Orson Welles

Welles’ later career was comprised, not so much of his directing films, but working as an actor, often as a voice actor. A famous component of this new career-within-a-career was his acting as a spokesperson for Masson wines. However, he also appeared in a couple of advertisements for a British purveyor of frozen foods, and the attempt to tape one of these created a much-ballyhooed incident, one that has become an Internet sensation. Welles may have been having a bad day, may have been frustrated with the role of the pitchman, or may have just been displaying a capacity for throwing tantrums that manifest itself various times in his career. Whatever the case, it wasn’t a good day to be the commercial’s director. Welles was reading the commercial’s copy: “We know a remote farm in Lincolnshire where Mrs. Buckley lives. Every July peas grow there,” when the director interrupted with “I’d start half a second later.” Rather than addressing that direction per se, Welles begins a fen