Editing Orson Welles (section)

=== Relationships and family ===
[[File:Orson-Virginia-Christopher-Welles-1938.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Welles and Virginia Nicolson Welles with their daughter Christopher Marlowe Welles (1938)]]
Welles and Chicago-born actress and socialite Virginia Nicolson were married on November 14, 1934.<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|332|date=April 2014}} "Regardless of his later comments, the two were very much in love," wrote biographer Patrick McGilligan, "and she was his salvation."<ref>{{cite book |last=McGilligan |first=Patrick |date=2015 |title=Young Orson |location=New York |publisher=Harper |page=following page 310 |isbn=978-0-06-211248-4 }}</ref>{{efn|Virginia Welles is a sympathetically written key character in one of Welles's last important pieces of writing, the unproduced screenplay about the 1937 staging of ''[[The Cradle Will Rock]]'' that he completed a year before his death.<ref name="McGilligan"/>{{Rp|384}}}} The couple separated in December 1939<ref name="Brady" />{{Rp|226}} and were divorced in February 1940.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=942|title=A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles: A talk with Chris Welles Feder on her new book, ''In My Father's Shadow'' – Part One|publisher=Lawrence French, Wellesnet, November 8, 2009|access-date=November 10, 2013|date=November 8, 2009|archive-date=May 22, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120522100012/http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=942|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19400201&id=2-BPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6555,8524 |title=Orson Welles is Divorced by Wife |publisher=Associated Press |work=[[Evening Independent]]|date= February 1, 1940 |access-date=February 7, 2014 |archive-date=December 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205164510/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19400201&id=2-BPAAAAIBAJ&pg=6555%2C8524 |url-status=live }}</ref> A few months later, on May 18, 1940, she married [[Marion Davies]]'s nephew [[Charles Lederer]].

After bearing with Welles's romances in New York, Virginia had learned that Welles had fallen in love with Mexican actress [[Dolores del Río]].<ref name="Brady" />{{Rp|227}} Infatuated with her since adolescence, Welles met del Río at Darryl Zanuck's ranch<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|206}} soon after he moved to Hollywood in 1939.<ref name="Brady" />{{Rp|227}}<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|168}} Their relationship was kept secret until 1941, when del Río filed for divorce from her second husband. They openly appeared together in New York while Welles was directing the Mercury stage production ''[[Native Son (play)|Native Son]]''.<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|212}} They acted together in the movie ''[[Journey into Fear (1943 film)|Journey into Fear]]'' (1943). Their relationship came to an end due, among other things, to Welles's infidelities. Del Río returned to Mexico in 1943, shortly before Welles married [[Rita Hayworth]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ramón|first1=David|title=Dolores del Río|date=1997|publisher=Clío|location=México|isbn=978-968-6932-35-5|page=11}}</ref> [[File:Orson Welles & Dolores del Rio, 1941.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Welles and [[Dolores del Río]] (1941)]] [[File:Rebecca-Welles-Rita-Hayworth-1946.jpg|thumb|upright|Daughter Rebecca Welles and Rita Hayworth (December 23, 1946)]]
Welles married Hayworth on September 7, 1943.<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|278}} They were divorced on November 10, 1947.<ref name="Leaming Hayworth" />{{Rp|142}} During his last interview, recorded for ''[[The Merv Griffin Show]]'' on the evening before his death, Welles called Hayworth "one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived ... and we were a long time together—I was lucky enough to have been with her longer than any of the other men in her life."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZEWy--VsBQ&list=UUaxAJybXd-1ahQ9OV1J2WaA |title=Orson Welles' Last Interview (excerpt) |work=The Merv Griffin Show|date= October 10, 1985 |access-date=September 11, 2014 |archive-date=May 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150517174345/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZEWy--VsBQ&list=UUaxAJybXd-1ahQ9OV1J2WaA |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Mori-Welles-1955.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|[[Paola Mori]] and Welles, days before their marriage (May 1955)]]
In 1955, Welles married actress [[Paola Mori]], an Italian aristocrat who starred as Raina Arkadin in his film ''[[Mr. Arkadin]]''. The couple began an affair, and were married at her parents' insistence.<ref name="Feder">{{cite book |last=Feder |first=Chris Welles |date=2009 |title=In My Father's Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781565125995 |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |publisher=Algonquin Books |isbn=978-1-56512-599-5 }}</ref>{{Rp|168}} They were wed in London on May 8, 1955,<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|417, 419|date=May 2012}} and never divorced.

