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George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor and filmmaker. Remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre, he is considered among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.

George Orson Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the younger of two sons of Richard Head Welles and Beatrice Ives Welles (née Beatrice Lucy Ives). He was named after one of his great-grandfathers, Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head, and his brother George Head. Orson's brother, Richard Ives Welles, who was ten years older, struggled with mental health problems and was often institutionalized. Despite his family's affluence, Welles encountered hardship when his parents separated and moved to Chicago in 1919. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a type of bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother was a concert pianist who had studied with the pianist-composer Leopold Godowsky. She played during lectures by Dudley Crafts Watson at the Art Institute of Chicago to support her younger son and herself. Welles received piano and violin lessons arranged by his mother. Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital on May 10, 1924, just after Welles's ninth birthday. The Gordon String Quartet, which had made its first appearance at her home in 1921, played at Beatrice's funeral. After his mother died, Welles ceased pursuing a musical career. It was decided he would spend the summer with the Watson family at a private art colony established by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward in the village of Wyoming in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. There he played and became friends with the children of Aga Khan, including the 12-year-old Prince Aly Khan. Then, in what Welles later described as "a hectic period", he lived in a Chicago apartment with his father and Maurice Bernstein, a Chicago physician who had been a close friend of his parents. Welles attended public school before his alcoholic father left business altogether and took him along on travels to Jamaica and the Far East. When they returned, they settled in a hotel his father owned in Grand Detour, Illinois. 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 was never really a young boy, you know", said Roger Hill, who became Welles's teacher and lifelong friend. Welles attended public school in Madison, Wisconsin, enrolled in the fourth grade. On September 15, 1926, he entered the Todd Seminary for Boys, an expensive independent school in Woodstock, Illinois, that his older brother had attended until he was expelled. At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who was later the school's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that allowed Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged theatrical experiments and productions.

"Todd provided Welles with many valuable experiences", wrote critic Richard France. "He was able to explore and experiment in an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement. In addition to a theatre, the school's own radio station was at his disposal." Welles's first radio experience was on that station, performing his own adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. On December 28, 1930, when Welles was 15, his father died of heart and kidney failure in a hotel in Chicago, aged 58. Shortly before, Welles had told his father that he refused to see him until he stopped drinking. Welles suffered lifelong guilt and despair that he was unable to express. "That was the last I ever saw of him", Welles told biographer Barbara Leaming 53 years later. "I don't want to forgive myself." His father's will left Welles to name his own guardian. When Roger Hill declined, he chose Dr. Bernstein. Following graduation from Todd in May 1931, Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard College; his mentor Roger Hill advised him to attend Cornell College in Iowa. Instead, Welles chose travel. He studied for a few weeks at the Art Institute of Chicago with Boris Anisfeld, who encouraged him to pursue painting. Welles occasionally returned to Woodstock. He was asked in a 1960 interview, "Where is home?" and replied, "I suppose it's Woodstock, Illinois, if it's anywhere... If I try to think of a home, it's that."

Available at this venue:

• Wheelchair-accessible entrance
• Wheelchair-accessible seating
• Wheelchair-accessible toilet
• Wheelchair-accessible parking

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