Back in the corner of the room, though, I saw John Agar, looking frail and sitting with a woman who I assumed (correctly) was his wife. I started chatting with him about his appearance in one of my favorite films, John Ford's "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and I bought a picture from it that he autographed to me. As he was signing "God Bless, John Agar," I noticed that there was one stack of photos on the table from "Citizen Kane," a shot of Welles with the dancing girls. I looked up at Agar's wife and asked, "Are you in this picture?" She smiled broadly and pointed at one of the girls. "That's me." We spent the next five minutes talking about Kane and what a nice guy Welles was.
I heard that she died a few months later, and Agar not long after that
That's not the first time I've heard that beneath his gruff exterior, Orson Welles was generally kind to people, both those he worked with and to strangers as well. As recounted to me, he was a very driven man who wanted the best in his craft but did have patience with others.
And of course, there's the Paul Masson pitches. Ahhh...the French!