The auction 1000 WAYS OF SEEING: The Private Collection of the Late Stanley J. Seeger di Sotheby's represents a unique opportunity for film enthusiasts from all over the world. The working draft of Fourth Estate, which belonged to legendary director Orson Welles and still bears the working title The American; the same manuscript that Welles read to George Schaefer, president of the famous film production company RKO, when he first presented the script.
When he began working for RKO Pictures in 1939 Welles, in his early twenties, already enjoyed a formidable reputation as both an actor and director, thanks to his work for radio and the theatre. The choice of the subject of his first feature film, inspired by the publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was partly a personal revenge of Herman J. Mankiewicz, screenwriter and great friend of Hearst and his partner Marion Davies – star of American silent cinema, until, due to his alcohol abuse, he was removed from the grandiose property of San Simeon, the 250.000-acre ranch near Los Angeles, a clear inspiration for Charles Foster Kane's Candalù.
In March 1940 Mankiewicz was sent to Victorville, a remote location in the Californian desert, to rehabilitate and work on the script for Fourth Estate with John Houseman, Orson Welles' main collaborator. On April 16, 1940, a first draft was sent to the director, who began working on it by substantially modifying it, eliminating the most obvious references to Hearst's life, and arriving at producing the present copy, entitled The American and dated from April 30 to May 9, 1940. When the manuscript was presented to Schaefer, he himself proposed the original title Citizen Kane, to avoid further direct links to Hearst.
The value of this piece comes not only from its exceptional rarity – only one other copy signed by Welles is documented – but also from its prestigious provenance. The script was in fact purchased at Christie's New York on December 16, 1991 by Stanley J. Seeger, one of the greatest collectors of our time who collected, together with his life partner Christopher Cone, a vast range of objects that will be offered for auction on 5 and 6 March at Sotheby's in London and among which stand out, in addition to the piece in question, ten fossil dinosaur eggs (estimate €3,600-6,000), the Sir Winston Churchill's armchair (estimate €3,600-6,000) and the teapot that belonged to Admiral Nelson (estimate €9,600-14,500).
