Ashton Stevens

Ashton Stevens

Ashton P. Stevens (August 11, 1872 – July 12, 1951) was an American journalist regarded as the dean of American drama critics. His newspaper column appeared in The San Francisco Examiner and later in the Chicago Herald-American. He was theatre critic for the Hearst Newspapers for 50 years, 40 of them in Chicago. The character of Jedediah Leland in the film Citizen Kane is based on Stevens, a close boyhood friend of Orson Welles.