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Booth, Edwin [Thomas] (1833–93), actor and manager. The second son of the elder Junius Brutus Booth to become an actor, he was born in Belair, Maryland, and made his debut in 1849 at the Boston Museum playing Tressel to his father's Richard III. Booth made an unobtrusive New York debut in 1850 as Wilford in The Iron Chest but later garnered attention when he replaced his ailing father as Richard III. Shortly afterward he left to spend several seasons in California and the South Pacific, during which time his father died. It was on this tour that he mastered virtually all the roles for which he would be famous, notably Hamlet, Cardinal Richelieu, and Sir Giles Overreach. On his return to New York in 1857, he was billed as “the Hope of the living Drama.” His season included not only Hamlet, Richelieu, and A New Way to Pay Old Debts, but also King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, The Lady of Lyons, and Othello (in which he played Iago to Charles Fisher's Moor), as well as several now‐forgotten works. Critics were unawed by his name or billing, the Tribune noting, “Mr. Booth is the most unequal actor we remember ever to have seen; and his fine, careful acting in one scene is no guaranty that he will not walk feebly through the next, and let it go by default.” By 1862, when he became manager of the Winter Garden, his acting had improved, although many critics still complained about occasional unevenness. Booth mounted many highly praised Shakespearean productions at the house, including a Julius Caesar in which he portrayed Brutus, Junius Brutus Booth Jr. played Cassius, and John Wilkes Booth played Marc Antony. The following night, November 26, 1864, he began a one‐hundredperformance run as Hamlet, the longest run the play had ever had until that time. Less than a month after the play closed, Booth went into temporary retirement after learning that his brother had assassinated President Lincoln. He returned to the stage in 1866, and when the Winter Garden was destroyed by fire, he built his own theatre at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, opening it in 1869 with Romeo and Juliet. His Juliet, Mary McVicker, later became his second wife. Unfortunately, the playhouse sat on the edge of the main theatre district. This, coupled with some poor financial management, forced Booth to declare bankruptcy and lose the theatre in 1873. He then toured the country and from 1880 to 1882 performed successfully in England and Germany. In London he played at Henry Irving's Lyceum, where he and Irving alternated as Othello and Iago. On his return he formed noteworthy partnerships with Lawrence Barrett, Helena Modjeska, Madame Ristori, and Tommaso Salvini. In 1888 he gave his home on Gramercy Park to the newly organized Players, though he retained an apartment there until his death. His last appearance was as Hamlet in 1891 at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn.
Booth's personal life was as plagued by tragedy as any of the characters he portrayed. His father and several other close family members died insane; both his first wife, Mary Devlin Booth, and his second died young; his brother's murder of Lincoln gave him his darkest moment; and financial and drinking problems often beset him. Quite possibly the daunting distractions of his private life determined his conservative approach to drama. Unlike Edwin Forrest, he never sought to promote native plays; unlike Barrett, he never risked reviving obscure or neglected masterpieces. From early on he recognized that he had small ability in comic or in basically romantic plays. Tragedy was his forte, and he remained content with his reasonably large but relatively safe repertory. Booth stood about five feet six inches tall. His black hair, dark complexion, brown eyes, and sad mouth gave him a slightly Latin or Semitic appearance. Of his acting in Hamlet, William Winter wrote, “Surely the stage, at least in our time, has never offered a more impressive and affecting combination than Mr. Booth's Hamlet of princely dignity, intellectual stateliness, glowing imagination, fine sensitiveness to all that is most sacred in human life and all that is most thrilling and sublime in the weird atmosphere of ‘supernatural soliciting,’ which enwraps the highest mood of the man of genius!” A statue of Booth was erected in 1918 in Gramercy Park opposite the Players, making him one of the rare actors so honored, and in 1913 a second New York theatre was named after him. Biography: Prince of Players, Eleanor Ruggles, 1953.
| Biography: Edwin Booth |
Edwin Booth (1833-1893) was one of America's greatest tragic actors, introducing into his characterizations an artistic sensitivity and completeness that replaced the bombast of earlier times.
Edwin Booth had little schooling. Instead, he accompanied his actor father, Junius Brutus Booth, on the theatrical circuits, ostensibly to attend him but really to control the elder genius's drinking and erratic behavior, a problem Edwin himself later had. Edwin first took up drama in 1849 and thereafter played minor roles, until in New York, in 1851, his father's illness (real or feigned) permitted him to substitute as Richard III. Edwin was an immediate success.
Booth modestly continued his training in a variety of major and minor roles, first in California and later in the South. In Richmond, Va., he fell in love with Mary Devlin, who became his wife. Returning to New York in 1857, he was acclaimed for his brilliant and forceful portrayals of Richard III, Shylock, Romeo, and other Shakespearean characters. Booth surpassed the critical praise given to Edwin Forrest, who emerged from retirement in 1860 to challenge the young man.
At 31 Booth was America's foremost actor. His wife's death, however, caused him deep sorrow that exaggerated his already melancholy nature. He left the stage saying, "The beauty of my art is gone - it is hateful to me."
