Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2014 March 21 • Friday

Strangely enough, two books of transcriptions of tape recorded conversations with Orson Welles came out in 2013. My Lunches with Orson is the more superficial one and the one that got all the attention. People who are interested in seeing what's below the surface should check out Todd Tarbox's Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts.

Roger Hill was the headmaster at Orson Welles's school. As such he was a mentor, an inspiration, practically a foster parent and a very close life-long friend. Around the same time that Henry Jaglom was taping his lunch conversations with Orson, Roger Hill was taping their phone conversations, for use in his memoir.

Todd Tarbox, Roger Hill's grandson, has presented these conversations, along with correspondence between the two and other writings, in the form of a play, to give the material some shape. There are also fascinating photographs and ephemera. This is certainly a book Welles admirers and scholars will need.