The War of the Worlds Murder - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,9
as surprised as Jewel, however, when she came rushing breathlessly into the cabin with news that a phone call from the famous young radio actor awaited next door...
...where Gibson gave both his wife and his message-screening cousin a long cool look that told them this was business and that they were dismissed, and the two were reluctantly taking their leave when the writer brought the receiver to his ear.
“Do I have the honor of speaking to my illustrious father?”
The deep voice on the other end of the line, filtered through long-distance, had the processed sound of the Shadow on the air, attempting to frighten that week’s evildoer.
Gibson, however, neither frightened nor impressed easily.
“Hello, Mr. Welles,” he said.
The two men had met exactly once, at a Society of Magicians gathering in Manhattan where the radio actor had performed as a perfectly respectable amateur magician—respectable for a celebrity, at least.
“This is a much overdue call,” Welles said, amusement and something like chagrin in his formidable voice. “I have been told that...in the beginning...” The latter had proper Biblical weight. “...you personally recommended me to the Shadow’s sponsor.”
Gibson had indeed pointed the way toward Welles as an ideal radio Shadow—he had been impressed with Welles’s stagecraft (even if his magic was merely competent) and by his rich, worldly voice. Also, Welles had done work on The March of Time radio show that had bowled both Gibson and Jewel over; so when the Shadow creator’s counsel was sought in matters of casting, he’d thought immediately of Welles.
In fact he had said, “There’s only one actor on the face of the earth who, using only his voice, can do justice to the Shadow.”
Nonetheless, this was Gibson’s first direct contact (since that Society of Magic gathering, where they’d been introduced and shared a few words) with the actor who had brought his character to life, and to radio fame.
“I may have played a small role in getting you that part, Mr. Welles,” Gibson admitted. “But you’ve more than made up for it by boosting the circulation of The Shadow Magazine with your fine work.”
“Very kind of you, Walter—may I call you Walter?”
“If I might risk Orson, certainly.”
“Please!” Welles’s warm laugh had nothing to do with the Shadow’s sinister one. “Walter, I know we’re going to be great friends.”
Gibson shook his head—actors. “The last time I saw you...Orson...was on the cover of Time. What’s the occasion?”
Welles dove right in: “Walter, I have an interesting offer from Hollywood. They’ve made several lousy pictures out there about our character, as I’m sure you know.”
Our character apparently meant the Shadow. Gibson smiled to himself at this presumption, but kept this reaction out of his voice as he replied: “You’re telling me? The wife and I walked out on both of ’em.”
Welles chuckled. “Frankly, I didn’t bother going. People I trusted warned me off. I mean, honestly, Walter, with a character as wonderful and famous as ours, how could they? I mean, Rod LaRocque! Didn’t he single-handedly kill off silent pictures?”
“I don’t know about that, Orson—but he made a good stab at killing off talkies with those two crummy Shadow pictures.”
“Agreed! Warner Brothers agrees, as well. They are prepared to make up for those B-movie embarrassments, if we can come up with a worthy scenario.”
“A top-budget affair this time? With a first-rate director, and a real star, you mean?”
“Precisely!”
“What director?”
“Why me, of course.”
“And the star?”
“You’re speaking to him!”
“...Have you ever directed before, Orson? I mean, a moving picture?”
Welles did not miss a beat: “Actually, my dear fellow, I have taken a few experimental steps—I made a short film as a student, and recently I dabbled in the art for a stage production we did of Gillette’s farce, Too Much Johnson, with the Mercury players.”
“Ah,” Gibson said noncomittally.
“But the point is I have been staging plays with a cinema director’s eye from the beginning—you’ve heard of my voodoo Macbeth, and my Nazi-ified Julius Caesar, no doubt?”
Gibson had; he followed the radio Shadow’s career with a certain proprietary interest...and anyway, the Time magazine article had covered all of that and more.
“Where would I come in?” Gibson asked.
“I’m told there’s nothing you can’t write.”
Smiling to himself again, Gibson thought: he knows this secondhand; he doesn’t read the magazine featuring “our” character, apparently....
“Well, that’s true,” Gibson said. Welles wasn’t the only one who could afford to be immodest. “But where did you hear it, Orson?”
“Our mutual friends among the magic community, of course.”
“Ah,” Gibson said again. Nothing noncommital about it, this time.