Hitchcock may have been the master of suspense, Kubrick the genius innovator, Stone a shock to the establishment, Coppola an audio-visual artist and Polanski an expert on the strange, but Orson Welles, who died on 10 October, 1985, was the ultimate auteur , with a strong creative vision as a director.

He wrote, directed, produced and starred in countless films, one of which, Citizen Kane , is considered by many to be the greatest film of all time.

Having gained notoriety with his legendary radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds , he went on to direct more than 30 films, taking leading roles in many of them. But though his acting career was a secondary concern, he appeared in more than 100 films in often-fruitless efforts to boost funding and support for his numerous directorial projects.

George Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on 6 May, 1915. His father, Richard, made car headlamps and his mother, Beatrice, was a concert pianist and suffragette. The family moved to Chicago a few years later when Richard Welles got a job as a salesman.

When he was six, his parents divorced. His mother began a relationship with Russian physician Dr Maurice Bernstein who declared young Orson, who could play piano and violin as well as read Shakespeare, to be a child prodigy. His mother died of jaundice in 1926 and his father also died a few years later. Dr Bernstein took over the young boy's care, taking him on trips to Europe, Cuba and Africa.

The young Mr Welles staged his first theatrical productions at Todd boys school in Woodstock, Illinois. He made a successful acting debut in 1931 while travelling in Ireland after claiming to be a Broadway star to the manager of the Gate Theatre, Dublin. This led to an introduction to playwright Thornton Wilder in New York and roles in several Broadway productions.

In the mid 1930s, Mr Welles had begun working as a radio actor. He started directing regular radio plays for CBS and it was his 1938 adaptation of H G Wells’ The War of the Worlds that brought him to the attention of Hollywood – the broadcast, done in the style of a news bulletin, made headlines when listeners tuning in midway thought they were hearing news of a real life alien invasion.

Offered an unprecedented contract by RKO, Mr Welles first attempted a version of Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness (later the basis for Apocalypse Now ), but the studios were wary of its controversial political subtext. Several other ideas were also rejected and it wasn’t until he and screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz conceived an allegorical story called ‘American’ that he was able to start work on a film.

‘American’ became Citizen Kane , the life story of a newspaper tycoon (loosely based on William Randolph Hearst) whose decadent lifestyle and lust for power leads to his lonely downfall. Welles said of the film: “I wished to make a motion picture which was not a narrative of action so much as an examination of character.”

Despite glowing critical response, Citizen Kane barely broke even. It seems a cruel irony that making one of the all-time great movies meant the rest of Mr Welles’ directorial career was hampered by budget restrictions and interference from the studios.

His next film was an adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Magnificent Ambersons which he had already produced on the radio (his original film script was recently remade) and, to satisfy the studio, he also worked on the thriller Journey Into Fear at the same time.

In many ways, Orson Welles’ career, in which he joked he had “started at the top and worked my way down”, continued in this fashion for four decades, constantly having to appease studios. Touch of Evil (1958) was a typical case – more than 30 minutes were cut from Mr Welles’ original edit and, though the cinema release was still a magnificent film, Mr Welles’ version (later released on video) is rated much higher by fans.

Often he would direct un-credited, such as on The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Black Magic (1949), simply in order to earn money for his own films and many of his projects had the financial rug pulled from under them, such as his South African documentary It's All True and adaptations of Moby Dick and Don Quixote.

In fact, the studios’ lack of support and commercial failure of many of his films meant he might not have had a career at all were it not for his acting skills. With a forceful and dynamic screen presence he was a bankable Hollywood star and was cast in major roles (plus a lot of voice-over work utilising his booming voice) up until his death from a heart attack at the age of 70.

He was married three times, each time to an actress – Virginia Nicholson (1934-1940), Rita Hayworth (1943-1948) and Paola Mori (1955 until his death) – and had a daughter from each marriage. He spent much of his life in Europe (a haven from the Hollywood money men) and his ashes were scattered in Spain.

His vast contribution to the cinema industry was recognised with an honorary Academy Award in 1971 to go with the Oscar for Best Screenplay that Citizen Kane earned him.