Thirty years ago today, Orson Welles’ ashes were interred in a dry well on the Spanish estate of his good friend, matador Antonio Ordonez.
It was a brief ceremony at El Recreo De San Cayetano ranch in Ronda attended by Ordonez; Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice; Juan Cobos, the late director’s close friend and assistant on Chimes at Midnight; and a few others. (Ordonez died in 1998 and some of his ashes were later interred in the same well.)
In a 2015 interview with Wellesnet, Beatrice Welles said her father never expressed a preference for his funeral arrangements or burial plans in conversations with his family. She and her late mother, Paola Mori Welles, chose Ronda as Welles’ final resting after much consideration. They rejected his birthplace of Kenosha, Wisconsin, or Hollywood, where he died on October 10, 1985, because he never felt he truly belonged in either of those communities.
“He was buried amongst people who really, really loved him for who he was – and not because he was Orson Welles,” she said at the time. “He truly loved southern Spain. He was at his happiest there.”
Orson Welles often spoke of his deep affection for Spain. It is evident in one of his greatest unfinished works, Don Quixote. He filmed his favorite movie, Chimes at Midnight, in Spain.
“People respected Orson very much, so he could attend corridas like a Spaniard, without being disturbed by several thousands of people attending the bullfights. Back in those days, the Spanish people were very respectful of foreigners and deeply moved to see Welles happy in their country, knowing that he was a world-famous actor and film director,” Cobos told Wellesnet in a 2016 interview. “He enjoyed his daily, quiet life in Spain, the very fine lunches and the respect people had for him…. Nobody approached him as a film star, or as a great filmmaker. He was just an ‘Americano’ who enjoyed living in a country he had first known and loved before his American successful days in the theatre, radio and movies.”
In September 2015, a monument honoring Welles was placed outside Ronda’s historic bullring.
On the Welles monument, the plaque reads:
“A MAN IS NOT FROM WHERE HE WAS BORN BUT WHERE HE CHOOSES TO DIE”
AND RONDA WAS CHOSEN, HE WANTED TO BE A “RONDENO” FOREVER.
HIS ASHES WERE DEPOSITED HERE, IN EL RECREO DE SAN CAYETANO.
FOR ETERNITY — RONDA 2015
Welles may have been inspired by Spain’s bullfights and Hemingway’s 1960 articles in Life magazine when he came to write The Sacred Beasts, which later became The Other Side of the Wind. The aborted It’s All True featured a segment on bullfighting, My Friend Bonito.
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