Edwin Forrest

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Edwin Forrest

(born March 9, 1806, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S. — died Dec. 12, 1872, Philadelphia) U.S. actor. He made his stage debut in Philadelphia in 1820. He played Othello in New York (1826) to great acclaim and became known for his Shakespearean roles. His feud with the English actor William Macready sparked the so-called Astor Place riot (1849), in which Forrest's supporters mobbed the theatre where Macready was appearing. The militia was called out, the rioters attacked, and the militia fired, killing 22 and wounding 36. Forrest's reputation never fully recovered; it was further damaged when he filed a divorce suit on grounds of adultery.

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American Theater Guide: Edwin Forrest

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Forrest, Edwin (1806–72), actor. Generally acknowledged as the first grand tragedian of the American stage, Forrest was born in Philadelphia to the impoverished, runaway son of a Scottish squire and the daughter of middle‐class German immigrants. His theatrical debut came about by accident in 1817 when the manager of the Southwark Theatre, noting his attractiveness, asked him to substitute for an ailing actress in the small role of the odalisque Rosina in Rudolph; or, The Robber of Calabria. The experience thrilled him, and though he had little formal education he studied elocution and organized a Thespian Club. His real debut was as Norval in Douglas at the Walnut Street Theatre in 1820. He then spent the next several seasons touring what was called the Western circuit (western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky) before performing in New Orleans. During this time he first performed many of the roles for which he would become famous, including Damon in Damon and Pythias, Jaffier in Venice Preserved, Tell in William Tell, and the Indian chief in She Would Be a Soldier. His New York debut was as Othello in 1826 at the Park Theatre, and he repeated his performance at the Bowery Theatre. Both playhouses were to figure importantly in his career. What critics and playgoers saw was a dark‐haired, sardonically handsome man of noticeably muscular build (he always favored roles that allowed him to display his arms and legs) who stood five feet ten inches tall and had a deep, stentorian voice, which he sometimes employed with a crude vigor. Implicit in his appearance and acting were the seeds of class differences that would beset his career. From the start Forrest's appeal was to the mass of playgoers, the more genteel members of the audience often balking at what they perceived as his sometimes vulgar display of physique and his unlettered readings. In 1828 he offered prizes for new American plays, preferably on American themes. First prize went to John Augustus Stone for Metamora, which was soon one of Forrest's most popular vehicles. Other winners included Richard Penn Smith's Caius Marius; three plays by Robert Montgomery Bird: The Gladiator, Oralloossa, and The Broker of Bogota; and Robert T. Conrad's Jack Cade. The well‐intentioned contest also added to the actor's increasingly questionable personal reputation, for he was accused of not paying money owed to several of the playwrights. Forrest then added a number of major roles to his repertory, including the title parts of King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Virginius. His career may be said to have peaked in the late 1840s, after which two incidents further tarnished his reputation. In 1849 his rivalry with the English actor William Macready came to a head in the bloody Astor Place Riots, in which Forrest almost certainly had a hand. In 1851 he and his wife were divorced after each had noisily (and probably accurately) accused the other of infidelity. Thereafter, his popularity began to wane, although he still retained a large and vocal following, especially in the upper reaches of theatres. But increasing age, a sameness in repertory, as well as new faces and newer styles of performing also militated against the actor. Loss of favor embittered Forrest, but he continued to play until shortly before his death. William Winter called Forrest a “vast animal, bewildered by a grain of genius,” who was personally an “utterly selfish” man. But while he was reluctant to “canonize” Forrest, Winter concluded, “As an actor Forrest, at his best, was remarkable for iron repose, perfect precision of method, immense physical force, capacity for leonine banter, fiery ferocity and occasional felicity of elocution.” Biography: Edwin Forrest: First Star of the American Stage, Richard Moody, 1960.

Biography: Edwin Forrest

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The actor Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) was the first great American-born tragedian. Heroic in technique, he was acclaimed by the popular audience but often scorned by the cultured. His career had important social and political implications.

