Orson Welles

Orson Welles is a briefly but distinctly rendered presence in Andy Warhol’s account of a busy day in Los Angeles on March 26, 1985. Dining at Ma Maison, Welles asks to meet Warhol; Warhol goes over to him, finds him “just great, really great,” and imagines interviewing him himself. The encounter makes Welles not merely a famous face in the day’s social traffic, but someone who commands Warhol’s personal attention.

The Ma Maison Encounter

The meeting comes after Warhol has spent the morning at the old Goldwyn Studios for The Love Boat. A planned lunch with Suzanne Somers falls through, leaving Welles, seated at his own table, as the unexpected focus of the meal. Welles initiates the introduction by saying he wants to meet Warhol. Warhol’s response is immediate and enthusiastic: he considers Welles someone he would like to interview, turning the familiar celebrity encounter into a reversal in which the diarist imagines himself as interviewer.

A Brief Appearance in a Crowded Day

Welles’s appearance is one moment in a day filled with work and celebrity gatherings. After lunch, Warhol goes to Doug’s place, where Roy Lichtenstein is signing things; later, Jon takes him for drinks before he attends Swifty Lazar’s Academy Awards party at Spago. The diary gives no extended account of Welles’s conversation with Warhol, but its emphatic description preserves the impact of the meeting amid these other encounters.

Narrative Significance

Welles is presented through Warhol’s admiring, first-person diary perspective rather than through biographical background or a developed relationship. The short scene also shifts the day’s pattern of attention: a lunch arrangement has been canceled, but the chance meeting with Welles supplies an encounter Warhol would like to pursue professionally. His stated wish to interview Welles is the entry’s clearest indication that the meeting mattered beyond the moment of introduction.