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months with great warmth (or what seems like great warmth, I have never been quite sure), and I am always moved, as I was today. And as always, amazingly for me, I was somewhat at a loss for what to say, and all I came up with was some general pleasantry/banality on the order of, “How is everything?” Orson answered me with, “Oh, I don’t know, do you?” And I, acknowledging that my question had been excessive in scope, reduced it to, “How is everything today?” To which he answered, happy that he had forced greater specificity: “Fine … as of this hour.”
    Then tonight, two hours ago as I twirled the television dial, I was astonished to find myself watching the opening newsreel segment of Citizen Kane . I have just finished watching him grow old with makeup and acting skill on a body in its twenties, in a film designed by his mind in its twenties, and the film—and he in it—are so affecting and so near-perfect that the idea of watching anything else after seemed incomprehensible. I wonder, Was there nothing for him to do with the rest of his life after making it, is that his secret and does he know it? Is Citizen Kane his “rosebud”?
    â€” HENRY JAGLOM , Journal Entry, April 2, 1978

 
    1. “Everybody should be bigoted.”
    In which Orson turns restaurant reviewer, confesses that he never understood why Katharine Hepburn disliked him, but knew why he disliked Spencer Tracy. He detested the Irish, despite his friendship with John Ford, and liked right-wingers better than left-wingers.
    *   *   *
    (Jaglom enters, Welles struggles out of his chair to greet him. They embrace, kissing each other on the cheek in the European way.)
    H ENRY J AGLOM : (To Kiki) How are you, Kiki?
    O RSON W ELLES : Look out—she’ll bite you … All right, what are we gonna eat?
    HJ: I’m going to try the chicken salad.
    OW: No, you aren’t! You don’t like it with all those capers.
    HJ: I’m going to ask them to scrape the capers away.
    OW: Then let me tell you what they have on their hands in the kitchen.
    HJ: It must be nuts in the kitchen. I’ve never seen it this packed.
    OW: They’re so busy, this would be a great day to send a dish back to the chef.
    HJ: You know, Ma Maison is not my idea of the legendary restaurants of Hollywood. The romance for me was Romanoff’s. And then I got here and there was no Romanoff’s.
    OW: Yeah! Romanoff’s only stayed open until forty-three or forty-four. It had a short life. Romanoff’s and Ciro’s were the two restaurants that we did all the romancing in, and they both closed. Everybody was photographed with the wrong person coming out, you know? Romanoff’s is a parking lot now, and when it was going broke, Sinatra came with sixteen violins and sang every night for three weeks for free, to try and help the business. We all went every night. It was sensational. Don the Beachcombers was another great place to take the wrong girl because it was dark. Nobody could see anybody.
    HJ: What about Chasen’s?
    OW: Chasen’s was a barbecue place, originally. I was one of the original backers of Chasen’s—and Romanoff’s.
    HJ: You owned Romanoff’s?
    OW: Yes, and he never gave me anything. Nor did Chasen. I was a founder of both those restaurants. Me and a lot of suckers. We didn’t expect anything from Romanoff because he was a crook. And Dave Chasen somehow forgot the original barbecue backers when his became a big restaurant.
    Ma Maison was started in 1973, and continues. I wouldn’t go for a long time because of the unlisted phone number. It irritated me so. It’s a snobbish business not having a phone number. Somebody gave the number out on television, just to be bitchy. I don’t envy these guys, though. It’s a tough, tough business to run a restaurant.

    W AITER : Going to have a little lunch today? We have scallops,