Edwin Forrest, the fifth child of a destitute Philadelphia family, left school when he was 10. At 14 he gained his first professional role. Though his talent was immediately apparent, there was no place for him on eastern stages, so he joined companies that played in the West and South. Returning to the prestigious theaters of the East in 1825, he was inspired and praised by Edmund Kean, the English actor, and made a great success acting Othello. At the age of 21 Forrest was a star, playing all the important Shakespearean roles. He was the only American actor who could challenge the English domination of the stage.

Forrest offered prizes for original American plays, especially with parts he might play. Metamora (1828), The Gladiator (1831), and The Broker of Bogota (1834) were the most successful. Forrest became wealthy, partly from these roles, but he paid the authors no royalties beyond the original prize.

While touring England in 1837, Forrest met and married Catherine Sinclair. He also met William Macready, the English actor who competed with Forrest for preeminence.

Forrest's technique, like his temperament, was heroic and physical rather than subtle. As an actor, he embodied all the robust, uninhibited majesty that Americans saw in themselves as a nation. His voice could make the pits tremble; his eloquence was marvelous for the large theaters of the time; and his furious realism, especially in scenes of combat, terrified his stage opponents. William Winter later said he was a "vast animal bewildered by a grain of genius." Forrest's heroic pose and strong nationalism were not lost upon the popular audience, which felt a traditional cultural inferiority to England.

In 1849 the long-standing competition between Forrest and Macready exploded into riot. Forrest insisted that Macready had insulted him; Forrest's followers insisted that the Englishman had insulted America. Macready versus Forrest became a struggle of England against America, rich against poor, the elite against the common. A mob stormed the Astor Place Theater in New York City, where Macready was playing; and the militia in quelling the riot killed at least 22 persons. Forrest's reputation was tarnished by the tragedy.

That same year Forrest accused his wife of adultery; the long and sordid litigation came to the divorce court in 1851. Though Catherine was vindicated, America had its first actor's divorce scandal, and Forrest's Othello was more popular than ever.

Forrest soon retired. Though he returned to the stage in 1860, his grandiloquent, strenuous style of acting was passing from favor. Some critics still insist, however, that he was the greatest actor America has ever produced.

Early life

Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of Scottish and German descent. His father died, and he was brought up by his mother, a German woman of humble origins. He was educated at the common schools in Philadelphia, and early evinced a taste for the theatre. Edmund Kean was at that time in the meridian of his fitful career; William A. Conway, Thomas Apthorpe Cooper, and Edwin Booth were playing under the management of the actors William B. Wood and William Warren. Constant attendance at the performances of these artists fired Forrest's ambition and aroused his enthusiasm for the dramatic profession, to the deep grief of his pious mother. At an early age he had given pain to his parents by taking an humble part in a dramatic performance.^[1]

Beginning of acting career

Forrest made his first stage appearance on November 27, 1820, at the Walnut Street Theatre, in Douglas by John Home. The theatres of New York and Philadelphia were already crowded with trained and successful actors. Forrest therefore set out at once for the south and west. His tour through a rough country — with the inconveniences of long distances, the necessity of presenting his plays in rude halls, insufficient support, and poor scenery — was not altogether successful, but the discipline to mind and body was felt in all his subsequent career.^[1] He soon gained fame for portraying blackface caricatures of African Americans. Constance Rourke wrote that his impression was so believable he often mingled in the streets with African Americans unnoticed. He allegedly fooled one old black woman into taking him for a friend and then convinced her to join him in his stage performance that night.^[2]

New York success

Daguerreotype of Edwin Forrest by Mathew Brady

In 1826 he had a great success at the Bowery Theatre in New York City as Othello. The management employed him at a salary far below his worth, and he was at once offered increased payment at another theatre; but he refused to break his word, and carried out the contract to his own detriment. This strict sense of honor was characteristic of him throughout his career.^[1] His New York success was repeated in every city he visited. In 1829 he was featured as Metamora in the play Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags by John Augustus Stone. After a few years of profitable labor, during which he had encouraged native talent by liberal offers for new American plays, he went to Europe for rest and travel and larger observation, and was received with much courtesy by actors and scholars.^[1]

