Welles never confirmed a principal source for the character of Charles Foster Kane. Houseman wrote that Kane is a synthesis of different personalities, with Hearst's life used as the main source. Some events and details were invented,[85]: 444 and Houseman wrote that he and Mankiewicz also "grafted anecdotes from other giants of journalism, including Pulitzer, Northcliffe and Mank's first boss, Herbert Bayard Swope."[85]: 444 Welles said, "Mr. Hearst was quite a bit like Kane, although Kane isn't really founded on Hearst in particular. Many people sat for it, so to speak".[58]: 78 He specifically acknowledged that aspects of Kane were drawn from the lives of two business tycoons familiar from his youth in Chicago—Samuel Insull and Harold Fowler McCormick.[i][22]: 49
The character of Jedediah Leland was based on drama critic Ashton Stevens, George Stevens's uncle and Welles's close boyhood friend.[22]: 66 Some detail came from Mankiewicz's own experience as a drama critic in New York.[23]: 77–78
Many assumed that the character of Susan Alexander Kane was based on Marion Davies, Hearst's mistress whose career he managed and whom Hearst promoted as a motion picture actress. This assumption was a major reason Hearst tried to destroy Citizen Kane.[90][j] Welles denied that the character was based on Davies,[92] whom he called "an extraordinary woman—nothing like the character Dorothy Comingore played in the movie."[22]: 49 He cited Insull's building of the Chicago Opera House, and McCormick's lavish promotion of the opera career of his second wife, Ganna Walska, as direct influences on the screenplay.[22]: 49
The character of political boss Jim W. Gettys is based on Charles F. Murphy, a leader in New York City's infamous Tammany Hall political machine.[28]: 61
Welles credited "Rosebud" to Mankiewicz.[22]: 53 Biographer Richard Meryman wrote that the symbol of Mankiewicz's own damaged childhood was a treasured bicycle, stolen while he visited the public library and not replaced by his family as punishment. He regarded it as the prototype of Charles Foster Kane's sled.[23]: 300 In his 2015 Welles biography, Patrick McGilligan reported that Mankiewicz himself stated that the word "Rosebud" was taken from the name of a famous racehorse, Old Rosebud. Mankiewicz had a bet on the horse in the 1914 Kentucky Derby, which he won, and McGilligan wrote that "Old Rosebud symbolized his lost youth, and the break with his family". In testimony for a copyright infringement suit brought by Hearst biographer Ferdinand Lundberg, Mankiewicz said, "I had undergone psycho-analysis, and Rosebud, under circumstances slightly resembling the circumstances in [Citizen Kane], played a prominent part."[93] Gore Vidal has argued in the New York Review of Books that “Rosebud was what Hearst called his friend Marion Davies’s clitoris”.[94]
The News on the March sequence that begins the film satirizes the journalistic style of The March of Time, the news documentary and dramatization series presented in movie theaters by Time Inc.[95][96] From 1935 to 1938[97]: 47 Welles was a member of the uncredited company of actors that presented the original radio version.[98]: 77
Houseman claimed that banker Walter P. Thatcher was loosely based on J. P. Morgan.[47]: 55 Bernstein was named for Dr. Maurice Bernstein, appointed Welles's guardian;[22]: 65–66 Sloane's portrayal was said to be based on Bernard Herrmann.[81] Herbert Carter, editor of The Inquirer, was named for actor Jack Carter.[35]: 155
