By RAY KELLY

Orson Welles films have had their share of memorable, offbeat characters: Romy Schneider as the web-fingered Leni in The Trial, Dennis Weaver’s jittery motel night manager in Touch of Evil and Mischa Auer’s flea circus trainer in Mr. Arkadin.

In The Other Side of the Wind, audiences were introduced to the Ice Cube Girl, played by teenage Teresa (Fitzgerald) Nersesyan.  Her character, sitting cross-legged on a counter top, poured a glass of Fresca and watched a rain-soaked Oja Kodar disrobe in a nightclub bathroom as an orgy took place in the nearby toilet stalls.

Nersesyan is the daughter of two criminal defense lawyers. Her father was chief defense counsel for Charles Manson and she was taught to ride a horse at Spahn Ranch by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. She was a freshman at University High School in West Los Angeles — just a few months shy of her 14th birthday — when she became the youngest cast member in The Other Side of the Wind, her sole screen credit.

After some detective work, Wellesnet tracked down Nersesyan, now 57 and living in Spain.  She graciously agreed to discuss for the first time The Other Side of the Wind shoot and her casting, which was almost as strange as the scene she was featured in.

How were you chosen to play Ice Cube Girl?

This is a strange story. I was 14 years old and in the 9th grade. I was living with my dad in Beverly Glen canyon. One afternoon, the phone rang. There was this BOOMING voice on the other end. The man said that his name was Orson Welles. He said he was a film director and was making a movie. He said he had been looking for someone that looked like me for five years. He said that his companion, Olga (Kodar) had shown him her niece’s junior high school yearbook. It was from two years prior when I was at another school. I was incredulous. He was absolutely insistent that I come to his home in Beverly Hills and sit for a screen test. I had never heard of Orson Welles. I had no idea who he was. This was LA in the mid 1970’s. I thought for sure he was a pervert. He insisted that I tell my father that he had called and give him his number. I almost forgot to tell him.

When I mentioned that a total perv named Orson Welles called and wanted me to come to his house for a screen test, he freaked out! “WHO did you say called? Do you have any idea who Orson Welles is? He is only the greatest director of all time.” He proceeded to tell me about Citizen Kane and the Martian invasion. I still wasn’t very impressed. My dad, Paul Fitzgerald, then started a correspondence with Orson. There were about 10 typed notes that were hand delivered to my father’s office by  personal messenger. They negotiated vociferously and finally settled on a salary of $400 per week.

I went down for the screen test. As soon as he saw me, he said, “She is perfect! Get her in front of the camera for a screen test.”  He said he had been looking for a young girl that looked like a baby doll… I must have passed it because he wanted me to start filming the next day at his house.

You were barely 14 years old!  Good God, the scene you are in is pretty lewd.

I was a pretty evolved teenager, but still young. Lewd is a stretch. I did not take it that way. It was weird.

Was acting something you were interested in?

I had no interest at all in being an actress. I was definitely not interested in donating my time.

There were no other actors. It was just Orson, Olga, Gary (Graver, the cinematographer) and I. Occasionally, Peter (Bogdanovich) would show up. It seemed to me to consult, and not act.

He and Olga and Gary made a big deal about all these famous actors donating their time. The work was grueling. We filmed in his pool house. It was cramped and hot. There were mirrors everywhere, which made it difficult to film.

Orson rarely talked to me, he was only interested in the way I looked. I had no lines at all. I just sat in various places sucking on ice cubes. He was obsessive about exactly what ice cubes I had to use. He sent Gary everyday to the bar at the Beverly Wilshire hotel to get the ice. They were huge. I never understood where I fit in, what the movie was about, or anything.

I never saw Orson in clothes. He only wore a humongous white terry cloth bathrobe. He was enormous, the robe was like a giant tent. I’m sure he didn’t wear anything underneath it either.

Olga was cold and aloof. She shuffled around the set in this long, clinging black dress. She reminded me of Morticia Addams from the TV show The Addams Family.

Gary was kind and engaging, but was busy as hell as he was Orson’s step and fetch.

Peter Bogdanovich showed up regularly. I remember thinking ‘Is this how movies are made?’ I am here everyday and I have no idea what is going on. I never saw any other actors. I was never in a scene with anyone else. I never saw a script.

Do you recall exactly when, where and how long it took to shoot your sequence?

I would say it was from March to June of 1975.  We filmed for eight to 10 weeks… in his pool house behind the Beverly Hills mansion he was renting…  (Editor’s note: In early 1975, Welles resided at Bogdanovich’s Bel Air home and beginning in late April 1975 at William Wellman’s Beverly Hills house with the rental paid by Bogdanovich, according to Orson Welles’s Last Movie author Josh Karp.)

We shot the scenes in the spring of 1975. I remember that because for Spring Break the thing to do was go to Palm Springs and party and lay by the pool. I did that while we were filming and got a tan. When I showed up on Monday he was furious. He went on a rampage — screaming and yelling at me. I just told him he could not expect me to not go out with my friends and have fun. Once I lost an earring that I had been wearing — another tirade. An all out search was organized to replace it.

