... September 1942
Orson Welles had been back in America less than two months, but he was already haunting the radio studios of New York, doing this or that, being generally available. NBC had a series, The Cavalcade of America, produced by Homer Fickett. One writers Fickett kept around was the young, and yet unknown Arthur Miller -- though Miller was only five months younger than Orson Welles.
Miller had been excited at the chance of doing a radio script on the life of Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary and president. He had a handwritten script which he reckoned to deliver personally to Fickett before getting it typed. But as he entered the studio, he found himself in the echo chamber of a vaguely familiar voice of full oratorical fury roaring at Fickett and his alleged historical advisers -- there was a professor from Yale there, taking the abuse on his scholarly chin -- about the travesty and lies in the Juarez script they were rehearsing.
The young writer listened, entranced by the voice and its florid indignation. It seemed a voice right for his script. So he signaled to Fickett, and in a moment the tatty, rewritten pages were in Welles' trembling hands. He read them silently. He seemed to be mollified by the long speeches Miller had given Juarez.
Before long, Welles was with microphone. Miller and everyone else "listened amazed at Welles' genius with the microphone; he seemed to climb into one's brain. No actor had such intimacy and sheer presence in a loudspeaker."
Welles was delighted. He embraced the scrawny Miller. The show was a great success. But Orson Welles and Arthur Miller never worked together again.
From Rosebud The Story of Orson Welles by Richard Thompson, page 238.
Orson Welles had been back in America less than two months, but he was already haunting the radio studios of New York, doing this or that, being generally available. NBC had a series, The Cavalcade of America, produced by Homer Fickett. One writers Fickett kept around was the young, and yet unknown Arthur Miller -- though Miller was only five months younger than Orson Welles.
Miller had been excited at the chance of doing a radio script on the life of Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary and president. He had a handwritten script which he reckoned to deliver personally to Fickett before getting it typed. But as he entered the studio, he found himself in the echo chamber of a vaguely familiar voice of full oratorical fury roaring at Fickett and his alleged historical advisers -- there was a professor from Yale there, taking the abuse on his scholarly chin -- about the travesty and lies in the Juarez script they were rehearsing.
The young writer listened, entranced by the voice and its florid indignation. It seemed a voice right for his script. So he signaled to Fickett, and in a moment the tatty, rewritten pages were in Welles' trembling hands. He read them silently. He seemed to be mollified by the long speeches Miller had given Juarez.
Before long, Welles was with microphone. Miller and everyone else "listened amazed at Welles' genius with the microphone; he seemed to climb into one's brain. No actor had such intimacy and sheer presence in a loudspeaker."
Welles was delighted. He embraced the scrawny Miller. The show was a great success. But Orson Welles and Arthur Miller never worked together again.
From Rosebud The Story of Orson Welles by Richard Thompson, page 238.