The Secret of Nikola Tesla


The Secret of Nikola Tesla, is a 1980 Yugoslav biographical film which details events in the life of the Serbian-American engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla, studied engineering and physics, and moved to New York in 1884. He became an American citizen in 1891 and is known for his contributions to electrical engineering.
This biography includes references to his abilities of detailed mental visualization as well as the slowly intensifying personal habits, indulgences or eccentricities for which he became nearly as well known. The film portrays Tesla in a battle with Thomas Edison over the superiority of Alternating Current over Direct Current. It also depicts Tesla's dream of supplying consumers all around the globe with limitless wireless energy.
Croatian director Krsto Papić assembled a cast which includes three American actors playing iconic personalities of 19th and early 20th century America, J. P. Morgan, Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Morgan is portrayed by Orson Welles, while Croatian actress Oja Kodar, Welles' companion for the last 24 years of his life, has the role of Katharine Johnson, with whom Tesla corresponded for many years, and whose husband, Robert Underwood Johnson was a poet, scholar, diplomat and Tesla's longtime friend and supporter. The other Americans in the cast are character actors Strother Martin and Dennis Patrick as Westinghouse and Edison, respectively.

Cast