[78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight,

[Elizabeth McLeod]

He was developing a reputation among New York theatre types, but as far 
as being "Orson Welles, Nationally Known Boy Wonder," that didn't happen 
until after War of the Worlds. As Mike mentioned, most of his pre-Mercury 
Theatre radio work had been uncredited -- he wasn't identified by name on 
"The Shadow," although readers of radio-fan publications would have known 
his name, and most of his other radio work prior to 1938 had been 
obscure. He'd done a seven-part dramatization of "Les Miserables" for 
Mutual in the summer of 1937, but it attracted very little attention 
outside of New York. He'd also done several Columbia Workshop programs in 
1936-37 which attracted some critical attention but had negilgible 
listenership. 

The real impact of WOTW, then, wasn't that it Panicked A Nation, but that 
it pretty much singlehandedly created the larger-than-life Orson Welles 
image. WIthout WOTW, there is no Citizen Kane, no Magnificent Ambersons, 
etc. etc. etc.

Elizabeth


on 10/31/11 5:35 PM Cary Ginell wrote:

>
>Did Welles establish any kind of a reputation because of his earlier 
>Mercury Theatre stage presentations, most notably, "Julius Caesar"?
> 
>Cary Ginell
> 
>
>> From: mbiel at mbiel.com
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:21:38 -0700
>> Subject: Re: [78-L] Panic..or myth? (Hey, it was 73 years ago tonight,
>> 
>> From: James Tennyson <jtennyson at sympatico.ca>
>> >> When I first read about the panic when I was a teenager I asked my father
>> >> if he had heard the broadcast. He said that in fact he HAD heard it. He 
>> >> turned the radio on mid broadcast so he hadn't heard the opening of the 
>> >> show. He said he thought" What the hell is is this? " and turned to 
>another 
>> >> few stations which were doing their regular stuff and he realized 
>> >> immediately it was Orson Welles...AND it was Hallowee'en. JRT
>> 
>> If he knew it was Orson Welles, he was one of the probably fifteen
>> people would have known who Welles was outside of the people in NYC
>> broadcasting or theatre. He was still a NOBODY at that time. His
>> Mercury Theatre program had been on for three months of low ratings, and
>> all his earlier radio had been done without named credit. 
>> 
>> 
>> On 10/31/2011 2:40 PM, Rodger Holtin wrote:
>> > Some were truly panicked. My dad's family was happily enjoying Nelson 
>> > Eddy when the old man in their upstairs apartment came downstairs in 
tears 
>> > blubbering about the end of thw world.
>> 
>> As I just posted (after your posting, however) Eddy finished singing at
>> about 6:30 into the program and the Martians had not yet crawled out of
>> their machine, let alone start to destroy the earth. 
>> 
>> What this shows is that even people who DO remember, don't always
>> remember accurately. 
>> 
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