Here’s a lovely clip from a 1970-ish Dick Cavett show featuring an interview with Orson Welles. Here, Welles trots out a few anecdotes that are popular in his repetoire but still delightful to hear from the great man himself. And trying to separate fact from fiction with Welles is always a fun game to indulge in. Did he really meet Hitler as an adolescent when traveling through Europe? Did Churchill really do the bowing bit to help him get more money for his movie? Welles was a story-teller above all and if these tales are even remotely fictitious, so much the better; he was happy to turn his unusually colorful life into entertainment for those who enjoyed his bluster, charm and sly humor. This reminds me of a time when I asked Peter Bogdanovich if he found Welles intimidating when he first met him. His answer was yes–but only for about one minute. Soon Welles was speaking to Peter as if to an old friend–as he did to everyone he met (except apparently for people whose first question to him was about ‘Citizen Kane’). I’ve had the honor of knowing a number of fascinating show-biz personalities over the years but the two I most regret not meeting were Welles and Gore Vidal. I even had connections who could have wangled me an audience with each man but somehow it never came to be. On the other hand, there are any number of famous and accomplished people who I’m delighted to have never met, but we’ll discuss Jerry Lewis another time.