The man who would be Kane

My rockstar colleague Scott (a vast reservoir of useless information) was chatting to me earlier this morning about the sad last days of Orson Welles. Apart from a number of odd fringe industry jobs, he had a stint on TV as the official endorser for Paul Masson (Gallo etc. I think). Check out this outtake:

Orson Welles, drunk on set

and this cartoon:

Blotto Bros. wine

and this commercial:

Will sell no wine before its time

And here is a really sad piece of trivia from the all knowing Wiki:

Welles in his later years was unable to get funding for his many film scripts, but came close with The Big Brass Ring and The Cradle Will Rock: Arnon Milchan had agreed to produce The Big Brass Ring if any one of six actors – Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, or Burt Reynolds – would sign on to star. All six declined for various reasons. Independent funding for The Cradle Will Rock had been obtained and actors had signed on, including Rupert Everett to play the young Orson Welles, location filming was to be done in New York City with studio work in Italy. While pre-production went without a problem, three weeks before filming was to begin the money fell through. Allegedly Welles approached Steven Spielberg to ask for assistance in rescuing the film, but Spielberg declined. The scripts to both films were published posthumously. After a studio auction, he complained that Steven Spielberg spent $50,000 for the Rosebud sled used in Citizen Kane, but would not give him a dime to make a picture. Welles retaliated by publicly announcing the sled to be a fake, the original having been burned in the film, but he later recanted the claim.

This was the guy who critics say made the most famous movie in the history of the industry. Many say he ultimately become Kane.