Orson Welles’ ashes buried

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 26

Orson Welles’ ashes buried

NZPA-Reuter Ronda, Spain The ashes of Orson Welles were buried recently at a country house of a retired bullfighter, Antonio Ordonez, where the American film-maker once spent a holiday. Orson Welles’ daughter, Beatrice, in black mourning dress, placed the 20cm square blue urn in a false brick well, which was later sealed without bearing any name. The actor and director, who won lasting fame with his film “Citizen Kane,” lived in Spain in the 1960 s and was a close friend of Ordonez. His ample figure with an ever-present cigar was a familiar sight in the front row of Spanish bullrings. He died of a heart attack in 1985, aged 70.

His daughter has said Spain was his favourite country and he always wanted to be buried there. The interment of his ashes, which took place a day after the seventysecond anniversary of his birth, was delayed by the death of his widow, Paola Mori, in a car crash last year. Eight handfuls of earth were thrown into the well by Beatrice Welles, her fiance, Christopher Smith, Ordonez, his two daughters, Carmen and Belen, and local authorities. The well, near the entrance to the two-floor house, was given to Ordonez by the town of Ronda and bears the insciption, "Ronda to the Master of Masters.” The former bullfighter now breeds bulls at a nearby ranch.