The Orson Welles Show (radio series) debut of "The Hitch-Hiker", an original radio play by Lucille Fletcher (wife of Bernard Herrmann) that has become a classic of suspense. On the broadcast of December 29, 1941, Rita Hayworth was the guest player; this was the first meeting between Welles and Hayworth, who were married in September 1943. Welles concluded the final broadcast of "The Orson Welles Show" February 2, 1942, with a statement: "Tomorrow night the Mercury Theatre starts for South America. The reason, put more or less officially, is that I've been asked by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to do a motion
Orson Welles in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show soon failed due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. In 1946, Welles began two new radio series—"The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air" for CBS, and "Orson Welles Commentaries" for ABC. While "Mercury Summer Theatre" featured half-hour adaptations of some classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his "Around the World" stage play, and is the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as