ENIGMATIC WELLES UNCAPPED.

Byline: Tom Nolan Special to the Daily News

Title: "Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu"

Author: Simon Callow

Data: Viking, 640 pages; $32.95

Our rating: Four Stars

Why, some may wonder, another book about Orson Welles? Hasn't his story been told more than once? Aren't we all familiar with that flawed colossus, his startling achievements and melancholy fate?

It's true that Welles has been the subject of several works, including Barbara Leaming's "Orson Welles: A Biography," recently reissued in trade paperback with a new epilogue (Limelight Editions; $20). But no single book has yet seemed definitive.

None, that is, until this lucid and exhilarating work by Simon Callow, the first of two promised volumes.

Callow, a British actor ("Four Weddings and a Funeral") and author of a biography of Charles Laughton, here traces Welles' trajectory from birth to release of his first and best-realized movie, "Citizen Kane." In winnowing fact from fable, the biographer had his job cut out for him. Orson Welles - "one of the greatest one-man publicity machines ever created" - never let the truth stand in the way of a good press release. Late in the game he cheerfully admitted: "Seventy-five percent of what I say in interviews is false."

Born in Kenosha, Wis., in 1915, to a well-off, self-indulgent father and an artistic and demanding mother, George Orson Welles was deemed a prodigy, a budding genius whose expressive gifts were encouraged from infancy. (The first newspaper profile of Welles was written when he was 10.) At the Todd School for Boys, in Woodstock, Ill., Welles was further catered to by adults who rewarded his precocious creativity.

Orson's acting and directing skills began to blossom remarkably early. Callow also shows how the seeds of Welles' less attractive traits - overweening egotism, callousness toward others, borderline bullying, a reluctance to share credit - were also planted young.

Ducking college, Welles went to Dublin and caused his first professional stir as a 16-year-old actor at the Gate Theatre. In New York, Thornton Wilder introduced him to Alexander Woolcott. He, in turn, introduced him to the great star Katherine Cornell, who made Welles a leading member of her troupe.

Before long, the extraordinary Welles saga had commenced. He and producer John Houseman electrified New York with their versions of "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar" and "The Cradle Will Rock." A CBS radio series led to the notorious "War of the Worlds" broadcast, which helped convince Hollywood to woo Welles into his breathtaking film debut.

This fantastic chronicle has been told before, yes, but never so thoroughly, so accurately, so interestingly or so entertainingly.

Even those who think they know all about Welles will probably learn more: Of the stagings of "The Shoemaker's Holiday" and "Native Son," for instance, which Callow describes respectively as probably "his best work" and "the most completely achieved of all Welles's productions." Of the classic Shakespeare text Welles edited and illustrated. Of Welles and company's exciting radio work. In "the immediacy of its impact, the flexibility of its language" and "the circumstances of its creation," Callow notes, "radio suited him down to the ground."

As an actor, Callow brings particular acuity to his discussions of Welles' dramatic technique and his directing methods. "His attitude to acting was always equivocal," Callow writes. "He was interested neither in developing his craft nor in exploring his range. He was sublimely confident of his right to hold the center of the stage. ..." Welles the director "was not, in fact, a great innovator at all; he was a great fulfiller ... he seemed innately to have an absolute mastery of the skills of the theater" and "a shameless, unabashed determination to give immediate gratification. ..."

Welles thrived on adrenaline and seemed to encourage crisis and catastrophe as spurs to creative solutions. When this worked, it could be brilliant. When it didn't, it was disastrous. And Callow doubts that Welles, as actor or director, ever matured beyond his own boredom and bad habits into a necessary professionalism: "His lack of proper preparation ... condemned him to insecurity and made it impossible for his work to grow, thus denying himself the real satisfaction of the job. ..."

Nevertheless, Welles at his best - surrounded by talented co-workers whom he pushed and persuaded to realize his ideas - created some of the most dazzling fireworks ever seen or heard on stage, screen or radio.

Herman Mankiewicz, who co-wrote "Citizen Kane," called Welles "a real genius," someone whose bad behavior was generally forgiven: "God knows why. When he has walked among men, they loathe his guts. But they miss him more than they would somebody they loved."

A lot of people miss Orson Welles. Simon Callow has brought the man, his work and his times back before us with great authority and terrific flair. We eagerly await the sequel.

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Photo Orson Welles changed cinema with "Citizen Kane," but Simon Callow writes, "His lack of proper preparation ... condemned him to insecurity and made it impossible for his work to grow, thus denying himself the real satisfaction of the job."