His clean-cut ugliness has created a new standard of masculine attractiveness.
--1938 newspaper article

I've been threatening to do this for awhile, and as my current obsession shows no signs of abating, I feel the time has come to inflict it upon you. It's not that Welles' appearance is, by itself, the focus of my interest; but the fact he was a hottie doesn't hurt. But what makes it even more alluring is the genius there, too, and the incredibly sad story of a man who had boundless potential who was thwarted his entire life--though of course, he produced works for theater, radio and film that have stood the test of time. Far from a has-been who reached his peak at too young an age and could never recover his boyish genius (that was the story I always heard), he rather fell prey to the vagaries of Hollywood finance. In fact, he kept fighting and producing, in any way he could, and as anyone who takes a look at 1974's F for Fake must admit, he had his touch well into his final years. I think one of his biggest problems was choosing mediums that required the participation and finance of too many people. The cost of failure was too high--anyone who didn't tow the line didn't get the money.

Anyway, I'm about to start babbling, so on to the photos. I'm afraid they lean heavily towards the younger Welles, but that doesn't mean he wasn't still attractive later. But for me, that lay mainly in the twinkle of his eye, hard to capture in still frames.


During "War of the Worlds"
( george orson welles )
I hope you enjoyed that. I may have gotten a little carried away.