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 and Dr. Maurice Bernstein, a Chicago physician who had been a close friend of both his parents. Welles briefly attended public school before his alcoholic father left business altogether and took him along on his travels to Jamaica and the Far East. When they returned they settled in a hotel in Grand Detour, Illinois, that was owned by his father. When the hotel burned down, Welles and his father took to the road again. "During the three years that Orson lived with his father, some observers wondered who took care of whom", wrote biographer Frank Brady. "In some ways, he