From Citizen Kane to Macbeth, Simon Callow"s brilliant biography of Orson Welles explores the breakdown of his Hollywood career. When Citizen Kane, his first film, opened in 1941, Welles was universally acclaimed as the most audacious filmmaker alive. But instead of marking the beginning of a triumphant career in Hollywood, the film proved to be an exception in Welles"s life and work. He found it increasingly impossible to function within Hollywood"s system. Project after project foundered, either abandoned incomplete, or was released in very different form from the one he intended. Finally, in 1947, he left America for Europe where for the best part of twenty years he lived in self-imposed exile, occasionally and briefly returning to stage a play, make a film or shoot a television drama. Hello Americans reveals the immense complexities of Welles"s temperament as well as some of the monstrous personalities with whom he had to contend. At the same time, the book gives full...