ORSON WELLES | He Was in My Dad's Dublin Crowd

Young Orson Welles

April 5, 2021—Orson Welles was the topic of the next event at 192 Books and the Paula Cooper Gallery, at 22nd Street and Tenth Avenue in Manhattan, on March 25. The location (a block away from where Alice and I live in New York City) is at 192 Tenth Avenue

David Thomson authored of more than twenty-five books, including The Biographical Dictionary of Film, biographies of Orson Welles and David O. Selznick. Thomson has used his biography of Welles as a base for a more comprehensive review of the history of movie directors, The Light in the Dark.

Michael Barker interviews. He is co-president and co-founder, with Tom Bernard, of Sony Pictures Classics, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Previously he was an executive at United Artists (1980–1983) and co-founder of Orion Classics (1983–1991). This talk is recorded— https://mailchi.mp/192books/david-thomson-in-conversation-with-michael-barker-1243200.

A Family Connection

Orson Welles has a connection to my parents, Spike Marlin (1909-1994) and his then-fiancée Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006). My father was a student at Trinity College, Dublin and my mother was a student at the Dublin School of Art in 1931, when Welles, 16 years old, got a part at Dublin's Gate Theate playing the Duke in a new play, Jew Suss. Stories of Welles's early days in Ireland are brilliantly told here: https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/genius-in-the-making-orson-welles-in-ireland-34237664.html.

One evening Welles came to dinner— a week early. Probably it was a confusion over the word “next” as in “next Thursday” (...but not this Thursday). Even then, Welles had made himself famous (his theater career began at 16 in 1931), and my mother was in conniptions. She pulled a dinner together... . 

The life of Orson Welles has been the subject of three recent documentaries. https://scriptmag.com/features/it-depends-is-your-story-idea-safe-one-shared-idea-three-unique-films. My sister Lis tells the story that our Dad Spike (and maybe Hilda, says my sister Brigid) were having breakfast in New York City when Welles suddenly said, “Must go, I am getting married this morning!" His first marriage was in 1934, so it must have been to Virginia Nicolson, to whom he stayed married until 1940. He married Rita Hayworth in 1943 and stayed with her until 1947. He married Paola Mori in 1955 and stayed with her until 1985. His biography lists two "partners": Dolores del Río (1940–43) and Oja Kodar (1966–85). He seems to have been serially monogamous until 1966. All that must be in Thomson's biography.

Six of the Trinity Crowd in Dublin, 1930-32

These are his contemporaries that Orson Welles glommed onto in Dublin:

• John Cyril Donnelly. Born in Dublin, Ireland on 2 Apr 1912 to John Herbert Donnelly (1876-1956) and Gertrude Mabel Robinson (1885-1982). He passed away on 29 Jun 1948 on Pershing Av, Lima, Peru. 
• Christopher ("Christo") Gore-Grimes.
• David Grene, who went to the University of Chicago. One of his sons is at Trinity College, Dublin and the other has a band focusing on Irish music. Alice and I have met the latter. David was deeply distressed, says his son, about Willem’s love affair with the Provost’s daughter Pic Gwynn.
• Ervin Ross ("Spike") Marlin, who married Hilda van Stockum. They had six children, one of whom is your blogger (#5, second youngest). 
• Owen Sheehy ("Skeff") Skeffington. He wrote a book. When Spike was in Dublin during the war, working for the OSS, he looked up Skeffington. Lis says that when she started at Trinity, Skeffington “gave us an introductory lecture. He said everyone loves Ireland because Ireland has never done anything for another country so nobody owes it anything.”
• Willem van Stockum, brother of Hilda van Stockum (my mother), who married Spike Marlin. He had a love affair with Pic Gwynn, who wanted to marry him but was overruled by her father, Trinity College Provost Edward John Gwynn. https://www.tcd.ie/provost/addresses/2018%20-%202019/2019-02-07-Launch-Gwynn-Family-Papers-%27A-Splendid-Tradition.php. (A father could do that kind of thing then.) Gwynn was doubtless concerned about someone taking his daughter away to Holland or the United States. That was the objection of Marconi's Irish mother to the marriage of Guglielmo Marconi to Inez Milholland (they were engaged for months). In a twist of fate, Willem's uncle Eugen married Inez instead of Marconi (she proposed to Eugen on a boat in 1916; Marconi said that Eugen was better suited to her). Inez said later, "The radio is wonderful but on reflection I wouldn't want to be married to one." Willem never married. He volunteered for air force service when his country was invaded and he trained in Canada. He piloted a bomber during the week of D-Day. A monument has been erected in France, near Laval, to him and his crew.  The story of Pic and Willem is well told in Time Bomber by Robert Wack (2014), for example on pages 27, 84-85. https://www.amazon.com/Time-Bomber-Robert-P-Wack/dp/0984523286