What was the mood like during the shoot?

It was creepy. He was obsessive. People walked on egg shells around him. He could be very intimidating. His voice was intense. It was hard work. It was hot. I got no positive feedback, only negative. We worked long hours.

He was wheezing and sweating. He had difficult breathing and always had a huge wet cigar he munched on and smoked. I was paid $400 per week, which was a pretty handsome sum for a 14-year old, so I put up with it.

As I said, Gary was kind. He fed me and kept me company. He talked to me.

Now as an adult, I can appreciate the incredible talent he had and what a contribution he has made to film, but his personal style left a little to be desired.

How did Welles prepare you for your role and describe the scene to you?

He did not do a very good job of that. As I did not have any lines, it was all about my looks. He wanted me to look pouty and sexy and innocent at the same time. What? He explained that I was a critical part of the movie. He said I would be the opening scene in a bathroom and the closing scene in a bar when the main character loses it when he sees me sitting there.

I will never know. I was never contacted after we finished filming and never heard from anyone again about it until you reached out to me. I have never seen the film.

(Editor’s note: Paul Hart, an editor on the film tells Wellesnet: “There wasn’t any scene of John Dale losing it in any of the footage I saw, which was all shot on the bathroom set and only featured Oja, Ice Cube Girl, and the various hippies.  I doubt that they shot it, since I don’t see how it could have fit in.  Probably just another instance of the script changing. From the footage, it seemed clear that Ice Cube Girl was to go at the end of the bathroom sequence, not the beginning.  During the scene, The Actress puts on the raincoat, and she’s carrying it when she walks through earlier.  Though there was some ambiguity.  The bathroom scene was actually shot twice.  In one version, there is no Ice Cube Girl, and The Actress just changes clothes by herself in one of the bathrooms.  It’s not clear from the slates which one they shot first, but I think they probably decided it needed something more, and reshot it with the Ice Cube Girl character.)

Did Welles give you a great deal of direction?

It never stopped!  Lift your chin! Look pouty! Look sexy! Noooo, not that way, this way!

Have you ever told friends you were in an Orson Welles movie and not been believed?

I keep quiet about it. The movie was never released. I never heard anything about it. My friends were skeptical it ever even happened. So I just stopped talking about it.

What have you been doing since The Other Side of the Wind?

I went onto University of California at Berkeley. I have been an executive in the fashion and retail industries for the last 30 years. I met and married the love of my life, Jirig, when I was 32. We had two sons, who are now 25 and  15.

In 2015, my husband and I decided to drastically change our lives. We were both very successful by American standards, but we were both miserable. We had a huge, beautiful home in Long Beach, we had a power boat and an RV. We never saw each other or our sons. He was an entrepreneur who owned and ran various small businesses and gas stations. I travelled overseas to Asia 30 percent of my time. I was on numerous boards of directors. I worked 70 hour weeks. We had been boaters for the previous 20 years, going to Catalina on the weekends. We decided that we were going to give up everything, my job, his businesses, our homes, our cars, everything. We were going to sail around the world.

We bought a beautiful boat. We made a two-year plan to dissolve our lives in the U.S. Life was just too toxic in LA. The plan was to leave the U.S. permanently. We were going to sail for five years and then return to the country/place we liked the best and settle down. Our sons were excited to leave as well. We took off on my 54th birthday from Long Beach. We sailed down to Cabo and up the Sea of Cortez. Then down the Pacific coast of México, Central America, Panama, thru the canal, across the Caribbean, island hopping along the way.

While we were in the Azores, we attended a Pamplona-like “Running of the Bulls.” My husband was caught in the street and severely mauled by a 1,400-pound bull. He had a severe concussion, broken ribs and lost five teeth. He recovered and we sailed for Spain.

Twenty four hours after completing our Atlantic crossing, while my husband was up on the mast fixing the furler, he suffered a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He died an hour later right in front of us. It was horrible. Spain was to be a port of call, not a permanent resting place.

So, I found myself a widow with two sons and a sailboat — but with no husband, father or captain. It was devastating. You can only feel sorry for yourself for so long, then you have to pick up the pieces and move on. That was 18 months ago. My sons and I decided to stay in Barcelona and set up house. We are all thriving now. The kids go to international schools and I do fashion start up consulting here. We have put our lives back together.

Any final thoughts about The Other Side of the Wind and working with Welles?

Now what I know of him and his work it’s understandable. He was at the end of his life. He knew it. He wanted to get it done against any obstacles. After what I have been through, I totally get that.

He was a master, I was 14. He was only interested in how I looked — not who I was like everyone else. I was a super smart intuitive girl thrown into a creative vision — I was not a part of. If only someone had explained to me what was going on, I could have gotten on board. But I was just an object with ice. That was made clear to me by those few on the set, Orson at the lead.

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(Special thanks to Paul Hart, Bob Murawski and Josh Karp for their assistance.)

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