But acting was so deeply a part of the man that by 1864 Booth was back as star and manager of the Winter Garden Theater in New York. It was there that the three Booth brothers - Edwin, Junius, and John Wilkes - gave their memorable performance of Julius Caesar. (This staged political assassination was soon to be followed by a real one.) While Edwin was at the zenith of his fame, having acted Hamlet for more than a hundred consecutive nights, he heard of his brother John Wilkes's murder of President Lincoln. Once more he retired from the stage in sorrow.
Assured that the public did not hold him responsible for his brother's action, Booth returned to acting in 1866 and was greeted by a tremendous and sympathetic ovation. At the Booth Theater in New York City he managed and acted in the most elaborate and artistic productions of Shakespeare America had ever known. Bankruptcy in 1873 made him renounce managership forever, and he thereafter concentrated on becoming what many critics insisted was the greatest actor of his time. His performances were sensitive, integrated in tone, gesture, and setting, and full of poetic power. He did not think of himself as an entertainer but as an artist who revealed the beauty and wisdom of great dramatic poetry.
Booth had earlier made a gift of his home to the acting profession, and it was there, at the Players Club in New York City, that he died.
Further Reading
Eleanor Ruggles, Prince of Players: Edwin Booth (1953), is a popular portrait of the actor. William Winter, The Life and Art of Edwin Booth (1894; rev. ed. 1906), is a deeply appreciative analysis of Booth's technique and temperament. Asia B. Clarke, The Elder and Younger Booth (1882), is still an interesting study of the professional and personal lives of the Booth acting family. A good brief account of Booth and other tragedians of his time is in Garff B. Wilson, A History of American Acting (1966).
Additional Sources
Oggel, L. Terry, Edwin Booth: a bio-bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.
Players (Club), Edwin Booth's legacy: treasures from the Hampden-Booth theatre collection at the Players, New York: Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, 1989.
Smith, Gene, American gothic: the story of America's legendary theatrical family, Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Tebbel, John William, A certain club: one hundred years of The Players, New York: Wieser & Wieser, 1988.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Edwin Booth |
Bibliography
See his letters, ed. by D. J. Watermeier (1971); recollections by his daughter E. B. Grossman (1894, repr. 1969); biographies by E. Ruggles (1953), W. Winter (1893, repr. 1968), and R. Lockridge (1932, repr. 1971); C. H. Shattuck, The Hamlet of Edwin Booth (1969).
| Works: Works by Edwin Booth |
| 1888 | The Players. The New York City club for actors, writers, painters, sculptors, and musicians is founded by the actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893), who provides his home as a meeting place and serves as the club's president until his death. |
| Wikipedia: Edwin Booth |
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| Edwin Booth | |
|---|---|
 Edwin Booth as Hamlet, in the position on the throne where Booth is said to have begun the monologue: "To be or not to be, that is the question." (Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1, line 64).[1] |
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| Born | Edwin Thomas Booth November 13th, 1833 near Bel Air, Maryland |
| Died | June 7, 1893 (aged 59) |
| Occupation | Actor |
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Edwin Thomas Booth (13 November 1833 – 7 June 1893) was a famous 19th century American actor. He was born near Bel Air, Maryland into the English American theatrical Booth family. Booth toured throughout America and to the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespeare; in 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time.[2] Some theatre historians consider him the greatest American actor and Hamlet of the 19th century.[3]
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Booth was the son of another famous actor, Junius Brutus Booth, an Englishman, who named Edwin and his brother, Thomas, after Edwin Forrest and Thomas Flynn, two of Junius's colleagues. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, was Edwin's younger brother and was also an actor.
In his early appearances he usually performed alongside his father, making his stage debut as Tressel in Richard III in Boston, Massachusetts in 1849. Two years later, Edwin had his first starring role, standing in for his supposedly ailing father as Richard.
After his father's death in 1852, Booth went on a worldwide tour, visiting Australia and Hawaii, and finally gaining acclaim of his own during an engagement in Sacramento, California in 1856.
Before his brother assassinated the president, Edwin had appeared with his two brothers John Wilkes and Junius Brutus Booth Jr. in Julius Caesar in 1864. John Wilkes played Marc Antony, Edwin played Brutus, and Junius played Cassius. It was a benefit show and the only time that the brothers would appear together on the same stage. The funds were used to erect a statue of William Shakespeare that still stands in Central Park just south of the Promenade. Immediately following the brothers Booth appearance in Julius Caesar, Edwin Booth commenced a production of Hamlet on the same stage that came to be known as the "hundred nights Hamlet", setting a record that lasted until John Barrymore infamously broke the record in 1922, playing the title character for 101 performances.
From 1863 to 1867, Booth managed the Winter Garden Theater in New York City, mostly staging Shakespearean tragedies. In 1865, Booth purchased the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.
After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, the infamy associated with the Booth name forced Booth to abandon the stage for many months, a period dramatized in the 1955 Richard Burton movie Prince of Players, which was adapted from the biography of the same name by Eleanor Ruggles (ISBN 0-8371-6529-6). Edwin, who had been feuding with his brother for a period before Lincoln's assassination, disowned him afterward, refusing to have John's name spoken in his house.[4]
He made his return to the stage at the The Winter Garden Theatre in January 1866, playing the title role in Hamlet. Hamlet would eventually become Booth's signature role.
