Orson Welles (1915-1985): The career of Orson Welles began with an enviable contract giving him—at age twenty-five—total artistic control of two films. The first film, an acknowledged masterpiece, created political problems. After this, his life became a series of projects begun with fanfare and finished by someone else, a “genius without portfolio.” Welles said of his own career: “I started at the top and worked down.”