WELLES, Orson

By most measures, Welles was the most inspired and courageous creator of live theater ever in America; incidentally, he directed at least two great movies and was a masterful radio artist. Running away from Kenosha, Wisconsin, his birthplace, Welles made his way to Dublin, Ireland where, at the precocious age of sixteen, he joined the famed Abbey Theatre; within five years, he was back in the States directing audacious adaptations of Shakespeare, in addition to new plays, initially for the Federal...