Orson Welles

Welles plays the title role in this 1952 Shakespeare adaptation, which he also directs. The film also stars Suzanne Cloutier and Micheal MacLiammoir. The latter was difficult to woo. He was an old friend of Welles’s, but he thought of acting on the screen as slumming, later telling Welles biographer Charles Higham that Hollywood was “a collection of shacks at the end of a poisoned rainbow.” As for Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona, she was chosen at the end of a long process. The first candidate was Italian Lea Padovani, with whom Welles was locked in a passionate affair. She spoke little English, and ultimately was scratched. Welles briefly considered Cecile Aubry, and then mounted a protracted search. Betsy Blair did some shooting, but was replaced by Cloutier in August of ‘49. They were then shooting in Venice, and would soon move to Rome. Higham claims that a shot in which Welles had to smack Cloutier in the face was particular arduous, since Cloutier would flinch with each ta