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CC Photo of 19th Century Famous Actor Edwin Booth
Here offered is a vintage cabinet card photo of Edwin Booth the famous actor brother of John Wilkes Booth , murderer of Abraham Lincoln.
This CC is appx 4 1/4" x 6.5" with no writing other than an 86 on the reverse and printed id of Edwin Booth at bottom front.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Booth; 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.
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.
1870 engraving of Booth as HamletIn 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 appeared 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 Winter Garden Theater in New York City, mostly staging Shakespearean tragedies. In 1865, Booth purchased the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.
Edwin Booth with daughter Edwina, circa 1864After 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.
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.
[edit] Booth's Theatre
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.
Edwin Booth and Robert Lincoln
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.
Grave of Edwin BoothThe 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.
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.
Card is a bit light as you can see particularily up by Booth's face.
Take a look at our photos , add this unique and rare photo to your collection.
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