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13-year-old Third Wife, Second Cousin,
First Lady of Rock 'n' Roll Royalty
EX
to
Jerry Lee Lewis
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The Spark That Survived
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INSTAGRAM|'|'|'||'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
INFLUENCERS
. . . snorting Meth through designer masks, their Insta eye liner if looks could kill at a glance the eyeliner Queen of Pharonic Ranks, DaVinci of Dark Circles, Michelangelo of Minimizing Crows Feet and Magiscule for Mona Lisa the first model to Smize, Fierecely, Tyra would say.
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13-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis Third Wife, Second Cousin, First Lady of Rock 'n' Roll Royalty Myra Gail Lewis Williams nee Brown Re-leases New Book on Life with the Killer ... but would Just as Soon SHOOT HIM!
By Katie Morris
katie.morris@gwinnettdailypost.com
|'|'|'|
In this digital age, we hear
about a new celebrity scandal just about every week. And reality TV
stars go to great lengths to get their 15 minutes of fame — often using
whatever means necessary — the more shocking, the better.
|'|'|'|
But
that scandalous 15 minutes of fame isn’t all that it’s cracked up to
be. Just ask Duluth resident Myra Lewis Williams, who’s experienced what
it’s like to be smack dab in the center ring of a media circus.
|'|'|'|
In
1958, before social media and smart phones, the then 13-year-old
Williams’ marriage to her second cousin and rising rock n’ roll star
Jerry Lee Lewis caused quite the stir.
|'|'|'|
“What they don’t
realize is that 15 minutes of fame turns into 30 or 40 years,” she said.
“It never goes away if it’s bad enough.”
|'|'|'|
Their marriage
sparked a wide-spread controversy during a time when rock n’ roll music
was already under a lot of heat, and the public uproar was a major blow
to Lewis’ career with many radio stations blacklisting him.
|'|'|'|
“It
was really the first scandal of rock n’ roll,” she said.
“What was
happening back then, rock n’ roll was coming on very, very strong. The
preachers hated it. The radio stations that didn’t play it hated it.
They called it the devil’s music. It was crude and rude and ridiculous
what it was doing to the teenagers. Little did they know what it was
going to turn into.“
“Somebody said one time, it’s not my
comment but, they were looking for a place to stick the knife in rock n’
roll and Jerry gave them the opportunity. And he paid the price.”
Williams
doesn’t shy away from the past. She gave folks an inside look at her at
times tumultuous marriage to Lewis with her book “Great Balls of Fire,”
which was released in 1989 and quickly inspired a movie of the same
name starring Dennis Quaid as Lewis and Winona Ryder as Williams.
Williams
isn’t a fan of either the book or the movie, explaining that both were
someone else’s idea about how that part of her life story should be tol.
The results were far from reality, according to Williams.
Now
Williams has decided to share her entire story in her own words in the
new memoir “The Spark That Survived,” which shares the details of her
13-year marriage to Lewis and much more.
Over the course
of five years, Williams put her talent for storytelling to work and
wrote about her experiences of becoming a mother at age 14 and then
again at 17, suffering the tragic loss of her son by accidental
drowning, Lewis’ drug addiction, her being the victim of abuse,
divorcing and jumping into a rebound marriage — it’s all there.
“That’s
what this book basically is, this is what happened, this is how I
handled it and here I am today,” she said. “I not only survived it, I’m
better for it, having gone through it. I’m stronger and appreciate
different things in life that a lot of people take for granted … I guess
I went through like a trial by fire. You come out of the fire you make
it.
“This is the book I wanted to write then. I’m really glad I didn’t though because it’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older.”
However, an older and wiser Williams still looks back on the marriage scandal with frustration.
“Nobody
talked to me. If one person had come to me and said, ‘Myra, we might
have a potential bomb on our hands. If you tell a newspaper reporter who
you are, you’re going to destroy Jerry.’ Nobody would talk to me. You
know why? I was a stupid kid I guess, or they were afraid to cross Jerry
or go behind his back because obviously he wasn’t coming home and
telling me that.
“If he had, I would’ve been sick or I could have taken the
next plane. It was so simple. It would have been so easy to make it
right. You know you just look back on things that you could have changed
with such little effort. It just drives me crazy.”
Needless
to say the bomb went off, and the attention came as a complete surprise
to Williams, who remembers not seeing it coming.
