Orson Welles: The One-Man Band

Born as Olga Palinkaš in 1941 in Zagreb (Croatia), Kodar was the partner and lover of Orson Welles during the last twenty-four years of his life. They met in her birthplace, and hometown, of Zagreb in 1961, when Welles was in the city filming The Trial. She was around twenty years of age. Kodar now manages Welles’ estate.

Kodar co-wrote the script of Welles’ documentary film, F for Fake (uncredited). She appeared in the film as herself. She later co-directed and co-wrote the 1995 German-French documentary Orson Welles: The One-Man Band. For this film, she supervised a compilation of unused footage shot by Welles over the final 20 years of his career. Kodar is interviewed in Los Angeles and in Orvilliers, France where they shared a house. This documentary is included on the Criterion Collection DVD release of F For Fake.

According to the documentary, Kodar performed in at least three films that Welles worked on in the 1970s, but which were never released: The Other Side of the Wind (in which she performs a love scene in a car), The Deep, and The Dreamers, in which she was to have played the lead role. The Other Side of the Wind was largely completed and according to media reports in April 2007 speculated on a release in 2008. The other films were never completed for reasons explained in the documentary.

1989 marked Kodar’s debut as a feature film director, with the release of Jaded. The film was produced by Kodar and Gary Graver (one of the cameramen on F for Fake), who doubled as the director of photography. The film starred Randall Brady, Elizabeth Brooks, Scott Kaske, Jillian Kesner, Kelli Maroney, and Oja Kodar. Portions of the film were shot in an artist’s loft in downtown Los Angeles. —Wikipedia