ABSTRACT
Who can say when Orson Welles first encountered Shakespeare? As always with Welles, some tales are taller than others. We hear of a teenage Orson reading the Collected Works while tramping across North Africa. We hear of a ten-year-old Orson declaiming King Lear to his parents. We hear of Orson’s mother teaching her son to read by means of the Bard. We learn that his mother’s name was Beatrice and wonder whether his Shakespearian wit didn’t grow in utero.