“I
really didn’t because in my mind I was obviously a grown woman. I was
that stupid,” she said with a laugh. “You don’t think beyond today in
that kind of situation.”
Williams said she was never
“enamored” with being a teenager and going to high school — she’d always
dreamed about becoming a mother and homemaker. Although she was the
teenager, Williams remembers Lewis, who was in his 20s at the time, as
being more of a kid than she was.
“I was the adult in the relationship, I promise you,” she said.
Williams’
speaks about Lewis in a familiar way that only a former spouse of 13
years could, describing him as hard-headed and “not a rule follower” who
always called her “girl.”
William’s acknowledges that eloping at the age of 13 was a crazy idea, so what made her do it?
“Probably
a lot of it was, I thought, as all teenagers do, that I was much more
mature than any of them,” she said. “I was already grown just nobody
could see it but me.
“And I really did love Jerry. I loved his talent, but I liked him as a person.”
Williams
has lived in Gwinnett for more than 30 years, currently residing in
Duluth. She’s living a peaceful life with her husband of more than 30
years, Richard, and has a successful career in real estate.
The
five-foot-tall, petite Southern lady has a lively way of speaking and
enjoys a glass of sweet tea and a good laugh. According to Williams, she
originally wanted to title her memoir “Don’t Shoot the Piano Player,
Let Me!”
If she could travel back in time, what advice would Williams share with her 13-year-old self?
“I
would tell my young self that life is not always going to be like
this,” she said.
“Get through it and it’s going to be better because it
was as if I was going to be there forever and it’s never going to
change. It was devastating. It was chaos all the time.”
There
will be a book launch and signing for “The Spark That Survived,” from 5
to 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14 at Stockey’s Food and Spirits, located at
2445 Moon Road, suite 1, in Grayson. Later that evening Williams’ dad,
J.W. Brown and brother, Rusty Brown, who both played in Lewis’ band,
will perform in concert with the house band.|'|'|'||'|'
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|'|'|'||'|'|'| pharaonic (comparative more pharaonic, superlative most pharaonic)
Of or pertaining to a pharaoh.
Impressively large or luxurious.
Tyrannical or brutally oppressive.
Of or pertaining to infibulation as a means of female genital mutilation.
|'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
Cleopatra their Queen Mark Anthony brunt taken: It takes a lot of coal and time to look this cheap,
she never was quoted, Dolly used it it Attributed to Her, But Just ask
an Egyptologist, She Deserves It, and It's Hard to Tell When the Record
is Chiseled in Stone and Hard to Decipher, So Let's Call it 5050 BC, She
Used it First, Dolly Gets it this Dynasty, asp bitten twice-shy. Patra smizes
and smirks, hieroglyph heckles come from her Kingdom a Pearl Unto
Swine, the Boy King Tutankhamen Just Stood There Online tried not to
gaze at her makeup, said to be bituminous, nigrosine, evil, ominous,
badass and deathly, but for what she went through, and from whom
she did get it, could be her Father if he weren't in a Tomb wrapped,
no ashes to snort or apply, Keith Richards has got ya on that, Queenie!
But she would, not afraid, apply it with focus
cuz when you're gone, if King Tut or Michael Jackson, it's not whom you know, it's how good's your mortician, he can treat you like royalty, and to your back call you chronic, and you could kill him with immunity, you being Pharoanic, but good hairdressers and handmaidens aren't easy to find, and findeth, keepith until they call in sik too often, always one haircut away from a date with Underworld, Here Lies Miss Thing Vth Dynasty, just wanted to gossip and dish dirt on HER enemies ...
"Can you Mashed Potato?" she asks with a growl. Then slaps her pussy, hard,
Nah, 'Watch me, work!'
AVOID INFLUENZA—
LIKE PLAGUE!
— mrjyn (@mrjyn)
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INSTAGRAM|'|'|'||'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
INFLUENCERS
. . . snorting Meth through designer masks, their Insta eye liner if looks could kill at a glance the eyeliner Queen of Pharonic Ranks, DaVinci of Dark Circles, Michelangelo of Minimizing Crows Feet and Magiscule for Mona Lisa the first model to Smize, Fierecely, Tyra would say.
|'|'|'||'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
INFLUENCERS . . . snorting Meth through designer masks, their Insta eye liner if looks could kill at a glance the eyeliner Queen of Pharonic Ranks, DaVinci of Dark Circles, Michelangelo of Minimizing Crows Feet and Magiscule for Mona Lisa the first model to Smize, Fierecely, Tyra would say.
|'|'|'||'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
13-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis Third Wife, Second Cousin, First Lady of Rock 'n' Roll Royalty Myra Gail Lewis Williams nee Brown Re-leases New Book on Life with the Killer ... but would Just as Soon SHOOT HIM!
