Orson Welles with an entirely African American cast, and the political musical "The Cradle Will Rock". In 1937 he and John Houseman founded the Mercury Theatre, an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941. Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel "The War of the Worlds" performed for his radio anthology series "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". It reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was actually occurring. Although some contemporary sources say these
Orson Welles to complete the film on Jeanne Moreau's refusal to participate in its dubbing. "Dune", an early attempt at adapting Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel by Chilean film director Alejandro Jodorowsky, was to star Welles as the evil Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Jodorowsky had personally chosen Welles for the role, but the planned film never advanced past pre-production. In 1978 Welles was lined up by his long-time protégé Peter Bogdanovich (who was then acting as Welles's "de facto" agent) to direct "Saint Jack", an adaptation of the 1973 Paul Theroux novel about an American pimp in Singapore. Hugh Hefner and Bogdanovich's then-partner Cybill