The Chaotic Orson Welles Commercial That Became Legendary

With his unmistakable and sonorous baritone voice, legendary director Orson Welles was a natural choice as an advertising spokesperson – a role the erstwhile Hollywood wunderkind happily played in his later years, as he was often in need of money. One of his commercials for Paul Masson champagne has become particularly famous, if not for the reasons its makers might have hoped.

Welles enjoyed a three-year stint representing the California winemaker, memorably intoning its slogan, "We will sell no wine before its time." However, outtakes from the champagne commercial later became notorious for showing a seemingly inebriated Welles struggling to get through his lines.

According to production supervisor of the shoot Peter Shillingford, Welles was typically a pleasure to work with. Shillingford told Mel Magazine, "Normally, the shoots went great", with the only problem being the mercurial star's habit of changing his lines — much to the ad agency's frustration.

Yet on the day of the champagne commercial shoot, Welles arrived disheveled and apparently intoxicated. He had been filming in Las Vegas all night and, hoping to sleep in his limo on the ride back, had taken a sleeping pill — unfortunately, it had only just begun to take effect. Despite Welles' condition, Shillingford tried filming the commercial — even if Welles was unable to perform, getting him on camera would mean, "we'd have insurance coverage for the day because of the actor malfunctioning."

After several disastrous attempts, Welles finally managed to get some sleep, and once refreshed, "delivered the lines perfectly." Welles, "grinning at the furious agency guys as he walked away from the set," cheerfully invited Shillingford to lunch the next day at the celebrated Los Angeles restaurant Ma Maison. "How could I refuse?" Shillingford recalled.

Welles' work in advertising would extend far beyond Paul Masson, including commercials for Carlsberg beer, Domecq sherry, Jim Beam bourbon, and G&G Nikka Japanese whisky. According to Newsweek, after being invited to the home of the author Gore Vidal, Welles apologized that he could not attend as he had a commercial shoot early the next day, saying: "Dog food, I think it is this time. No, I do not eat from the can on camera, but I celebrate the contents."

Despite his willingness to do commercial work, the cantankerous Welles did have his limits — particularly when others presumed to give him direction. Other than the Paul Masson outtake, arguably Welles' most infamous foray in advertising was in 1970, when the filmmaker was hired to provide voiceovers for the frozen food brand Findus. A bootleg copy of the recording session would prove instantly iconic and accidentally hilarious.

After a director asked that he emphasize the word "in" in the phrase "in July", Welles responded with mounting anger: "Why? That doesn't make any sense. Sorry. There's no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with 'in' and emphasize it ... That's just idiotic, if you'll forgive me my saying so." When the directors made a similar request for the word "beef-burger," Welles became even more irate, complaining that he "wouldn't direct any living actor like this in Shakespeare, the way you do this! It's impossible!" Despite the director's attempts to assuage Welles, the "Citizen Kane" director finally stormed out of the recording booth, saying as he left: "No money is worth this."