By Katie Morris
katie.morris@gwinnettdailypost.com
|'|'|'|
In this digital age, we hear about a new celebrity scandal just about every week. And reality TV stars go to great lengths to get their 15 minutes of fame — often using whatever means necessary — the more shocking, the better.
|'|'|'|
But that scandalous 15 minutes of fame isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Just ask Duluth resident Myra Lewis Williams, who’s experienced what it’s like to be smack dab in the center ring of a media circus.
|'|'|'|
In 1958, before social media and smart phones, the then 13-year-old Williams’ marriage to her second cousin and rising rock n’ roll star Jerry Lee Lewis caused quite the stir.
|'|'|'|
“What they don’t realize is that 15 minutes of fame turns into 30 or 40 years,” she said. “It never goes away if it’s bad enough.”
|'|'|'|
Their marriage sparked a wide-spread controversy during a time when rock n’ roll music was already under a lot of heat, and the public uproar was a major blow to Lewis’ career with many radio stations blacklisting him.
|'|'|'|
“It was really the first scandal of rock n’ roll,” she said.
“What was happening back then, rock n’ roll was coming on very, very strong. The preachers hated it. The radio stations that didn’t play it hated it. They called it the devil’s music. It was crude and rude and ridiculous what it was doing to the teenagers. Little did they know what it was going to turn into.““Somebody said one time, it’s not my comment but, they were looking for a place to stick the knife in rock n’ roll and Jerry gave them the opportunity. And he paid the price.”
Williams doesn’t shy away from the past. She gave folks an inside look at her at times tumultuous marriage to Lewis with her book “Great Balls of Fire,” which was released in 1989 and quickly inspired a movie of the same name starring Dennis Quaid as Lewis and Winona Ryder as Williams.
Williams isn’t a fan of either the book or the movie, explaining that both were someone else’s idea about how that part of her life story should be tol. The results were far from reality, according to Williams.
Now Williams has decided to share her entire story in her own words in the new memoir “The Spark That Survived,” which shares the details of her 13-year marriage to Lewis and much more.
Over the course of five years, Williams put her talent for storytelling to work and wrote about her experiences of becoming a mother at age 14 and then again at 17, suffering the tragic loss of her son by accidental drowning, Lewis’ drug addiction, her being the victim of abuse, divorcing and jumping into a rebound marriage — it’s all there.
“That’s what this book basically is, this is what happened, this is how I handled it and here I am today,” she said. “I not only survived it, I’m better for it, having gone through it. I’m stronger and appreciate different things in life that a lot of people take for granted … I guess I went through like a trial by fire. You come out of the fire you make it.
“This is the book I wanted to write then. I’m really glad I didn’t though because it’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older.”
However, an older and wiser Williams still looks back on the marriage scandal with frustration.
“Nobody talked to me. If one person had come to me and said, ‘Myra, we might have a potential bomb on our hands. If you tell a newspaper reporter who you are, you’re going to destroy Jerry.’ Nobody would talk to me. You know why? I was a stupid kid I guess, or they were afraid to cross Jerry or go behind his back because obviously he wasn’t coming home and telling me that.
“If he had, I would’ve been sick or I could have taken the next plane. It was so simple. It would have been so easy to make it right. You know you just look back on things that you could have changed with such little effort. It just drives me crazy.”
Needless to say the bomb went off, and the attention came as a complete surprise to Williams, who remembers not seeing it coming.
“I really didn’t because in my mind I was obviously a grown woman. I was that stupid,” she said with a laugh. “You don’t think beyond today in that kind of situation.”
Williams said she was never “enamored” with being a teenager and going to high school — she’d always dreamed about becoming a mother and homemaker. Although she was the teenager, Williams remembers Lewis, who was in his 20s at the time, as being more of a kid than she was.
“I was the adult in the relationship, I promise you,” she said.
Williams’ speaks about Lewis in a familiar way that only a former spouse of 13 years could, describing him as hard-headed and “not a rule follower” who always called her “girl.”
William’s acknowledges that eloping at the age of 13 was a crazy idea, so what made her do it?