He returned to Philadelphia in 1831, and played there and in New York and elsewhere with triumphant success until September, 1836, when he sailed for England, this time professionally, and made his first appearance at Drury Lane as Spartacus in the Gladiator in 1836. The play was not a success, although his own role was noted favorably. During a season of ten months he performed in that historic theatre the parts of Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. His social triumphs were as great as were his professional; he was entertained by William Macready and Charles Kemble, and at the end of the season was complimented by a dinner at the Garrick Club, presided over by Thomas Talfourd. During this engagement he married, in June 1837, Miss Catherine Norton Sinclair, daughter of John Sinclair, a popular English singer. He returned to Philadelphia in November of the same year and began an engagement. His wife made a deep impression wherever she was presented, and it was argued that domestic happiness would be the fitting crown of his public career. But these predictions were disappointed.^[1]

Hissing incidents

He visited London a second time in 1845, accompanied by his wife, who was welcomed in the intellectual circles of English and Scotch society. He acted at the Princess's Theatre in London. He met with great success in Virginius and other parts, but when he attempted to personate Macbeth, a character unsuited to his physique and style of acting, the performance was hissed by the audience. Forrest attributed the hissing to the professional jealousy and machinations of Macready, although that artist had been kind and helpful to him when he first came before London audiences. A few weeks later, when Macready was playing Hamlet in Edinburgh, Forrest stood up in a private box and hissed the English actor. This act evoked reproaches from the British press and destroyed the respect in which he had been held by the public. A letter that Forrest printed in the London Times aggravated, instead of justifying, his offence. The incident was fatal to his popularity in Britain. His jealousy of Macready resulted in the Astor Place riot in May 1849.^[1]

Divorce

In 1850, the Forrest and his wife sought divorce, after Forrest's affair with actress Josephine Clifton; he claimed that he had found a love letter to his wife from fellow actor George W. Jamieson.^[3] Forrest and Catharine separated in April 1849 and he moved to Philadelphia where he filed for divorce in February 1850, though the Pennsylvania legislature denied his divorce application.^[4] Under the advice of Parke Godwin, Catherine hired Charles O'Conor as her lawyer.^[5] The divorce became a cause célébre and the well-known writer Nathaniel Parker Willis was caught in the middle. Willis defended Catharine, who maintained her innocence, in his magazine Home Journal and suggested that Forrest was merely jealous of her intellectual superiority.^[6] On June 17, 1850, shortly after Forrest had filed for divorce in the New York Supreme Court,^[7] Forrest beat Willis with a gutta-percha whip in New York's Washington Square, shouting "this man is the seducer of my wife".^[8] Willis, who was recovering from a rheumatic fever at the time, was unable to fight back.^[9] Willis's own wife soon received an anonymous letter suggesting that Willis was, in fact, involved with Forrest's wife.^[10] Willis later sued Forrest for assault and, by March 1852, was awarded $2,500 plus court costs.^[9] In the divorce case, Charles O'Conor was the counsel for Catherine, the defendant, with John Van Buren representing Edwin. Throughout the Forrest divorce case, which lasted six weeks, several witnesses made additional claims that Catherine Forrest and Nathaniel Parker Willis were having an affair, including a waiter who claimed he had seen the couple "lying on each other".^[10] As the press reported, "thousands and thousands of the anxious public" awaited the court's verdict; ultimately, the court sided with Catherine Forrest and Willis's name was cleared.^[11] O'Conor won a national reputation by winning the case, and secured a liberal alimony for Catherine.^[1] The whole affair hurt Forrest's reputation and soured his temper.

