History
Orson Welles had decided to make a musical out of one of his favorite childhood books, Around the World in Eighty Days. He wanted an entire circus on stage, a train running through the West, and had other extravagant production ideas. He raised money from Mike Todd, the producer William Goetz, and the holder of the European rights to the title, Alexander Korda. However, he had no money left for a star cast and used performers who were not well known. According to Charles Higham (writer of a highly critical Welles biography) "Porter wrote the songs far too quickly and badly".
The show had a cast of 70 and included four mechanical elephants and 54 stage hands. Mike Todd pulled out, and Welles put up his own money. He also borrowed from Columbia Pictures president, Harry Cohn, on a promise to write, produce, direct and star in a film for Cohn for no fee. He kept his promise, making the film The Lady from Shanghai.
Playwright John van Druten described the musical as "enormous fun" and Joshua Logan said it was "fresh, witty, magical, exciting". However, with no story and unclear relationships between the characters, the show closed quickly, with Welles losing his savings, and the investors losing "large sums".
Read more about this topic: Around The World (musical)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)