Charles Foster Kane
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Charles Foster Kane (c. 1863 - 1941) is the title character of Orson Welles's famous film Citizen Kane. Orson Welles played Kane (receiving an Oscar nomination), and he also co-wrote and directed the film.
Kane's "biography"
Kane was born in the fictional settlement of Little Salem, Colorado, of humble origins. A mine given to his parents (to settle a bill for room and board) happened to be rich in silver. To secure a better future for the eight-year-old boy, his parents gave him over to Walter Parks Thatcher in 1871, who raised him in luxury until he became an adult. He attended numerous schools, all of which expelled him, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell.
As an adult, Kane took on the newspaper The New York Inquirer (sometimes spelled "The New York Enquirer") because he thought "it might be fun to run a newspaper." One of his first acts was to publish a "declaration of principles," which stated his duty to tell his readers the truth. However, he almost immediately begins using yellow journalism tactics to blow stories out of proportion and outdo his rivals.
Kane eventually married Emily Monroe Norton, the niece of the president of the United States. As Kane's popularity and fortune increased, he ran for governor of New York against reputedly corrupt boss J. W. Gettys. It seemed Kane had the election in the bag, until Gettys revealed that Kane had been having an affair with a young "singer" named Susan Alexander.
Kane's wife divorced him in 1916 and died two years later in car crash with their son. Kane married Susan Alexander and tried to force her into a doomed career as an opera singer. After Susan attempted suicide, Kane retired to Xanadu, his gothic chateau in Florida. Susan, bored with living alone, eventually left him. There, alone and estranged from all his friends, Kane died of old age uttering the cryptic word "Rosebud."
Reporter Jerry Thompson was assigned to track down the meaning of "Rosebud," shortly after Kane's death. Though he interviewed all of Kane's living acquaintances, he never found it. In truth, the word "Rosebud" was written on the sled Kane had owned as a little boy when he lived in Colorado with his parents.
The sled, considered to be trash, was burned, representing the innocence and love Kane lost when he was taken from his parents.
Inspiration
It is almost universally agreed that Kane is meant to portray a fictionalized William Randolph Hearst. Though Citizen Kane is often considered one of the best films ever made, Hearst was allegedly not amused by how he (or his mistress Marion Davies, widely considered the inspiration for Susan Alexander) were portrayed, and he attempted to destroy both the film and Welles' career. However, other men have been suggested as a model for Kane including:
Welles was quoted as saying, "It is not based upon the life of Mr. Hearst or anyone else. On the other hand, had Mr. Hearst and similar financial barons not lived during the period we discuss, Citizen Kane could not have been made." However, in the film, Kane is given the line "You furnish the prose poems, and I'll furnish the war," undeniably similar to "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war," a quote widely attributed to Hearst. The general consensus is that Hearst is the primary -- but not the only -- inspiration behind Kane. Some biographies of Welles posit that Welles himself was a source of inspration for the character; some of the character's dialogue on how to run a newspaper are direct quotes from Welles's comments on how to make a motion picture (though this was his first), and Welles's co-writer, Herman J. Mankiewicz, included dialogue about Kane's voracious appetite, also meant to echo Welles's character. The connection with Hearst is strengthened by the fact that Mankiewicz was a frequent guest of Hearst's mistress Marion Davies at Hearst Castle.
In recent years, Kane has been compared to contemporaries such as Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner and Donald Trump.