George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, writer, actor and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television, and radio. Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the 20th century. His first two films with RKO: Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, are widely considered two of the greatest films ever made. His other films, including Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight, are also considered masterpieces. He was also well-known for a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds which, performed in the style of a news broadcast, caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an actual extraterrestrial invasion was in progress.

In 2002 he was voted the greatest film director of all time in the British Film Institute's poll of Top Ten Directors.

Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin and was brought up a Roman Catholic. He had English ancestry. Despite his parents' affluence, Welles encountered many hardships in childhood. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago, and his father became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother died of jaundice on May 10, 1924, in a Chicago hospital, four days after Welles's ninth birthday. After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing his interest in music. Richard Welles died when Orson was 15 - the summer after Orson's graduation from Todd School for Boys, an independent school in Woodstock, Illinois - whereupon Maurice Bernstein, a Jewish physician from Chicago, became his guardian.