Evening star., 1942-09-06

duly to have been included, but this
one has been omitted and, we are
unimpeachably informed, the kid
is very sensitive on the subject.
Well, the fact that William Is a
writer has been gnawing steadily
on that Achilles heel, jabbing it,
giving it the old pepper. crossing it
with right, trampling it and water
ing 1t tenderly to make corns grow
on it. But Orson has never so much
as given a single tell-tale vince.
And only the few writer's who have
worked for Orson and no outsiders
at all so much as suspect: % That
Welles can't write at all; CD that he's
sensitive about it.
We came in on the middle of this
battle for acclaim and will have to
dispense with preliminaries. When
we followed our chin into Orson's fur
lined cottage in Hollywood a while
ago, both boys had taken their
stance and were letting the heavy
stuff go. Said Orson: What kind
of a fellow is Saroyan?" Said me:
II don't know" This was true. I
only know what he pretends to be
and what he thinks he is. Said
Orson: "It's very embarrassing to
me. Wherever Saroyan goes in this
country, they ask him what he
thinks of me. Wonderful he says,
marvellous, a genius Wherever I
go, they ask me what I think Of him.
In fN1I {hr al
1 have to tell the truth about him
and it's very embarrassing because
I think his stuff stinks"
Printing for Round Two.
AS far as we were concerned. that
was the first round. The battle has
been ding-dong ever since. During
this week it reached kind Of cli-
max. william has just topped
grotesquely on his face right out ir1
public with two of his plays having
been panned by one and all. Orson
hasn't done too we'll either, his pic
ture THE Magnificent Ambersons"
having been patted in an impolite
place.
So the battlers were pretty even
when coming out of their corners.
William led off with a question to
Variety, the theatrical trade paper:
When are you guys going to break
DOWN." he asked, land admit that
I'm the greatest living playwright"
Variety reported the question with
out answering it.
Leading off with a question, even
a rhetorical one, is sign of weak
ness. Orson never asked nobody
nothing. He just trundled his band
wagon around from joint to joint
in the Broadway district. When
Orson sits on his bandwagon in a
joint, the Joint twitches like it's got
neuralgia. He is 6 feet and has
long black hair which flies through
the air like the smoke OF flax and
has laugh that starts from his toes
and rumbles up his frame like a
landslide going backward and
bursts into the air with an uproar
past conceiving.
Next Round Coming.
Whenever a little silence settles
on a joint. Orson laughs. Who is
that guy?" we heard one man ask.
"Orson Welles," came the reply.
"Who is Orson Welles?" the man
persisted stubbornly. Hes that
genius, you know" oh" the man
said and stared with interest. Orson
fiuffed his hair. He must be lip
reader. Anyway, he laughed again.
Anyway, some spirited fact
finder strode right up to the gargan-
tuan bandwagon and asked Orson
what he thought of THE Magnifi-
cent Ambersons." If you expected
any discontinue to appear, you
would have been disappointed:
II haven't even seen it," rumbled
the bandwagon. "I don't expect to.
They cut it without me. What can
you expect?"
William is now pondering this de-
fense from a flop on the face and
no doubt will give better account
of himself in the next round.