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Monday 13th February

Me And Orson Welles By Robert Kaplow

Posted at 11:02AM Tuesday 30 Dec 2008

Me and Orson Welles
ISBN: 9780099531807

Me and Orson Welles is an enchanting coming-of-age story set in 1930s Manhattan, on Broadway to be exact. Its hero, 17-year-old New Jersey-born Richard Samuels, has a great many ideas about himself, all steeped in stage and screen. Gazing in the mirror, Richard routinely detects "the earnestness of Gary Cooper, the playfulness of Cary Grant, and maybe just a whisper of Astaire". Might he, too, be somebody? The Jewish Noël Coward, say? He ponders star quality. When did it happen? How did you know?

Richard is a romantic lead waiting to happen. The girls he meets say just the right things, such as: "I'd give my blood to write any notes as beautiful as the first five notes to 'Small Hotel'". But they just want advice on how to get dates with his pals. "Pounce," his sharp friends tell him, on to the "librarian"-type women who do come his way – but it's not his style.

Then something utterly amazing happens. Walking past a crowd assembled outside the old Comedy Theatre on West 41st Street, Richard glimpses the 22-year-old Orson Welles, throwing a temper tantrum.

Tags: Susie Boyt | Fiction

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