Orson Welles on Cold Reading 

"The occupational disease of fraudulance." That's brilliant.

i could listen to Orson talk all day magnificent voice

Orson Welles is one of the most interesting people to have ever walked the earth. He was an amazing person.

1:45 to 1:47 "...and they have a name for it..." These couple of seconds are evidence to me that Orson Welles was a person who reveled in learning something new and reveled in sharing his knowledge with others. His face, his demeanor, and his voice are all absolutely radiant with joy at this point. What a fascinating, talented, marvelous man was Orson Welles!

Welles is the best. He can take a story like that and make you hang on every word. The obvious relish he had for this kind of thing is just wonderful. I love how, when he says "...between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, a great change..." his eyes narrow and the face become that of a nefarious hypnotist. The consummate actor. Forget Dos Equis. THIS was the most interesting man in the world.

It's a damn shame that the world will never have another Orson Welles.

One of the smartest explanations I ever heard about Cold Reading and the crooks that do it.

One of the best speakers of all time.

Orson Welles had the best stories and the best manner of telling them

Before we had machines called computers, a computer was someone who physically sat down and did math. The term has been around for centuries.

he's always fun to listen to

William N. Robson said Welles was the ONLY actor who could walk in to the studio and instantly play any character (on the radio) on a script he's never read before.

He's so eloquent, charming and intelligent could listen to him all night what a great story

Cold reading was never explained better.

What an absolute treat and privilege to listen and watch someone like Orson. He's highly intelligent, entertaining, charismatic, interesting, you name it. I wish he was still here with us. We just don't have people like that anymore. We're all just DUMBED DOWN and BORING!

This is a man who is needed in any time in history and future! movies, radio, tv were just tools to get his message across!

The way he describes a "shuteye" with the hotel clerk analogy is what I believe "intuition" is. Your brain has come up with an answer to a question that you didnt know to ask. Your intuition tells you to run away from something because your brain has recognized you are in trouble far before you have

Orson and Raymond Burr two of the best ever American actors voices. In the UK we had probably the best ever actors vocals in Richard Burton.

never underestimate intuition

There is so much wisdom here.

He just exposed physic John Edwards, before he even started his career

This is when talk shows were unscripted, and had intelligent, talented and interesting guests. Now talk shows are just vehicles to plug books, CD's, movies, TV shows, plays, etc. I remember the Carson show was the most fun when his guests went off-script and he lost control of the show. Those were the days :-)

This is such a brilliant insight into human Psychology.

For those that don't know, this is actually a good Psychology clip. Without even realizing it, without likely ever having known an ounce of Academic Psychology, Orson Welles has effectively described the mind's Dual-Processing mechanism. There are two tracks of 'Consciousness,': Implicit and Explicit. As an example offered in one of my Psychology Texts, you go out and see a Hummingbird. While you are actively aware--Explicit Processing--that the thing is called a Hummingbird, that it's wings are fluttering, that it is drinking nectar to survive, you are 'Subconsciously' taking note of the varying hues in it's body, the exact rate of speed of its wings, its exact height from the ground, the actual and exact Rate of Speed of its wings and so forth. All the latter information is encoded and itemized and catalogues without your even being aware of it. Orson Wells nails the concept perfectly. Yet ANOTHER reason he's one of the Greats! :)

This is spot on. We do this every day, reading body language and facial expressions without even realizing it. If you had to give directions on how to do it, it would be nearly impossible, but we've evolved to be able to read all these little things in the back of our brains.

Orson Welles was also a voice actor. I believe he did voice acting for old radio shows when he was younger. His last voice acting role was Unicron in Transformers: The Movie.

One of the few people that truly deserve the description of genius!

I'm glad that he's admitting that even though he was able to figure out what other people think, he is just a magician and not a physic

I had a similar case. A woman told my mother that not only had she just got married the previous week, but had also bought new curtains. I told my mum that it was easily deduced. She was playing with her ring because it was new as most people do, and that had no tan line, even though it was summer Back then moving to a new home after marriage was extremely common, and buying new curtains is the FIRST thing most do when decorating. Elementary, Watson.

