Orson Welles

Mr. Welles is using an RCA Type SK-50 Varacoustic Ribbon Microphone. On October 30, 1938, he directed the Mercury Theatre on the Air in a dramatization of “War of the Worlds,” based on the H. G. Wells novel. Welles set the events in then-contemporary locations (the landing spot for the Martian invasion, Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, was chosen at random with a New Jersey road map) and dramatized it in the style of a musical program interrupted by news bulletins, complete with eye-witness accounts.

—Time-Life Books photo

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars…” Here Mr. Welles uses what looks like either an RCA Type 44-A or a Type PB-90 Ribbon Microphone, predecessors of the famous Type 44-BX.

Mr. Welles uses what appears to be an RCA Type 50-A
Inductor Microphone in this group of images.

—Toronto Star photo