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"The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman, who is best known for his Oscar-winning performance as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the The Paper Chase. After a series of acclaimed stage productions, Welles and his Mercury Theatre were offered their own weekly hour-long radio program over the CBS radio network. Here Welles--along with Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Joseph Cotten, Alice Frost, Martin Gabel, and others--presented powerful adaptations of literary classics with Bernard Herrman as composer and conductor.Considered by many critics as the finest dramatic hour on radio, The Mercury Theatre on the Air was without a sponsor until a single broadcast changed all that: The War of the Worlds.Episodes include ""Dracula,"" starring Martin Gabel, Agnes Moorehead, George Coulouris, Ray Collins, and Karl Swenson; ""A Tale of Two Cities,"" starring Martin Gabel, Ray Collins, Edgar Barrier, Frank Readick, and Kenny Delmar; ""Abraham Lincoln,"" starring Orson Welles as Lincoln, plus Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Karl Swenson, Agnes Moorehead, Carl Frank, and William Allen; ""The Count of Monte Cristo,"" starring Orson Welles, Ray Collins, Eustace Wyatt, George Coulouris, and Edgar Barrier; ""The Immortal Sherlock Holmes,"" starring Orson Welles, Ray Collins, Edgar Barrier, Alfred Shirley, William Allen, and Arthur Anderson; ""Around the World in Eighty Days,"" starring Orson Welles, Al Swenson, Arlene Francis, Edgar Barrier, Frank Readick, and Ray Collins."

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9781483008691

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Orson Welles (1915-1985) was an iconic Academy Award-winning director, writer, actor, and producer for film, stage, radio, and television. He won the 1941 Academy Award for best original screenplay for Citizen Kane and in 1970 received the Academy Honorary Award. Known for his baritone voice, he was well regarded as a radio and film actor, a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor, and an accomplished magician. He first gained notoriety for his October 30, 1938, radio broadcast of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Winner of multiple awards, he is now widely acknowledged as one of the most important dramatic artists of the twentieth century. In 2002, two British Film Institute polls of directors and critics voted Orson Welles the greatest film director of all time.

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