Orson Welles

A bit of little known Orson Welles trivia…..

In my Raymond Burr post a while back I made reference to the 1957 20th Century Fox filming of THE LONG HOT SUMMER (based on Faulkner’s THE HAMLET) starring Paul Newman, Angela Lansbury and Orson Welles.  Welles’ character, Will Varner, is a land baron and agricultural tycoon. What few know about Orson Welles is that, being the great multi-talented theatrical genius that he was, he never learned to drive an automobile. In this film Welles' character, Will Varner,  is often seen driving his jeep on his considerable spread of land.  From a distance what you’d see was Welles' stunt double doing the actual driving. When the jeep would pull in close to the camera, then Welles himself would get behind the wheel and a truck with a long solid tow-bar not visible to the camera would pull the jeep in for the close-up of Welles with his hands firmly gripping the steering wheel.

Back to HOME page and TABLE OF CONTENTS