In 1867, a fire damaged The Winter Garden Theatre, resulting in the building's subsequent demolition.
After the fire at The Winter Garden Theatre, Booth built his own theatre, an elaborate structure called Booth's Theatre in Manhattan, which opened on February 3, 1869 with a production of Romeo and Juliet starring Booth as Romeo, and Mary McVicker as Juliet. Elaborate productions in Booth's Theatre followed, but the theatre never became a profitable or even stable financial venture. The panic of 1873 caused the final bankruptcy of Booth's Theatre in 1874. After the bankruptcy, Booth went on another worldwide tour, eventually regaining his fortune.
Booth was married to Mary Devlin from 1860 to 1863, the year of her death. He and Mary Devlin had one daughter, Edwina, born in 1862. He later remarried, wedding his acting partner, Mary McVicker in 1869, and becoming a widower again in 1881.
In 1869, Edwin acquired his brother John's body after repeatedly writing to President Andrew Johnson begging for it. Johnson finally released the remains, and Edwin had them buried, unmarked, in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.
In 1888 Booth founded the Players in New York City, a club for actors and others associated with the arts, and dedicated his home to it. His final performance was, fittingly, in his signature role of Hamlet, in 1891 at the Brooklyn Academy. He died in 1893 at the Players, and was buried next to his first wife at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In an interesting coincidence, Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son,[5] Robert, from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865, shortly before Edwin's brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated President Lincoln.
Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine.
| “ | The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name. | ” |
Booth did not know the identity of the man whose life he had saved until some months later, when he received a letter from a friend, Colonel Adam Badeau, who was an officer on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. Badeau had heard the story from Robert Lincoln, who had since joined the Union Army and was also serving on Grant's staff. In the letter, Badeau gave his compliments to Booth for the heroic deed. The fact that he had saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.
The Players' Club still exists at his home, at 16 Gramercy Park South.
There is a chamber in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky called "Booth's Amphitheatre" - so called because Booth actually entertained visitors there.
Booth left a few recordings of his voice preserved on wax cylinder. One of them can be heard on the Naxos Records set Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings and Other Miscellany.[6] Booth's voice is barely audible with all the surface noise, but what can be deciphered reveals it to have been rich and deep.
Memories of Booth can still be found around Bel Air, Maryland. In front of the court house is a fountain dedicated to his memory. Inside the post office there is a portrait of him. Also, his family's home, Tudor Hall, still stands and was bought in 2006 by Harford County, Maryland, to become a museum. A statue of him stands in Gramercy Park in New York City near his mansion.
Edwin's acting style was a reaction against that of his father's. While the senior Booth was, like his contemporaries Edmund Kean and William Charles Macready, strong and bombastic, favoring characters such as Richard III, Edwin played more naturalistically, with a quiet, more thoughtful delivery, tailored to roles like Hamlet.
There have been several modern dramatizations of the life of Edwin Booth, on both stage and screen. One of the most famous was the film The Prince of Players of 1955, with a screenplay by Moss Hart based loosely on the popular book of that name by Eleanor Ruggles, directed by Philip Dunn, starring Richard Burton and Raymond Massey as Edwin and Junius Brutus Booth, Senior, and also featuring Charles Bickford and Eva Le Gallienne (in a cameo playing Gertrude to Burton's Hamlet); the script depicted events in Booth's life surrounding the assassination of Lincoln by Booth's younger brother.[7] Austin Pendleton's play, Booth - which depicted the early years of the brothers Edwin, Junius, and John Wilkes Booth and their father - was produced Off Broadway at the York Theatre, starring Frank Langella as Junius Brutus Booth, Senior, called "a psychodrama about the legendary theatrical family of the 19th century" by the New York Times[8]; Pendleton had adapted this version from his earlier work, Booth Is Back, produced at Long Wharf Theatre, New Haven, CT, 1991-1992.
The Brothers BOOTH!, by W. Stuart McDowell, which focused on the relation of the three Booth brothers leading up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was workshopped with David Strathairn, David Dukes, Angela Goethals, Maryann Plunkett, and Stephen Lang at The New Harmony Project,[9], and at The Guthrie Theatre Lab in Minneapolis, and presented in New York at Booth's former home on Grammercy Park, The Players and at the Second Stage Theatre in New York; and was premiered at the Bristol Riverside Theatre outside Philadelphia in 1992.[10][11][12] A second play by the same name, The brothers Booth, which focuses on "the world of the 1860s theatre and its leading family"[13] was written by Marshell Bradley and staged in New York at the Perry Street Theatre in 2004.
The Tragedian, by playwright and actor Rodney Lee Rogers, is a one-man show about Booth that was produced by PURE Theater of Charleston, SC, in 2007. It was revived for inclusion in the Piccolo Spoleto Arts Festival in May and June 2008.[14]
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