strangewood:

“You know what I did this morning? I played the voice of a toy. I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I’m destroyed. My plan to destroy Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen.” [x]

——

Welles was 70 at the time and in poor health. His last released film was 1987’s “Someone to Love,” but that was shot before Welles lent his voice to “Transformers.” Late in his career, Welles often took to commercials and narration work as a source of income.

Author Barbara Leaming spent many days with Welles in his last three years for her book, “Orson Welles: A Biography.” She recalls Welles telling her shortly before he died that he had spent the day “playing a toy.”

“That was for him a way of earning a living and a way of trying to finance the films that he wanted to make,” says Leaming. “Obviously in those years, there’s a tremendous sadness except that the thing he used to always say to me was, ‘The one thing that’s helped me to survive is that I’m not bitter.”’ [x]