Orson Welles

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Orson Welles

Signed Check to MOMA - 1956

Bank check signed by Orson Welles. Drawn on Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles, dated December 17, 1956, payable to the Museum of Modern Art for $2.75. Check has typed date, payee, and amounts, and was hand-signed by Welles. In excellent condition.

ORSON WELLES (1915-1985) was an Academy Award-winning American director, writer, actor and producer for film, stage, radio and television. Welles first gained wide notoriety for his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. Adapted to sound like a contemporary news broadcast, it caused a number of listeners to panic. In the mid-1930s, his New York theatre adaptations of an all-black voodoo Macbeth and a contemporary allegorical Julius Caesar became legendary. Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. During this period he became a serious political activist and commentator through journalism, radio and public appearances closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1941, he co-wrote, directed, produced and starred in Citizen Kane, often chosen in polls of film critics as the greatest film ever made.