masses of listeners had never been more worried. Days before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, Leni Riefenstahl—German filmmaker and rumored mistress of the Führer—was in Manhattan promoting her documentary about the 1936 Olympics, finding critical acceptance and public hostility. Meanwhile in Rome, the voice of fascism—the newspaper II Tevere—ordered the boycott of the films of Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and the Ritz Brothers, the humor of these Jewish filmmakers condemned as “not Aryan.”
And the looming war was not the sole source of American jitters—earlier in 1938, a hurricane had hit the East Coast with devastating power; and, the year previous, the first disaster ever to be broadcast live exposed thousands to the explosion of the Hindenburg. When the German zeppelin caught fire at its mooring in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the announcer had been in the midst of describing the huge craft’s grandeur, only to witness...and report in “on the spot” fashion...the bursting flames and the dying people and all the ensuing chaos. His sobs—even his retching—had gone out over the air waves, “live”....
Just four days before the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, CBS’s prestigious (if little-listened-to) Columbia Workshop aired a verse play by Archibald MacLeish: “Air Raid.” Orson Welles listened to the production on a break rehearsing Danton’s Death, because he had loaned his friend and Mercury regular, Ray Collins, to the production to be its narrator, a mock announcer reporting an air raid from a European tenement rooftop—the whine of attacking planes could be heard, the explosions of their dropped bombs, the sounds of a confused populace running for shelter, machine-gun fire, the screams of victims, including a young boy....
Though written in verse, and clearly a play, the approach invoked a live news report. Welles heard this realistic radio drama a few hours before he made his suggestions to Howard Koch, John Houseman and Paul Stewart, about revising the script for “War of the Worlds” into a collage of broadcasts interrupted by news bulletins.
As one of the participants in the “War of the Worlds” broadcast would reflect many years later, “The American people had been hanging on their radios, getting most of their news no longer from the press, but over the air. A new technique of ‘on-the-spot’ reporting had been developed and eagerly accepted by an anxious and news-hungry world. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, by faithfully copying every detail of the new technique—including its imperfections—found an already enervated audience ready to accept its wildest fantasies....”
CHAPTER FOUR
SHANGHAIED LADY
THOUGH HE’D HAD A GOOD (if dream-troubled) night’s sleep—his breakfast with Orson at the director’s suite had not been till ten A.M.—Walter Gibson felt logy, almost groggy, in the aftermath of the Welles morning repast. Enough orange juice, coffee, eggs, sausage, hash brown potatoes with melted cheese, and assorted muffins and sweet rolls had been delivered by St. Regis butlers to attend the gastric needs of your average lumberjack camp.
Perhaps in an ill-advised effort to keep up with his host, Gibson ate around a Paul Bunyan’s worth. Welles ate easily two Bunyan’s plus one Babe the Blue Ox’s worth to boot, conversation scant, the food commanding the boy-man’s full attention. What conversation had preceded and followed the feast touched little on the Shadow project, concentrating instead on their mutual fascination with magic. Welles inquired how Gibson had developed that interest.
“Just before my tenth birthday,” Gibson said, sitting back, the meal finished, having to work to think, his body and all the blood in it occupied with a major digestive task, “I attended the birthday party of a friend—typical kind of kid celebration, you know....”
Welles, also sitting back, hands folded on his belly (he was again wearing the bathrobe with the hotel crest), said, “I don’t remember attending any birthday parties as a child.”
“Pin the tail on the donkey, games of tag, plenty of cake and ice cream...”
Welles—who loved being on either end of a story, and listened with keen, obvious interest—lighted up one of his pool-cue cigars.
Gibson was saying, “The parents of my young friend, a girl, knew that my birthday was coming up fast, as well, and perhaps out of deference to me, they came up with a special game: each child was presented with a long ribbon that disappeared out of the parlor into the house—a two-story house, Victorian in style. Some ribbons slithered like snakes around the furnishings, to go up and down the stairs, others led out the front and back doors....”
“Walter,” Welles said, sighing smoke, “you paint a vivid picture—as always.”
“Thank you. Anyway,