Full Description
A "granular history" (Wall Street Journal) of the greatest hoax in radio history and the panic that followed, which Publishers Weekly calls "a rollicking portrait of a director on the cusp of greatness" and Booklist, in a starred review, says, "Hazelgrove's feverishly focused retelling of the broadcast as well as the fallout makes for a propulsive read as a study of both a cultural moment of mass hysteria and the singular voice at its root."
On a warm Halloween Eve, October 30, 1938, during a broadcast of H G. Wells' War of the Worlds, a twenty-three-year-old Orson Welles held his hands up for radio silence in the CBS studio in New York City while millions of people ran out into the night screaming, grabbed shotguns, drove off in cars, and hid in basements, attics, or anywhere they could find to get away from Martians intent on exterminating the human race. As Welles held up his hands to his fellow actors, musicians, and sound technicians, he turned six seconds of radio silence—dead air—into absolute horror, changing the way the world would view media forever, and making himself one of the most famous men in America.
In Dead Air: The Night that Orson Welles Terrified America, Willliam Elliot Hazelgrove illustrates for the first time how Orson Welles' broadcast caused massive panic in the United States, convincing listeners across the nation that the end of the World had arrived and even leading military and government officials to become involved. Using newspaper accounts of the broadcast, Hazelgrove shows the true, staggering effect that Welles' opera of panic had on the nation. Beginning with Welles' incredible rise from a young man who lost his parents early to a child prodigy of the stage, Dead Air introduces a Welles who threw his Hail Mary with War of the Worlds, knowing full well that obscurity and fame are two sides of the same coin. Hazelgrove demonstrates that Welles' knew he had one shot to grab the limelight before it forever passed him by—and he made it count.
Contents
The Magician
Prologue
PART 1: THE SET UP
Chapter 1: Who Is Orson Welles?
Chapter 2: Something Deathless and Dangerous
Chapter 3: Rosebud
Chapter 4: Something Dark and Brutal
Chapter 5: The Shadow
Chapter 6: The Cradle Will Rock
Chapter 7: Dummies
Chapter 8: The Perfect Setup
Chapter 9: Martians
Chapter 10: The Script
PART 2: BROADCAST
Chapter 11: The Crapperoo
Chapter 12: Dead Air
Chapter 13: A Wave of Mass Hysteria
Chapter 14: Go Home and Prepare to Die
Chapter 15: The Whole Country Was Bursting Open
Chapter 16: Terrorist in Action
Chapter 17: A Long Night
Chapter 18: Nationwide Terror
Chapter 19: Durn Fools
Chapter 20: Campbells on the Air
Chapter 21: War of the Worlds
Epilogue
Notes
Index
About the Author
