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60 free Orson Welles trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Orson Welles trivia quiz covers the whole restless career of the man the BFI voted the greatest director ever: the Kenosha prodigy who bluffed his way onto the Dublin stage at 16, the Federal Theatre wunderkind of the Voodoo Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, the radio star of The Shadow and the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast, and the 24-year-old handed the greatest contract Hollywood ever offered. It follows him through Citizen Kane and the war with Hearst, the mutilation of The Magnificent Ambersons, the abandoned It's All True, his marriage to Rita Hayworth and the hall of mirrors in The Lady from Shanghai, Harry Lime and the cuckoo clock speech, the European exile of Othello, Mr. Arkadin and The Trial, the return for Touch of Evil and its 58-page memo, Chimes at Midnight, F for Fake, the unfinished Other Side of the Wind finally released in 2018, and the late years of Paul Masson ads, frozen peas, Magnum P.I. and Unicron. There are only a few Kane questions here; for the film itself, try our Citizen Kane quiz. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on Welles and his films, and each explanation adds one further detail. Play, see your score, and share it with the film buffs in your group chat.
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Q 01In which Wisconsin city was Orson Welles born on May 6, 1915?
Kenosha
He was named after a great-grandfather, Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head.
Q 02Welles's father made his fortune as the inventor of what?
A type of bicycle lamp
He became an alcoholic and stopped working after the parents separated in 1919.
Q 03Welles's mother Beatrice was a concert pianist who died of what when he was nine?
Hepatitis
After her death in 1924 he abandoned any musical career.
Q 04At which Illinois boarding school did Welles come under the influence of teacher Roger Hill?
Todd Seminary for Boys
Its radio station hosted his first broadcast, his own adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.
Q 05Which town did Welles name as 'home' in a 1960 interview?
Woodstock, Illinois
He returned there occasionally all his life.
Q 06At which Dublin playhouse did the 16-year-old Welles debut in 1931 by claiming to be a Broadway star?
The Gate
Manager Hilton Edwards did not believe him but was impressed by his brashness.
Q 07What was Welles's early-1930s series of educational books on the Bard's plays titled?
Everybody's Shakespeare
Later renamed The Mercury Shakespeare, it stayed in print for decades; he drew thousands of illustrations for it in Morocco.
Q 08Which actress's touring repertory company gave Welles his first American stage work in 1933?
Katharine Cornell
Thornton Wilder and Alexander Woollcott arranged the introduction.
Q 09What was Welles's first film, an eight-minute short shot in Woodstock in 1934?
The Hearts of Age
He was 19 and married Chicago socialite Virginia Nicolson that November.
Q 10What nickname did Welles's 1936 all-Black production of the Scottish play get?
Voodoo Macbeth
He moved the setting to a Haitian-style island court; the play opened at Harlem's Lafayette Theatre.
Q 11How large was the cast and company for that Harlem production?
150
At 20, Welles was hailed as a prodigy; the tour included two weeks in Texas that defied segregation laws.
Q 12Which Marc Blitzstein opera did Welles's company perform impromptu after the government locked the theatre in 1937?
The Cradle Will Rock
Blitzstein played piano on stage while cast members sang from the audience at the Venice Theatre.
Q 13With whom did Welles found the Mercury Theatre in 1937?
John Houseman
The name was inspired by the iconoclastic magazine The American Mercury.
Q 21Which newspaper baron's papers barred all mention of Citizen Kane and pressured RKO to shelve it?
William Randolph Hearst
Herman Mankiewicz based the outline on Hearst, whom he knew and came to hate.
Q 22Of its nine Academy Award nominations, Citizen Kane won only which award?
Best Original Screenplay
Welles shared it with Mankiewicz; Variety reported that block voting by extras cost the film Best Picture.
Q 23Over Welles's opposition, RKO cut The Magnificent Ambersons from 131 minutes down to what running time?
88
He had assembled a rough cut in Miami with editor Robert Wise before flying to Brazil.
Q 14The Mercury Theatre's opening production in November 1937 was staged as what?
A modern-dress anti-fascist Julius Caesar
Lights set beneath the risers evoked the 'cathedral of light' of the Nuremberg rallies.
Q 15Which radio character, alias Lamont Cranston, did Welles play on Mutual from 1937 to 1938?
The Shadow
He was already earning up to $2,000 a week in radio.
Q 16Which composer wrote and conducted the original music for The Mercury Theatre on the Air?
Bernard Herrmann
He went on to score Citizen Kane and later Hitchcock's Psycho.
Q 17Which sponsor picked up The Mercury Theatre on the Air after War of the Worlds, renaming it?
Campbell Soup
The Campbell Playhouse began five days after the last Mercury broadcast in December 1938.
Q 18Which dictator disparagingly mentioned the War of the Worlds panic in a speech?
Adolf Hitler
The scale of the panic is now questioned, but the myth was reported as fact worldwide.
Q 19Which studio gave Welles the famous 1939 contract with final cut?
RKO
RKO president George Schaefer engaged him to write, produce, direct and star in two pictures.
Q 20Welles appeared on the cover of Time three days after his 23rd birthday in makeup as which character?
Captain Shotover in Heartbreak House
The Mercury Theatre's success had made him a star.
Q 24What was Welles's unfinished Latin American omnibus film for the Good Neighbor policy titled?
It's All True
It incorporated Robert Flaherty's story 'My Friend Bonito'.
Q 25Which star did Welles marry on September 7, 1943, the day of a Mercury Wonder Show performance?
Rita Hayworth
On the eve of his death he called her 'one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived'.
Q 26Welles played Rochester in which 1943 film, earning $100,000?
Jane Eyre
The fee helped fund his lifelong dream, the Mercury Wonder Show magic act.
Q 27Which 1946 Welles film about a Nazi war criminal was his only bona fide box office hit on release?
The Stranger
He finished it a day ahead of schedule and under budget.
Q 28Welles made The Lady from Shanghai in exchange for Harry Cohn financing which Broadway musical?
Around the World
The stage adaptation of Jules Verne opened in 1946.
Q 29The famous closing shootout of The Lady from Shanghai takes place where?
A hall of mirrors
Mirrors were a recurring Welles motif going back to Kane.
Q 30Which studio let Welles direct a low-budget Macbeth in 1948?
Republic Pictures
Jean Cocteau hailed its 'crude, irreverent power'.