RONDA, Spain -- The ashes of film pioneer Orson Welles were buried Thursday under a linden tree at a bullfighter's ranch in southern Spain.
Welles, the director of 'Citizen Kane,' died of a heart attack at the age of 70 in Los Angeles Oct. 13, 1985, and had often said he wanted Spain to be his last resting place.
'This is what he desired,' his 31-year-old daughter, Beatrice, said after the simple 35-minute ceremony. 'Spain is where he spent his happiest days.'
Dressed in mourning, sh wept as she placed the urn in a dry well at the foot of a linden tree on the ranch of bullfighter Antonio Ordonez.
Welles was a frequent guest at the ranch that is 4 miles outside the mountaintop town of Ronda, 270 miles south of Madrid.
'He was a great, great friend,' said Ordonez, 59, a star bullfighter during the 1950s and 1960s.
The seven people attending the ceremony, which coincided with what would have been Welles's 72nd birthday, covered the grave with earth from the ranch and sand from Ronda's ancient bullring.
'The sand is in memory of Welles's love of the bullfight,' Ordonez said.
Local reporters noted that Welles's last resting place gave him a final connection with William Randolf Hearst, the newspaper magnate who inspired the central character in 'Citizen Kane,' considered the director's masterpiece.
Hearst tried unsucessfully to buy the Ronda cathedral and later copied its facade for his castle in San Simeon, California.
Welles filmed several movies in Spain but left unfinished at his death a 19-yearproject for a film version of Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel, 'Don Quixote.'