Croatian-born artist and actress [[Oja Kodar]] became Welles's longtime companion and mistress both personally and professionally from 1966 onward. They lived together for some of the last 20 years of his life.<ref name="Feder" />{{Rp|255–258}}

Welles had three daughters from his marriages: Christopher Welles Feder (born 1938, with Virginia Nicolson);{{efn|"On March 27, 1938," biographer Barbara Leaming wrote, "Orson's close friends received a most peculiar telegram: 'Christopher, she is born.' It was no joke"<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|148}} Her full name was given to be [[Christopher Marlowe]] in a January 1940 magazine profile of Welles by [[Lucille Fletcher]].}}<ref name="Leaming" />{{Rp|148}} Rebecca Welles Manning (1944–2004,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tribnet/obituary.aspx?pid=2737245 |title=Rebecca Manning Obituary |newspaper=[[The News Tribune]]|location=Tacoma, Washington|date= October 21–22, 2004 |access-date=May 11, 2014 |archive-date=September 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926124819/http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tribnet/obituary.aspx?pid=2737245 |url-status=live }}</ref> with Rita Hayworth); and [[Beatrice Welles]] (born 1955, with Paola Mori).<ref name="Welles TIOW" />{{Rp|419}}

Welles has been thought to have had a son, British director [[Michael Lindsay-Hogg]] (born 1940), with Irish actress [[Geraldine Fitzgerald]], then the wife of [[Lindsay-Hogg baronets|Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 4th baronet]].<ref name="Bright Lights" /><ref name="Alex Witchell">{{cite news |title=Are You My Father, Orson Welles? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/luck-and-circumstance-by-michael-lindsay-hogg-book-review.html |newspaper=The New York Times |last=Witchel |first=Alex |date=September 30, 2011 |access-date=April 27, 2014 |archive-date=July 1, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170701035015/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/books/review/luck-and-circumstance-by-michael-lindsay-hogg-book-review.html |url-status=live }}</ref> When Lindsay-Hogg was 16, his mother reluctantly divulged pervasive rumors that his father was Welles, and she denied them—but in such detail that he doubted her veracity.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hodgson |first=Moira |date=September 30, 2011 |title=A Director Casts About for Clues |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903791504576587093413119166 |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |access-date=August 31, 2015 |archive-date=July 10, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170710035339/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903791504576587093413119166 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Luck">{{cite book |last=Lindsay-Hogg |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Lindsay-Hogg |date=2011 |title=Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York and Points Beyond |url=https://archive.org/details/luckcircumstance00lind |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |isbn=978-0-307-59468-6 }}</ref>{{Rp|15}} Fitzgerald evaded the subject for the rest of her life. Lindsay-Hogg knew Welles, worked with him in the theatre and met him at intervals throughout Welles's life.<ref name="Alex Witchell" /> After learning that Welles's oldest daughter, Chris, his childhood playmate, had long suspected that he was her brother,<ref>{{cite news |last=Thorpe |first=Vanessa |date=January 30, 2010 |title=The 'only son' of Orson Welles to take DNA test |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/31/orson-welles-son |access-date=August 31, 2015 |archive-date=October 19, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019223334/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/31/orson-welles-son |url-status=live }}</ref> Lindsay-Hogg initiated a DNA test that proved inconclusive. In his 2011 autobiography, Lindsay-Hogg reported that his questions were resolved by his mother's close friend [[Gloria Vanderbilt]], who wrote that Fitzgerald had told her that Welles was his father.<ref name="Luck" />{{Rp|265–267}} A 2015 Welles biography by [[Patrick McGilligan (biographer)|Patrick McGilligan]], however, reports the impossibility of Welles's paternity: Fitzgerald left the U.S. for Ireland in May 1939, and her son was conceived before her return in late October, whereas Welles did not travel overseas during that period.<ref name="McGilligan">{{cite book |last=McGilligan |first=Patrick |author-link=Patrick McGilligan (biographer) |date=2015 |title=Young Orson |location=New York |publisher=[[Harper (publisher)|Harper]] |isbn=978-0-06-211248-4}}</ref>{{Rp|602}}