“Probably a lot of it was, I thought, as all teenagers do, that I was much more mature than any of them,” she said. “I was already grown just nobody could see it but me.
“And I really did love Jerry. I loved his talent, but I liked him as a person.”
Williams has lived in Gwinnett for more than 30 years, currently residing in Duluth. She’s living a peaceful life with her husband of more than 30 years, Richard, and has a successful career in real estate.
The five-foot-tall, petite Southern lady has a lively way of speaking and enjoys a glass of sweet tea and a good laugh. According to Williams, she originally wanted to title her memoir “Don’t Shoot the Piano Player, Let Me!”If she could travel back in time, what advice would Williams share with her 13-year-old self?
“I would tell my young self that life is not always going to be like this,” she said.
“Get through it and it’s going to be better because it was as if I was going to be there forever and it’s never going to change. It was devastating. It was chaos all the time.”There will be a book launch and signing for “The Spark That Survived,” from 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14 at Stockey’s Food and Spirits, located at 2445 Moon Road, suite 1, in Grayson. Later that evening Williams’ dad, J.W. Brown and brother, Rusty Brown, who both played in Lewis’ band, will perform in concert with the house band.
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/\/| |9 _/ '/ |\|
|'|'|'||'|'|'| pharaonic (comparative more pharaonic, superlative most pharaonic)
Of or pertaining to a pharaoh.
Impressively large or luxurious.
Tyrannical or brutally oppressive.
Of or pertaining to infibulation as a means of female genital mutilation.
|'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
|'|'|'||'|'|'|pharaonic (comparative more pharaonic, superlative most pharaonic)
Of or pertaining to a pharaoh.
Impressively large or luxurious.
Tyrannical or brutally oppressive.
Of or pertaining to infibulation as a means of female genital mutilation.
|'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
Cleopatra their Queen Mark Anthony brunt taken: It takes a lot of coal and time to look this cheap, she never was quoted, Dolly used it it Attributed to Her, But Just ask an Egyptologist, She Deserves It, and It's Hard to Tell When the Record is Chiseled in Stone and Hard to Decipher, So Let's Call it 5050 BC, She Used it First, Dolly Gets it this Dynasty, asp bitten twice-shy. Patra smizes and smirks, hieroglyph heckles come from her Kingdom a Pearl Unto Swine, the Boy King Tutankhamen Just Stood There Online tried not to gaze at her makeup, said to be bituminous, nigrosine, evil, ominous, badass and deathly, but for what she went through, and from whom she did get it, could be her Father if he weren't in a Tomb wrapped, no ashes to snort or apply, Keith Richards has got ya on that, Queenie!
cuz when you're gone, if King Tut or Michael Jackson, it's not whom you know, it's how good's your mortician, he can treat you like royalty, and to your back call you chronic, and you could kill him with immunity, you being Pharoanic, but good hairdressers and handmaidens aren't easy to find, and findeth, keepith until they call in sik too often, always one haircut away from a date with Underworld, Here Lies Miss Thing Vth Dynasty, just wanted to gossip and dish dirt on HER enemies ...
"Can you Mashed Potato?" she asks with a growl. Then slaps her pussy, hard,
Nah, 'Watch me, work!'
AVOID INFLUENZA—
LIKE PLAGUE!
— mrjyn (@mrjyn)
Nah, 'Watch me, work!'
AVOID INFLUENZA—
LIKE PLAGUE!
— mrjyn (@mrjyn)
88
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88|'|'| MrjyN |'|'|88|'|'|'||'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'| |'|'|'|
how to find shit on @instagram #Stories #URL https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17868479353782354/
• @mrjyn And #FionaApple #justanotherwomantowhomiwontgetthrough @FionaAppleRocks https://visualguidanceltd.blogspot.com/2020/06/instagram-influencers-avoid-influenza.html
@Astrotheme @LilTunechi @utahna #ourfavoriteband #funeral @Lil_Verse_
Pattern A
Pattern B
Shaded area: dark
Unshaded area: red
After three days without sleep, two days of drinking, and an all-night show in Vinton, Louisiana, Jerry Lee gets in the mood to cavort before the camera at 6 A.M. beside his private jet, which had just landed at the Memphis airport. From here, he drove off to his office to party. “I’m the greatest!” he says.
I pity that poor pilot, but wired and partying, beer in hand, on a Memphis runway at 6 A.M. … I wouldn’t want Jerry Lee Lewis any other way.
