The Genius Behind Citizen Kane

Upon going through Sunday’s New York Times I saw a list of films that have been chosen over the years as the best of ten and as of 2012 the finest of 100. On all of the lists, whether first or fourth, CITIZEN KANE remains in the top ten.

When I was married to Maurice, the person responsible for the makeup and aging of the characters in the film, I did notice Orson Welles ‘life mask’ at age 25, hanging on the wall of Maurice’s spacious studio next to our sumptuous living space, but I didn’t give it a lot of thought.

Maurice’s personality was so huge, his voice so commanding, and his behavior ever so unpredictable that the film and his work on it was not in the forefront of our relationship which was at least 20 years after the making of the film. I learned he was a controversial figure in the world of makeup artists because he did not follow the conventional path to becoming one.  

I met him through friends who set up the meeting at his house during a period he was mourning his late wife, a concert pianist and a stately beauty who had died of a rare bone cancer.  I had only seen her once at a party at the famous puppeteer’s Bob Baker - where Maurice had lent his artistry to the puppet’s faces.  He and I met in passing but I do recall that I took notice of Maurice's personality at that time but never expected to see him again. It was pure coincidence and I have no idea how I got to Bob Baker’s that afternoon. Years later, I remembered seeing the man who was now my husband and recalled how that day he had gotten my attention.

Today the relevancy of his contribution to Citizen Kane seems important.  To back up a bit, Maurice had been the head person of RKO’s makeup department from ‘44 to ‘47 but I don’t remember seeing him credited. The reason was that he officially was NOT in the union because he had not passed a test for some necessary certification. He was rogue. And it was Orson’s undying effort and purpose to get him acknowledged for the genius he truly was.  Orson had connections. And so according to hearsay Orson approached Francis Hopkins, the Secretary of Labor, while at a dinner in Washington DC and got Maurice an exemption to be in the makeup union. He then took out a FULL PAGE  in Variety to declare Maurice Seiderman, and not the Westmore’s, official credit for his great makeup work on Citizen Kane.  This is a well kept secret and only as far as I know now Pauline Kael along with Orson gives him credit for the magnificent makeup on Citizen Kane.

I wish now, more than 60 years later, I remembered everything he told me about this experience but as life has it, I recall anecdotes and minutiae that might be of interest to others, or not.

Over the years he provided Welles with many prosthetic noses to fill out whatever character Orson might be playing including MacBeth.  

When I met him in 1961 he was taking it easy with no imminent work in the makeup field. Now and then a celebrity or two like the Three Stooges, would come up to the house for lunch and discuss the makeup for this or that film that was upcoming. But mostly he was devoting himself to inventing all kinds of things- and painting in grand loud splotches on gigantic canvases that were dazzling in a frightening way. One look at them and you might have a nightmare soon after. His studio was filled with various machines and tools and an indescribable amount of detritus that he might use for some invention but my comprehension of that complicated apparatus was close to zero and today all I can compare it to is the stereotypical mad scientist’s laboratory.  He had huge cans filled with multi-colored glass in case he wanted to dabble in stained glass. He made a variety of stuff he sold to Akron, a thriving store of the time.

He did have a fascination with contact lenses which were just becoming mainstream in the early sixties. They were available in multiple shades like light brown turquoise, deep blue, etc. and being nearsighted I loved being the recipient of  these. However I found I was mixing up the right and the left and because of this Maurice invented “THE DOT” that would be placed on the right lens so there was no confusion. He then set about packaging this ink in small bottles with an applicator inside and selling it to the opticians and purveyors of contact lenses.

He could lift a cleaver with such energy to chop the Chinese vegetables for a 10 course dinner for 15 people, it gave me shivers to watch him. There was definitely a menacing aspect to this man.  He was also in contrast to this menacing person, a sometime sculptor similar in style to Giacometti.

I suppose he could be called a Renaissance man because his interests were vast - he loved Science Fiction - as well as fine literature. He had incredibly good taste in decorative arts.  We would go to antique stores for fun and when I would say “I like that,” he might agree and point out the fine workmanship or he might well say loudly, “It’s SHIT…It is put together badly.”  I learned to discriminate between poor construction and fine.  His own home, according to lore, made a few men on the construction site quit as he hounded them daily being a hovering monster, assuring himself that every detail of the making of his home was correct. He used the most expensive materials available to insure  its durability and the same need for perfection was everywhere in his being so that even personal items I bought were examined for their contents and quality.  Nothing and no one was exempt.

When you look up his credentials on social media - Facebook, Youtube etc., you see that he was so skilled in details and it is especially notable that he is mentioned repeatedly for his inventiveness and this carried over to his personal life.  

While it is true that in the mid sixties he was part of a team of doctors observing surgeries to invent instruments it is also true that as much as he imagined he was a doctor and professed to having a PhD from the University of Kiev (the documents of proof were burned in a fire at the University)  this was not true. One day he became quite ill and had to be hospitalized.  After a couple of days I got a call from the cardiologist who informed me that he was giving him the highest dose of demerol he had ever given to any patient and asked me if there was a secret he was keeping and I must tell him if there was because it is now a matter of life and death. Therefore I confessed to him that there indeed was no real PhD.  The doctor was taken aback and Maurice did recover only to confront me about my betrayal.  In the end his life was saved even though his further exploration of inventions of surgical instruments was put to rest. He never forgave me for this intrusion into his life.  

When I left Maurice which was something no other wife had dared to do, he did his best to erase our relationship from his life. Therefore I am not mentioned in any public place as having been married to him. His vindictive personality had no limits.  Later after his next wife chose to visit her brother for whom Maurice had no use, he erased her from his will. This happened shortly before he died.  He was as my friend aptly described him last night “an evil genius.”  

To give credit where credit is due, if it had not been for his inventiveness, Beads Deanne, a favorite of many boutiques in the Southland, would never have been able to produce the amount of beads needed for the orders. It was because of his drill invention that made the holes in the beans for stringing rather than having to soak them that made my business a success. 

Although on a personal level he was insane and often destructive, he was truly the genius Orson and others recognized and I am grateful to have been a part of his life. His influence on my artistic expression was vast. 

Looking back from the present I think as Frida Kahlo said about Diego Rivera, “It would have been better had I not married him and we were just friends.”