Later stage career

In 1853 he played Macbeth, with a strong cast and fine scenery, at the Broadway Theatre for four weeks — an unprecedented run at that date — and at the end of this engagement he retired from the stage for several years. He became interested in politics, being spoken of as a candidate for congress, and did not return to professional life until 1860, when he appeared at Niblo's Garden, New York, as Hamlet, and played the most successful engagement of his life. Hereditary gout developed itself in a malignant form in 1865, during an engagement at the Holliday Street Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland the sciatic nerve was paralyzed, and he never regained the use of his hand or his steady gait. His California tour in 1866 was a failure. He played his last New York engagement in February, 1871, the plays being Richelieu and King Lear. The weather was cold, and the houses empty. On the night of 25 March 1871, he appeared in Boston, Massachusetts at the Globe Theatre, as Lear, played this part six times, and was announced for Richelieu and Virginius, but on the intervening Sunday he caught cold. He struggled through the role of Richelieu on Monday night, and rare bursts of eloquence lighted the gloom, but he labored piteously against the disease which was fast conquering him. Being offered stimulants, he signed them away, with the words, “If I die, I will still be my royal self.” This was his last appearance as an actor. He eventually recovered from the severe attack of pneumonia. The craving for public applause, which was his only happiness, induced him to give readings from Shakespeare in several large cities. The scheme failed, and was abandoned, to his deep mortification.^[1]

Forrest's castle-like mansion by the Hudson River in New York

A stroke of paralysis ended his life suddenly and without pain. His servant found him dead, alone, and apparently asleep, in his home in Philadelphia. The large sums that he had earned on the stage were judiciously and fortunately invested, and resulted in his amassing a large fortune. He had purchased, about 1850, a site on the banks of the Hudson, on which he erected a castellated structure. This estate, which he named Fonthill, he afterward sold at a large advance for a convent. In 1855 he purchased his mansion in Philadelphia, to which he retired after his temporary abandonment of the stage. There he collected the largest dramatic library in the United States. By avoiding New York and by legal evasions he succeeded in escaping the payment of alimony to his wife, but left his estate heavily in her debt.^[1]

Philanthropic efforts

Edwin Forrest home in Philadelphia

In his later years, Forrest lobbied for the rights of smaller theatres against the increasingly powerful conglomerated theatre companies, earning him the nickname "Little Man Edwin." His love of the theatre was unbounded, and he is one of the few whose memory survives to this day, for he used his considerable accumulated wealth to support his fellow actors, perhaps in appreciation of the fact that supporting actors need themselves to be supported as they get older.

This began in 1865, the year of Lincoln's assassination by the actor John Wilkes Booth, a time when the public held those in the acting profession in low regard, if not contempt. He sheltered actors at his summer home near Philadelphia, and in 1876, four years after his death at the age of 66, his will instructed that there should be formed the Forrest Home for retired actors in Philadelphia, which was to last for over one hundred years before being folded into the much larger Actors Fund facility in Englewood, New Jersey. There his name lives on, in the Edwin Forrest Wing.

In the 1920s, architect Herbert J. Krapp was chosen to design two new theatres, one in New York City and the other in Philadelphia. Both were initially named the Forrest Theatre in honor of Forrest and his contributions to the theatre world. While the Philadelphia location is still called the Forrest Theatre, the building in New York has changed names over the years and is currently known as the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.^[12]^[13]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ "Forrest, Edwin". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.
^ Rourke, Constance (1931). American Humor: A Study of the National Character. Quoted in Watkins 83.
^ Baker, Thomas N. Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame. New York, Oxford University Press, 2001: 116. ISBN 0-19-512073-6
^ Beers, Henry A. Nathaniel Parker Willis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913: 309.
^ Baker, Thomas N. Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame. New York, Oxford University Press, 2001: 118. ISBN 0-19-512073-6
^ Beers, Henry A. Nathaniel Parker Willis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913.: 311.
^ Beers, Henry A. Nathaniel Parker Willis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913: 312.
^ Baker, Thomas N. Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame. New York, Oxford University Press, 2001: 115. ISBN 0-19-512073-6
^ ^a ^b Beers, Henry A. Nathaniel Parker Willis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913: 313.
^ ^a ^b Yellin, Jean Fagan. Harriet Jacobs: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Civitas Books, 2004: 112. ISBN 0465092888
^ Yellin, Jean Fagan. Harriet Jacobs: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Civitas Books, 2004: 113. ISBN 0465092888
^ "The Forrest Theatre, Philadelphia" Shubert Organization. Retrieved 30 March 2009.
^ "History" Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Retrieved 30 March 2009.

"Forrest, Edwin". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.

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