John Candy does the best Orson impression

He wasn't talking about being able to stare into people's souls, he was talking about people being so good at appearing to be able to do that that they don't even realize that they're doing it.

I like watching this just because I like Orson's voice and his speaking style.

Hear, hear Very well said. Mr. Welles observations are succinct and well made

What a great storyteller

I work for the cable company fixing cable tv, internet and phone and I can tell everything about what kind of situation I'm going to be walking into just by looking at their front door and hearing their voice on the phone. I've been fixing people cable service for almost 11 years.

Extremely interesting person and a filmmaking genius. RIP Mr. Welles!!

Wow, this guy can surely tell a story! He should make a movie one day.

Absolute genuis. Great actor and director. I miss old Hollywood so bad.

Welles was such a fascinating man. His like comes but once in a generation, if at all.

Thanks for posting , this is great !

Really hope the kids watch these videos what an amazing man he was

Best use of that joke I have ever seen. Bravo sir! Bravo!

Orson Welles and South Park made the exact same point on a topic. Love that

he could explain to me how paint dries and i would be listening to Orson in awe..

Anybody ever notice how closely Orson Welles resembles Jonathan Winters? Both were geniuses, big bear-like guys, and nobody really knew what to do with them...

Orson, Orson, SUPER to see you!

Very well explained !

A sublime description of filmmaking.

I love how Frost is completely star struck by the great man. And who wouldn't be?

I was thinking about how Psychic I am, when I came upon this video and hit play. I thought it was going to be about acting. I was quite pleased to find out it was about this.

Thought provoking.📬👀🇺🇸🇩🇰🎵🎶

@dethklok745 The actor who does the voice of the Brain is Maurice LaMarche who does the best Orson Welles impression every. He also does multiple voices on Futurama.

Welles was truly a very gifted and talented guy.

This is the exact age where he looked like The Brain. it's amazing that was just a coincidence

I would change all of my friends (the three of them) for Orson Welles any day!

Well that's got to be the basis of it in a nutshell. Very good clip.

I've had that in sales. Helping a customer you watch how they respond to different items you offer and just learn about the person on another level. It's about reading people certainly it is a skill one develops has or has not. I never felt fraudulent about it sometimes uncomfortable as if I knew more than I should.

I can't enjoy this enough.

Unicron can do cold readings. I can just hear him now, taking to one of the Deceptions or Autobots. "I see you go thru many transformations throughout your life..." "Wha... how did you... Impossible!"

I once tried it myself a few times. All one needs to do is stop waiting for your turn to speak and just LISTEN to what people say. If you chat with someone in this way for 20-30 minutes you will have them tell you the names of their children, mother, father, spouse, what they do for a living etc. and IMMEDIATELY forget. When you pretend to them that you can read minds you simply repeat back, using careful wording, what was just said to you. They will appear astounded at your 'psychic' ability!

This man lived on a level far above and beyond the rest of us.

Fantastic footage! ☺

Awesome Clip!!!

This is glorious.

Perfectly explained.

*This dude's a great story teller. They should get him on The Tonight Show.*

Cold reading can be really useful

This is excellent, I really appreciate this it's an opportunity for me to defeat a magician that has been assigned to remain in my life for a bad reseon

His oratry from the pulpit in Moby Dick..great work on screen

One of the greats.

We did that as a pub game once, sat outside a quiet pub as people walked by we took it in turns to say to strangers things like "hey excuse me i know you think this is weird but i have this urge to tell you dont worry she will get better" etc etc, we all got hits on whoever we spoke too, then i got braver and got more specific, as a girl walked by in a big cardigan i said "escuse me etc etc, but your sister said look after her cardigan you look good in it, so cheer up" she was shocked and said was on the way to hospital to visit her sister who was gravely ill and dying and she had lent her the cardigan, i stopped playing as freaked me out and this girl wanted my number so her mum could talk to me etc, and now i know why, i think we all got confident and in my case girl was wearing a cardigan too big for her, she looked sad like someone was going to pass away etc and carrying a plastic bag of clothes, I think i just accesed her face and clothes was lucky guess, was a funny game though but i never played again, but think i will take it up again now i know no spirits are really envolved. lol x

This is the guy who got Nixon to confess (they made a movie about it) - modern interviewers take heed: talk less, listen more. Love David Frost (and Orson Welles) national treasure

This man basically described modern day televangelism before it got out of control.

