Editing Orson Welles (section)

=== Politics and activism ===

Welles was politically active from the beginning of his career. He remained aligned with [[left-wing politics]] and the [[American Left]],<ref name=Callow>{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/may/20/biography.film |title=This Greater Drama |first=Simon |last=Callow |date=May 19, 2006 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=December 4, 2016 |archive-date=April 6, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406143244/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2006/may/20/biography.film |url-status=live }}</ref> and always defined his political orientation as "[[Progressivism in the United States|progressive]]". A Democrat, he was an outspoken critic of [[racism in the United States]] and [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]].<ref name="McBride"/>{{Rp|46}} He was a strong supporter of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and the [[New Deal]] and often spoke out on radio in support of progressive politics.<ref name=Callow/> He campaigned for Roosevelt in the 1944 election.<ref name=Callow/>

In a 1983 conversation with his friend Roger Hill, Welles recalled: "During a White House dinner, when I was campaigning for Roosevelt, in a toast, with considerable tongue in cheek, he said, 'Orson, you and I are the two greatest actors alive today.' In private that evening, and on several other occasions, he urged me to run for a Senate seat in either California or Wisconsin. He wasn't alone."<ref name="Tarbox" />{{Rp|115}} In the 1980s, Welles expressed admiration for Roosevelt but described his presidency as "a [[Hybrid regime|semidictatorship]]".<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Biskind |editor-first=Peter |editor-link=Peter Biskind |date=2013 |title=My Lunches with Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles |location=New York |publisher=[[Henry Holt and Company|Metropolitan Books]] |page=187 |isbn=978-0-8050-9725-2}}</ref>

During a 1970 appearance on ''[[The Dick Cavett Show]]'', Welles claimed to have met Hitler while hiking in Austria with a teacher who was a "budding [[Nazi]]". He said that Hitler made no impression on him and that he could not remember anything of him from the encounter. He said that he had no personality at all: "He was invisible. There was nothing there until there were 5,000 people yelling sieg heil."<ref>{{cite AV media|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_PUUHLknDI|title=When Orson Welles Crossed Paths With Hitler and Churchill|date=July 27, 1970|people=Orson Welles, Dick Cavett|via=YouTube|access-date=August 30, 2019|archive-date=March 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210321025340/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_PUUHLknDI|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1946, Welles took to the airwaves in a series of radio broadcasts demanding justice for a decorated black veteran, [[Isaac Woodard]], who had been beaten and blinded by white police officers. Welles devoted his July 28, 1946, program to reading Woodard's affidavit and vowing to bring&nbsp;the officer responsible to justice.&nbsp;He continued his crusade over subsequent Sunday afternoon broadcasts on ABC Radio. "The [[NAACP]] felt that these broadcasts did more than anything else to prompt the Justice Department to act on the case," the Museum of Broadcasting stated in its 1988 retrospective ''Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years''.<ref>{{Cite web |last=wellesnet |date=June 19, 2020 |title=Orson Welles pursued justice for black veteran Isaac Woodard; beaten, blinded by police in 1946 |url=https://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-isaac-woodard/ |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=Wellesnet {{!}} Orson Welles Web Resource |language=en-US |archive-date=January 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116102236/https://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-isaac-woodard/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

For several years, he wrote a newspaper column on political issues and considered running for the U.S. Senate in 1946, representing his home state of Wisconsin—a seat ultimately won by [[Joseph McCarthy]].<ref name=Callow />

Welles's political activities were reported on pages 155–157 of ''[[Red Channels]]'', the [[anti-Communist]] publication that, in part, fueled the already flourishing [[Hollywood Blacklist]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/4-cwhomefront/1-mccarthyism/Red_Channels/index.html | title=Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television (1950) | date=July 18, 2012 | work=AuthenticHistory.com | access-date=May 30, 2015 | archive-date=May 3, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150503083656/http://www.authentichistory.com/1946-1960/4-cwhomefront/1-mccarthyism/Red_Channels/index.html | url-status=live }}</ref> He was in Europe during the height of the [[Red Scare]], thereby adding another reason for the Hollywood establishment to ostracize him.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/06/mcb1-j16.html |title=Orson Welles, the blacklist and Hollywood filmmaking – Part 1 |last1=Walsh |first1=David |last2=Laurier |first2=Joanne |date=June 16, 2009 |website=World Socialist Website |access-date=April 8, 2018 |archive-date=April 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180408205823/https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/06/mcb1-j16.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1970, Welles narrated (but did not write) a satirical political record on the rise of President [[Richard Nixon]] titled ''[[The Begatting of the President]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Presidents We Imagine: Two Centuries of White House Fictions on the Page, on the Stage, Onscreen, and Online.|url=https://archive.org/details/presidentsweimag00smit|url-access=limited|last=Smith|first=Jeff|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-299-23184-2|location=Madison|pages=[https://archive.org/details/presidentsweimag00smit/page/n335 321]|id={{ProQuest|<!-- insert ProQuest data here --> }}}}}</ref> In the late 1970s, Welles referred to [[Josip Tito]] as "the greatest man in the world today" on Yugoslav television.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Asprey Gear |first1=Matthew |title=At the End of the Street in the Shadow Orson Welles and the City |date=2016 |publisher=Columbia University Press |page=198}}</ref>

Welles spoke before a crowd of 700,000 at a nuclear disarmament rally in Central Park on June 12, 1982, and attacked the policies of President Reagan and the Republican Party.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Orson Welles at 1982 anti-nuke rally |website=[[YouTube]] |date=December 14, 2016 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQPff-EdXCg |language=en |access-date=November 11, 2022 |archive-date=November 11, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221111120102/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQPff-EdXCg&gl=US&hl=en |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[American: An Odyssey to 1947]]'', a documentary by [[Danny Wu]] that looks at Welles's life against the political landscape of the 1930s and 40s, had its premiere at the [[Newport Beach Film Festival]] in 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |last=wellesnet |date=September 12, 2022 |title='American' director talks Orson Welles, politics |url=https://www.wellesnet.com/american-director-talks-orson-welles-politics/ |access-date=November 11, 2022 |website=Wellesnet {{!}} Orson Welles Web Resource |language=en-US |archive-date=September 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220928114546/https://www.wellesnet.com/american-director-talks-orson-welles-politics/ |url-status=live }}</ref>