Oja Kodar (OY-ah ko-DAHR; born 1941) is a Croatian actress, screenwriter and director, best known as Orson Welles' partner for the last 24 years of his life.

Personal

Born Olga Palinkaš in Zagreb to a Hungarian father and a Croatian mother, Kodar was the partner and lover of Orson Welles during the last twenty-four years of his life. They met in Zagreb in 1961, when Welles was in town filming The Trial. Forty-six-year-old Welles, at the time still married but estranged from his third wife Paola Mori, took a liking to the twenty-year-old "dark, beautiful and exotic-looking" Palinkaš. Soon after they began their relationship, Welles gave her a stage name Oja Kodar, which is a mixture of the name 'Oja' given by her sister Nina and the Croatian expression 'ko-dar' (as a present).

All throughout his time living with Kodar, Welles never divorced Mori nor did he marry Kodar. It took a whole year following his 1985 death for Kodar and Mori to agree on settling his will.

Kodar now manages Welles's estate.