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James Cromwell co-stars as William Randolph Hearst Welles & Hearst meet in an elevator Hearst & Marion Davies Welles and Mankiewicz toast Kane The Citizen Kane Premiere Liev Schreiber stars as Orson Welles RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281 RKO 281

18 photos

View the latest pictures, photos and images from RKO 281 - Coming to Hollywood as a celebrated boy genius featuring a spectacular career arc in New York including his "War of the Worlds" radio hoax, Orson Welles is stymied on the subject for his first film. After a dinner party at Hearst Castle, during which he has a verbal altercation with Hearst, Welles decides to do a movie about Hearst. It takes him some time to convince co-writer Herman Mankiewicz and the studio, but Welles eventually gets the script and the green light, keeping the subject very hush-hush with the press. When a rough cut is screened, Hearst gets wind of the movie's theme and begins a campaign to see that it is not only never publicly screened, but destroyed.