You probably have seen that classic movie Citizen Kane and you probably also know that Orson Welles loosely based his Kane character on William Randolph Hearst, but you probably haven’t heard this little story about Welles and Hearst that I’m sharing here, which came my way a few decades ago. I offer this tale as my holiday gift to my fellow DK diarists — I hope you all enjoy it.
During the time I shared an upstairs apartment in Oakland with an Oakland native named Doug, he spoke more than once about his visit to Hearst Castle, and somewhere along the way he told me something a guard there told him about Welles and Hearst. Welles admitted in his later years that he regretted the making of CK in some ways, and it’s not hard to understand why — Hearst reacted angrily, using the power of his personal media empire to thwart Welles’ career in every way possible, making life very hard for the young filmmaker. One might wonder why someone trying to start a Hollywood career would have recklessly chosen to skewer a man with such media clout — what did Welles have against Hearst?
At the time that I first saw Citizen Kane I knew little about the real history of Mr. Hearst, though when the kidnapping of granddaughter Patty started generating headlines, I did pick up a few details from the news accounts. Not long after I hitched a ride to the Bay Area, I took note of the name Hearst Ave. on a street sign at the northwest corner of the U.C. Berkeley campus.
Soon after finding a room in the East Bay in 1978, I got invited to a dinner at a house on Hearst Ave. Walking along the sidewalk vendors on Telegraph Ave. in the section just south of the U.C. Berkeley campus, I had stopped at the table of a group calling itself The Community Concern Project which I suspected of having a hidden religious proselytizing agenda, and the slight hesitation I showed soon resulted in an invitation to a free dinner. I had no interest in joining a religious cult, but I decided I’d accept the free dinner and listen to the rhetoric. When I arrived at the address, near the top of Hearst Ave., my first thought was, “Whoever this group is, they must have a lot of money!” That house looked quite impressive from the outside, and equally impressive on the inside.
Some months later, I had a conversation with Doug where I recounted my recent exchanges with local religious proselytizers. He mentioned the Moonies, and I told him, “I’ve met all of them except the Moonies.” I proceeded to name the various groups, and when I got to the Community Concern bunch, he smiled at me and said, “The Moonies.” I started to tell him about how they had made no reference to Rev. Moon during our interactions, but he then told me that they had invited me to dinner at the Hearst Mansion near the top of Hearst Ave. Doug’s comment revealed to me not only the source of the money that had purchased that impressive house in the current era, and that kept it in very good shape, but also identified the source of the money that had built the mansion in the first place.
Our conversations about Hearst expanded, and he happily related his experience of visiting Hearst Castle in San Simeon. During his visit, a guard had confided to him a couple of gems that answered the question about Welles and Hearst. Back in the ‘20s and ‘30s, WRH often hosted parties at San Simeon for Hollywood elites, having them sign his guest book while they were there. That guest book was, and probably still is, a part of the state park exhibition area, viewable by the general public. According to what the guard told Doug, Orson Welles came to one of those gatherings, along with a couple of friends, but by the time he arrived, he had violated Hearst’s number one party rule — he was stinking drunk. Hearst apparently did not allow alcohol at his Hollywood elite parties, perhaps out of concern that one of his guests might carelessly damage some of the priceless artwork on display in the big party room. Regardless of the reason, Hearst had Welles and his friends thrown out, and had their names removed from his guest register, so no official trace of their visit would remain. What did an angry Orson Welles do in return? Citizen Kane.
Hearst hated the movie so much, he tried to have the original print bought and burned. What angered Hearst most about the film? Quite likely it was the way the movie began and ended with the word rosebud. Evidently Welles somehow learned that Hearst had a very personal association with that word, and according to the guard, it had nothing to do with a sled, but was actually WRH’s pet name for the little man in the boat belonging to one of his lovers. I have no way of knowing whether the story Doug heard from the guard is true, but I would bet that it is, and if so, then it very well explains an interesting little bit of history.