Me and Mr Welles: Travelling Europe with a Hollywood Legend

by Dorian Bond

‘I’ll tell you another thing, Dorian. Don’t ever give people what you think they want. Give them what they never conceived as possible.’In late autumn 1968, Dorian Bond was tasked with travelling to Yugoslavia to deliver cigars and film stock to the legendary Hollywood director Orson Welles. The pair soon struck up an unlikely friendship, and Welles offered Bond the role of his personal assistant – as well as a part in his next movie. No formal education could prepare him for the journey that would ensue.This fascinating memoir follows Welles and Bond across Europe during the late 1960s as they visit beautiful cities, stay at luxury hotels, and reminisce about Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, among others. It is filled with Welles’ characteristic acerbic wit – featuring tales about famous movie stars such as Laurence Olivier, Marlene Dietrich and Steve McQueen – and is a fresh insight into both the man and his film-making.Set against the backdrop of the student riots of ’68, the Vietnam War, the Manson killings, the rise of Roman Polanski, the Iron Curtain, and Richard Nixon’s presidency, Me and Mr Welles is a unique look at both a turbulent time and one of cinema’s most charismatic characters.

Genres: Media Tie In

232 pages, Paperback

Published April 9, 2018

Reviews

[Anthony Stancomb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful memoir written by someone who lived very closely with Orson Welles during the years when the world was against him.
During this period we see Welles desparately struggling to keep afloat, both financially and artistically, and resorting to numerous skuldudgeries to keep producing,
An extraordinary tale of their relationship and how Welles used to 'use' the people he worked with as he gyrated around Europe, never quite finishing most of the films he worked on for the last decades of his life.
A penetrating look into the mind of the great man and an amusing commentary by both Welles and the author on the Hollywood 'Greats' that they had dealings with during their time together.
Written with wry humour and a crisp style, the book should be prescribed reading for any young person starting their career in the film world.

[F.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll be honest, this book could have done with another edit and proof, but I had a lot of fun with it, anyway. Dorian Bond was a gopher/dogsbody to Welles in the late sixties, during one of his periods in Europe. The films they worked on together were THE DEEP, DON QUOITXE and THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. None of which were ever completed. It means this is a part of the great man’s story largely brushed over by biographies. (Although I’m sure Callow’s forthcoming volume will give some attention to these projects.) It’s a peek behind the curtain, a glimpse of a man who has somewhat lost his way, who no longer has the focus to finish what he starts. As a result, Welles comes across as a more real, if sadder, person than the great-man legend often allows. Yes, we know he never finished another narrative film after CHIMES OF MIDNIGHT, but what did that mean on a day-to-day basis? What was it like having film in labs all over Europe but being unable to pay the bills to get the processed footage released? How do you stay in some of the fanciest hotels whilst still living hand to mouth?

As I say, this book needs a polish, but it goes some way to answering those questions.