work in the­ater and film.

    Reply
  • Drew says:
    August 10, 2020 at 1:44 pm

    I’m con­fused. If this Merv Grif­fin episode was taped on Octo­ber 10, 1985 and Orson Wells died lat­er that day, why do they keep say­ing it’s his birthday–which was May 6th??

    Reply

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