***
Sources & Notes
Photos and quotes from the book Honky-Tonk Heroes: A Photo Album of Country Music — photographs by Raeanne Rubenstein, text by Peter McCabe (New York: Harper & Row, 1975).
*
Copyright © 2018 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
7.3.2 Width of the slit used (6)
7.4 How will the broadness of the central band, x, change if the monochromatic red light is replaced with monochromatic blue light? Write down only INCREASES, DECREASES or REMAINS THE SAME. (1)
7.4 Decreases
Blue light has a higher frequency and hence a lower wavelength. The lower wavelength produces lesser diffraction.
March 2012
7 Learners investigate the change in the broadness of the central bright band formed when monochromatic light of different wavelengths passes through a single slit. They set up the apparatus, as shown in diagram below, and measure the broadness of the central bright band in the pattern observed on the screen. The width of the slit is 5,6 x 10-7 m.
Orson Welles In Dallas — 1934-1940
Orson at 18 — publicity photo used for the Cornell tour, 1934
by Paula Bosse
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Orson Welles. Welles was one of the truly great, innovative theater and film directors, an actor with a commanding presence, and a delightfully entertaining raconteur. His frenetically creative work on the New York stage, on radio, and in film (he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in his first film, Citizen Kane, when he was only 25) earned him/saddled him with the hard-to-deny sobriquet “Boy Genius.” His rise up the show-biz ladder was a quick one.
Orson’s first professional acting gig was as an unknown 18-year old repertory player in the touring company of famed actress Katharine Cornell who, along with British actor Basil Rathbone, starred in the three plays performed on the tour, which stopped in Dallas for a two-night engagement at the Melba theater, in February, 1934. The three plays performed in Dallas on February 19 and 20 (one a matinee) were “Romeo and Juliet” (Orson played Mercutio), “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” (he played Octavius Moulton-Barrett), and “Candida” (he played Marchbanks). Cornell was a huge draw, and there was a rush for tickets. The Melba begged her to extend her stay and add performances, but she declined.
The young Welles had gotten reviews on the tour which ranged from a dismissive mention in Variety that he was unable to speak Shakespeare’s lines properly and audibly (!), to raves from Charles Collins of The Chicago Tribune:
The cast is brilliant, and many of the secondary characters are acted with consummate skill. This is particularly true of Orson Welles’ Mercutio, which is an astonishing achievement for a youth still new on the stage. In his duel with Tybalt and his death scene, this Mercutio is a complete realization of Shakespeare’s bravest blade.
The star of the show was the then-very-famous Katharine Cornell, around whom most of the articles and reviews centered (she was, for instance, breathlessly reported to be staying at the Melrose during her Dallas stay) (I wonder if the lowly company players — i.e. Orson Welles — stayed there as well?). The Dallas Morning News theater critic, John Rosenfield — who mentioned this 1934 Dallas appearance in almost every succeeding article he ever wrote about Orson Welles over the next several decades — wrote the following before he saw Orson’s performances in any of the three plays:
Orson Welles, 18-year-old actor, who is apparently bulky enough to hold his own with adults, will be Mercutio. (DMN, Feb. 19, 1934)
After he saw his Mercutio:
Orson Welles’ Mercutio was up to the best standards known for this role. (DMN, Feb. 20, 1934)
When the tour finished, Welles quickly became a presence in the New York theater world. One of his early successes as a producer and director was his production of the so-called “Black Macbeth”/”Negro Macbeth”/”Voodoo Macbeth” — a hugely popular staging of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” with an all-black cast, done under the auspices of the Federal Theatre Project in 1936. In August of that year — just two and a half years after his appearance as an unknown at the Melba — he took the production to Dallas where it made a splash at the Texas Centennial in the brand new bandshell.
Aug., 1936
(click for larger image)
Rosenfield was impressed by the lush design and the electric and inventive spectacle, but he was not a fan of the performances. A few years later, on the eve of the release of Citizen Kane, he wrote the following (which was much harsher than his original 1936 review):
We saw this production in Dallas during the Texas Centennial and could marvel at the artistic futility of such ingenuity. The Negro Macbeth, however, was something to be seen if only to be despised. (DMN, Oct. 29, 1941)
Oh dear.
