Orson Welles has been back in the news lately. First British director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Brideshead Revisited, Let it Be, The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus) will be taking a paternity test to either prove or disprove that he is the only son of the famed director. Lindsay-Hogg is writing an autobiography and wants to put the matter—which has dogged him his entire life to rest one way or the other. Welles’ daughter, Chris Welles Feder has recently published her autobiography, In My Father’s Shadow (which I have, but have not yet read), about growing up with such a monumental, larger-than-life figure as Welles. She told the Guardian newspaper that she has long suspected LIndsay-Hogg might be her brother, “If it does turn out that Michael is my half-brother, it would be delightful. We used to play on the beaches of Santa Monica together all the time and he was my favorite playmate, and I have the fondest memories of him,”

Lindsay-Hogg’s mother was the Irish actress Geraldine Fitzgerald, a star of the Broadway stage who appeared in Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and died in 2005. Married to Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, she had begun a relationship with Welles in America during his marriage to Chris Welles Feder’s mother, the Chicago-born actress Virginia Nicholson. The families continued to live side-by-side for some time and the two children became close.

“My memory is that nobody knows for sure whether Orson was Michael’s father. My mother told me that even Geraldine Fitzgerald didn’t know,” said Welles Feder.

And then there is this new documentary, which is a must-see in this Welles-obsessed household. From the Wellesnet website:

In Prodigal Sons, we discover that Welles second daughter, Rebecca, the child of Rita Hayworth (beauty) and Welles (brains), actually had the grandson Welles would have been happy over, but apparently never knew about! Marc was quickly put up for adoption in 1966, shortly after he was born.

The family who adopted Marc were the McKerrow’s of Montana. The father was a doctor (like Welles’ own guardian, Dr. Bernstein) and the mother, a schoolteacher (like Roger Hill). Later Mr. and Mrs. McKerrow had two sons of their own, Paul and Todd.

Paul becomes an accomplished athlete, who later shows an interest in movies, (including a love for the work of Orson Welles). Then, in a bizarre twist that no screenwriter could ever imagine, Paul decides to become a trans-sexual. As Kimberly Reed, she goes on to make movies, her most recent being this documentary!

Meanwhile, Paul/Kim’s natural brother Todd turns out to be gay. Of course while the three brothers, Marc, Paul and Todd are growing up, none of them know that Marc is actually the grandson of Orson Welles. Marc himself only finds out that his real mother is Rebecca Welles, shortly after Rebecca dies, and he then finds out the truth about his famous grandparents.

 
The ‘only son’ of Orson Welles to take DNA test (Guardian)

Prodigal Sons official website

Thank you, Steven Otero!