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
The Orson Welles Almanac label, all of them recorded August–November 1944 by the group Ertegun renamed Kid Ory's Creole Jazz Band. "Viewed in perspective," Ertegun later wrote, "they are among the most significant jazz records ever made: they gave eloquent proof of the continuing vitality of New Orleans jazz at a time when such proof was needed." Broadcast July 19, 1944, from the Coast Guard camp in Long Beach, California, the final episode of "The Orson Welles Almanac" ends with a five-minute reading by Welles, "a short story, especially written for me to broadcast by one of the first talents in American literature, John