After the death of Rebecca Welles Manning, a man named Marc McKerrow was revealed to be her son—and therefore a direct descendant of Welles and Hayworth—after he requested his adoption records unsealed. While McKerrow and Rebecca were never able to meet due to her cancer, they were in touch before her death, and he attended her funeral. McKerrow's reactions to the revelation and his meeting with Kodar are documented in the 2008 ''[[Prodigal Sons (film)|Prodigal Sons]]'', produced and directed by his sister [[Kimberly Reed]].<ref name="SF Chronicle March 2010">{{cite news |title=Twists, turns in 'Prodigal Sons' documentary |url=http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Twists-turns-in-Prodigal-Sons-documentary-3197738.php |newspaper=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |last=Weigand |first=David |date=March 5, 2010 |access-date=November 17, 2012 |archive-date=May 15, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515153853/http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Twists-turns-in-Prodigal-Sons-documentary-3197738.php |url-status=live }}</ref> McKerrow died in 2010, in his sleep aged 44. His death was related to injuries he received in a car accident when younger.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://helenair.com/news/local/obituaries/article_b2081642-7e92-11df-81a9-001cc4c03286.html |url-access=subscription |title=Marc McKerrow |newspaper=Independent Record |date=June 23, 2010 |access-date=July 20, 2021}}</ref><ref name="Marc McKerrow Foundation Home">{{cite web |title=In beloved memory of Marc McKerrow |url=http://www.marcmckerrowfoundation.org/Home.html |publisher=Marc McKerrow Foundation |year=2010 |access-date=November 6, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131117094526/http://www.marcmckerrowfoundation.org/Home.html |archive-date=November 17, 2013 }}</ref>

In the 1940s, Welles had a brief relationship with [[Maila Nurmi]]. According to the biography ''Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi'', she became pregnant; since Welles was then married to Hayworth, Nurmi gave the child up for adoption.<ref name=Nurmi>{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-01-12/vampira-hollywoods-original-goth-emerges-in-new-biography|title=Vampira, Hollywood's original Goth, emerges from the shadows in a new biography|first=Scott|last=Bradfield|author-link=Scott Bradfield|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=January 12, 2021|access-date=January 17, 2021|archive-date=January 18, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118034755/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2021-01-12/vampira-hollywoods-original-goth-emerges-in-new-biography|url-status=live}}</ref><!-- the Los Angeles Times piece doesn't say 'in the 40s', but does say that by the time Nurmi gave birth, Welles was married to Hayworth, so that's an indicator.--> However, the child mentioned in the book was born in 1944. Nurmi revealed in an interview weeks before her death in 2008 that she met Welles in a New York casting office in spring 1946.<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 19, 2021|title=Retired lawyer is the son of Vampira but is Orson Welles the father?|url=https://www.wellesnet.com/vampira-orson-welles-son/|access-date=February 20, 2021|website=Wellesnet|archive-date=March 19, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319005238/https://www.wellesnet.com/vampira-orson-welles-son/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Despite an [[urban legend]] promoted by Welles,{{efn|While bantering with [[Lucille Ball]] on a 1944 broadcast of ''[[The Orson Welles Almanac]]'' before an audience of U.S. Navy service members, Welles says: "My great-granduncle was Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy in Lincoln's cabinet." (Lucille Ball AFRS broadcast, May 3, 1944, 2:42.)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/1944OrsonWellesRadioAlmanacpart1 |title=The Orson Welles Almanac – Part 1 |publisher=[[Internet Archive]] |access-date=May 9, 2015 }}</ref>}}{{efn|Welles repeats the claim in a 1970 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show.<ref>{{cite web |title=When Orson Welles Crossed Paths With Hitler and Churchill |date=July 27, 1970 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_PUUHLknDI&t=275 |website=YouTube |publisher=The Dick Cavett Show |access-date=August 30, 2019 |archive-date=December 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201205164500/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_PUUHLknDI&t=275 |url-status=live }}</ref>}} he is not related to [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s wartime Secretary of the Navy, [[Gideon Welles]]. The myth dates back to the first newspaper feature ever written about Welles—"Cartoonist, Actor, Poet and only 10"—in the February 19, 1926, issue of ''[[The Capital Times]]''. The article falsely states he was descended from "Gideon Welles, who was a member of President Lincoln's cabinet".<ref name="Higham" />{{Rp|47–48}}<ref name="McBride" />{{Rp|311}} As presented by Charles Higham in a genealogical chart that introduces his 1985 biography of Welles, Welles's father was Richard Head Welles (born Wells), son of Richard Jones Wells, son of Henry Hill Wells (who had an uncle named Gideon ''Wells''), son of [[William H. Wells|William Hill Wells]], son of Richard Wells (1734–1801).<ref name="Higham" />