John Houseman abandoned in favor of Bram Stoker's "Dracula", with Welles playing the infamous vampire. During an all night session at Perkins' Restaurant, Welles and Houseman hashed out a script. "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" subsequently became famous for its notorious 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds", which had put much of the country in a panic. By all accounts, Welles was shocked by the panic that ensued. According to Houseman, "he hadn't the faintest
Orson Welles Welles was an actor in radio and film, a Shakespearean stage actor, and a magician noted for presenting troop variety shows in the war years. George Orson Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Head Welles (b. Richard Hodgdon Wells, November 12, 1872, near St. Joseph, Missouri; d. December 28, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) and Beatrice Ives Welles (b. Beatrice Lucy Ives, September 1, 1883, Springfield, Illinois; d. May 10, 1924, Chicago). He was named after his paternal great-grandfather, influential Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head, and his brother George Head. An alternative story of the source