I wonder if someone made a chart of typical cold reading statements and arranged it by common denominators like age brackets, economic situations, genders, etc. 🤔 Could be useful in countering scammers!

"You know I'm a magician?" ...too right we do, Mr Welles

The man was a genius. And to be honest, maybe Welles didn’t believe that he was gifted with intuition although he certainly was. He was an artist after all.

The jiggling of Orson's jowls is hypnotic.

@particle409 True. In my 20's I used to walk into the bar, scan the room, and pick out the chick who wanted to get out of there and get busy. Once you get good at reading body language, you have a very high success rate.

@SokratesNamon I see what your saying and agree, but at the same time there are no Orsen Welles nowdays.

1st heard Him in 1946 opening "Duel in the Sun". After a few words I thought "Who the hell is that?" I was 6.

He's talking about "thin slicing" like in the book Blink.

@cmonz9 you beat me to the punch on that observation.

There are several possibilities. There is just plain guessing: working letter per letter ("It starts with an M or N") or the most often used names and their variations ("Do you know someone called John or Joe? Maybe Jonathan."). Often the value of the name (relative, friend, high school teacher, dog,...) is attributed by the mark. There is also 'hot reading': research that has been done by 'psychic', look at Popoff for a good example, though in a different setting. [to be continued]

Brilliant. Someone ought to riff off Welles' little talk here to do a history of psychic fraud. The "argot" of the trade. I love it.

People are creatures of habit and we recognize patterns and remember them.... When I trolled chat rooms in the late nineties and early two thousands, people were amazed by how I could guess what relationship status, education, car, favorite TV show, and foods that they had or consumed.... But this was all gathered from hundreds of hours of observation of people and what is popular. It was not 100%, but more than 70% accurate.

You watch impressions and paraodies of Orson Welles and the script they wrote for the sketch has him speaking in really overblown, uncommon English with large expressive and complex words. Then you watch a video of Orson Welles for real... And he's just talking like a normal person.

If I could have lunch with any person in history, Orson would be that guy.

The most interesting man who ever lived!

Love it.

Wow! The kind of stuff he's talking about is what neuro scientists are discovering about the sub-conscious mind- how things occur under the surface of which we are unaware that get fed into the conscious mind. Hearing Mr. Welles put that into words so eloquently is very refreshing.

Where may we find the rest of this fascinating interview?

It's so hard to reconcile the guy who made Citizen Kane unironically shared the same passion as Gob Bluth.

"What follows is a terrifying tale in the world of probates, beneficiaries... and goblins!"

Along these lines, Welles did a movie called "F is for Fake" that is about cons. It's worth a look.

If they're doing a TV show, psychics will often ask 'customers' to come to the audience. They can then easily pass off information that had been established in private sessions as new information that the spirits have given. When you see a psychic get a hit after hit on TV, this is what is happening. Of course there is also the feedback-loop. The 'customers' will often elaborate after a psychic got a hit. This too can be fed back as new information, sometimes sessions later. They keep files, too

@VideoMikael Ah yes... Good times, but sometimes you just don't want to hear the guests talking. Orson was a master in this art

The end bit refers to Charlie Chaplin and his wife Oona.

As long as you can help people better understand themselves, what they need to work on and what they could accomplish.. It's fine if they don't believe the word 'psychic', in relation to who you, truthfully, are.

Frost interviewing Welles - WHERE'S THE REST OF IT!?

I was a Middle School teacher in a poor neighborhood. After years, you do the same kind of mind reading. "Who hit you this morning?" ""Did you just move?" Did someone in your family pass away?' " I see you're planning on having a fight after school".....and then you guess who..... "Go to jail?" etc