In 1940, Welles was working on his first film, the legendary Citizen Kane. As filming began to wind down, he decided to go out on a short lecture tour because he was in desperate need of money (an all-too-common circumstance he found himself in throughout the entirety of his career). His topic was a vague “anecdotes of the stage and theories on the drama” — and it sounds like his “performances” were largely unscripted and unrehearsed.
On October 29, 1940 — only a week or two after wrapping production on Citizen Kane — 25-year old Orson Welles spoke at McFarlin Auditorium on the SMU campus as part of the Community Course series of lectures. His topic: The Actor’s Place in the Theater. It was another packed house of adoring and/or curious Dallasites. Rosenfield was both entertained and annoyed by the rambling “lecture,” but Orson was undoubtedly delighted to talk for two hours before an adoring crowd, answer their questions about his craft, and collect a $1,200 check.
Orson’s appearance in Dallas was particularly noteworthy for the fact that the speaker scheduled to appear on the McFarlin stage just three days later was … H. G. Wells! At the time of this lecture tour, Orson was best known for his infamous 1938 radio adaption of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, the frighteningly realistic production that panicked the nation and led thousands to believe that the earth was being attacked by Martians. Rather surprisingly, Welles and Wells had never met.
According to a blurb in a Phoenix newspaper, Orson had cancelled a previously-scheduled meeting in Tucson in order to fly into Dallas earlier than planned. My guess is that he saw that H. G. Wells was also lecturing in Texas and realized that H. G.’s lecture in San Antonio the night before Orson’s own appearance in Dallas on the 29th was the only chance he had to meet the man who had provided the source-material for his (to-date) greatest career triumph.
A quick timeline:
- Sun. Oct. 27, 1940: Orson arrives in Dallas, staying at the Baker Hotel.
- Mon. Oct. 28: In the morning, Orson flies down to San Antonio to meet H. G. Wells and attend his lecture. The two meet, get along famously, have their photos taken, and give a short joint interview to San Antonio radio station KTSA (see below for link to recording). That evening, both fly to Dallas. Later that night, Orson (well known as an amateur magician) pops into The Mural Room in the Baker Hotel to catch the floor show featuring popular magician Russell Swann.
- Tues. Oct. 29: H. G. Wells leaves Dallas for Denver, continuing his lecture tour. That morning Orson drives to Fort Worth to present a lecture and attend a luncheon at the River Crest Country Club. That night, he presents his lecture at McFarlin Auditorium at Southern Methodist University. After his lecture, he catches Russell Swann’s magic show for a second time. At 3:00 a.m. he flies to San Antonio for his lecture there.
- Wed. Oct. 30: Orson lectures in San Antonio. It is the second anniversary of the broadcast of “The War of the Worlds.” Conveniently, newspapers around the country begin to run the photos of Welles and Wells taken on the 28th.
- Thurs. Oct. 31: A Martian-free Halloween.
- Fri. Nov. 1: H. G. Wells is back in Dallas for his lecture that night at McFarlin Auditorium.
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Happy 100th, Orson! And thanks for everything.
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Sources & Notes
Dates and sources of newspaper clippings as noted.
“Macbeth” playbill from the Library of Congress, here.
The timeline for the Welles-Wells meeting and their Dallas-related activities were gleaned from a report in the Oct. 30, 1940 edition of The Dallas Morning News.
And now, links galore.
- Watch an entertaining short clip in which Orson talks about mind-reading and fortune-telling — which he says he indulged in on the Cornell tour — here.
- Read the profile of the 18-year old phenom which appeared in newspapers during the run of the Katharine Cornell tour, here.
- Read about the “Voodoo Macbeth” here (scroll to the bottom to see fantastic photos).
- Listen to the interview with Orson Welles and H. G. Wells that aired on San Antonio station KTSA, the day they met for the first time, on Oct. 28, 1940 — here.
- Read about that still-chilling Mercury Theatre radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, here.
Finally, my favorite Orson Welles-related quote from the erudite and not-without-humor arts critic of The Dallas Morning News, John Rosenfield. He wrote the following in his review of the set-in-Haiti “Macbeth” — about the aesthetic viability of future Shakespeare productions tailored for specific audiences:
…Mr. Welles hasn’t started a movement. His Negro “Macbeth” does not inspire us to corroborate a fabled Texas lawyer and make Antonio “The Merchant of Ennis.” (DMN, Aug. 16, 1936)
“THE MERCHANT OF ENNIS”! Someone! Make this happen!
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
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