Edwin Thomas Booth (November 13, 1833 – June 7, 1893) was an American stage actor and theatrical manager who toured throughout the United States and the major capitals of Europe, performingShakespearean plays. In 1869, he foundedBooth's Theatre in New York.^[1] He is considered by many to be the greatest American actor of the 19th century. However, his achievements are often overshadowed by his relationship with his younger brother, actorJohn Wilkes Booth, whoassassinated the 16th president of the United States,Abraham Lincoln.

Edwin Booth
Booth,c. 1886
Born	Edwin Thomas Booth November 13, 1833 Bel Air, Maryland, U.S.
Died	June 7, 1893(1893-06-07) (aged 59) New York City, U.S.
Resting place	Mount Auburn Cemetery Cambridge, Massachusetts
Other names	"The Master"
Occupation	Actor
Spouses	Mary Devlin ​ ​ (m. 1860; died 1863)​ Mary McVicker ​ ​ (m. 1869; died 1881)​
Children	2, includingEdwina
Parents	Junius Brutus Booth (father) Mary Ann Holmes (mother)
Relatives	John Wilkes Booth (brother) Junius Brutus Booth Jr. (brother) Asia Booth Clarke (sister) Edwina Booth Grossman (daughter)
Family	Booth family
Signature

Booth was born inBel Air, Maryland, into the Anglo-American theatricalBooth family. He was the son of the famous actorJunius Brutus Booth, an Englishman, and his mistress (later wife) Mary Ann Holmes. He was named afterEdwin Forrest andThomas Flynn, two of Junius' colleagues. He was the younger brother ofJunius Brutus Booth Jr. and the elder brother ofJohn Wilkes Booth.

Nora Titone, in her bookMy Thoughts Be Bloody, recounts how the shame and ambition of Junius Brutus Booth's three actor sons, Junius Jr. (who never achieved the level of stardom of his younger brothers), Edwin, and John Wilkes, spurred them to strive, as rivals, for achievement and acclaim. Politically Edwin was aUnionist; John supported the Confederacy and later became notorious as theassassin of PresidentAbraham Lincoln.^[2][3]

Junius Brutus Booth was "famously peculiar ... . Several sons succeeded him in his career ... and his idiosyncrasies: Edwin had an abiding fear of ivy vines and peacock feathers."^[4]

In early appearances, Booth usually performed alongside his father, making his stage debut as Tressel or Tressil inColley Cibber's version ofRichard III inBoston on September 10, 1849. His first appearance inNew York City was in the character of Wilford inThe Iron Chest, which he played at theNational Theatre in Chatham Street, on September 27, 1850. A year later, on the illness of the father, the son took his place in the character of Richard III.^[5]

After his father's death in 1852, Booth went on a worldwide tour, visitingAustralia andHawaii, and finally gaining acclaim of his own during an engagement inSacramento, California, in 1856.^[6]

Before his brotherassassinated Lincoln, Edwin had appeared with his two brothers, John Wilkes and Junius Brutus Booth Jr., inJulius Caesar in 1864.^[7] John Wilkes playedMarc Antony, Edwin playedBrutus, and Junius playedCassius.^[8] It was a benefit performance, and the only time that the three brothers appeared together on the same stage.^[9] The funds were used to erect astatue of William Shakespeare that still stands inCentral Park just south of the Promenade. Immediately afterwards, Edwin Booth began a production ofHamlet on the same stage, which came to be known as the "hundred nightsHamlet", setting a record that lasted untilJohn Barrymore broke the record in 1922, playing thetitle character for 101 performances.

From 1863 to 1867, Booth managed theWinter Garden Theatre in New York City, mostly staging Shakespeareantragedies. In 1863, he bought theWalnut Street Theatre inPhiladelphia.^[10]

After John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, the infamy associated with the Booth name forced Edwin Booth to abandon the stage for many months. Edwin, who had been feuding with John Wilkes before the assassination, disowned him afterward, refusing to have John's name spoken in his house.^[11] He made his return to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre in January 1866, playing the title role inHamlet,^[6] which would eventually become his signature role.

In 1874, he played the titular role inOthello in Chicago, trading off withJames O'Neill.^[12] Casting O'Neill, an Irish American actor who was calledBlack Irish because of his black hair, has been marked as one possible origin of disputes about whether the characterOthello was meant to merely to have black hair and swarthy skin, rather than to be of sub-Saharan African origin.^[12]

Booth was married toMary Devlin Booth from 1860 until her death in 1863. They had one daughter,Edwina, born on December 9, 1861, inLondon. He later remarried, to his acting partnerMary McVicker Booth in 1869. Their only child, a son named Edgar, died shortly after birth. Booth became a widower again in 1881.^{[citation needed]}

In 1869, Edwin acquired his brother John's body after repeatedly writing to PresidentAndrew Johnson pleading for it. Johnson finally released the remains, and Edwin had them buried, unmarked, in the family plot atGreen Mount Cemetery inBaltimore.^{[citation needed]}

On April 23, 1879, Mark Gray, a traveling salesman fromKeokuk, Iowa, fired two shots from a pistol at Booth. Booth was playing the title role inRichard II atMcVicker's Theatre inChicago, Illinois, during the final act of theWilliam Shakespeare tragedy. Gray gave as his motive a wrong done to a friend by Booth. Gray's shots, which were fired from a distance of thirty-four feet, missed Booth, burying themselves in the stage floor. The would-be assassin was jailed at Central Station in Chicago. Booth was not acquainted with Gray, who worked for aSt. Louis, Missouridry goods firm. A letter to a woman inOhio was found on Gray's person. The correspondence affirmed Gray's intent to murder Booth.^[13] The attempted assassination occurred on Shakespeare's supposed birthday^[14] and came at a time when Booth was receiving numerous death threats by mail.^[13]

In 1888, Booth foundedThe Players, a private club for performing, literary, and visual artists and their supporters, purchasing and furnishing a home onGramercy Park as its clubhouse.^{[citation needed]}

His final performance was, fittingly, in his signature role of Hamlet, in 1891 at theBrooklyn Academy of Music.

Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son,^[15]Robert Todd Lincoln, from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform inJersey 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. Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor ofThe 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.^[16]

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, ColonelAdam Badeau, who was an officer on the staff of GeneralUlysses 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.^{[citation needed]}

In 1867, a fire damaged the Winter Garden Theatre, resulting in the building's subsequent demolition. Afterwards, Booth built his own theatre, an elaborate structure calledBooth's Theatre inManhattan, which opened on February 3, 1869, with a production ofRomeo and Juliet starring Booth asRomeo, and Mary McVicker asJuliet. Elaborate productions followed, but the theatre never became a profitable or even stable financial venture. Thepanic of 1873 caused the finalbankruptcy of Booth's Theatre in 1874. After the bankruptcy, Booth went on another worldwide tour, eventually regaining his fortune.^{[citation needed]}

In 1879 Booth purchased land inMiddletown, Rhode Island on theSakonnet River; he hiredCalvert Vaux, whose sonDowning Vaux was (briefly) engaged to Booth's daughter Edwina, to design a grand summer cottage estate there.^[17] "Boothden" was completed in 1884, a wooden house set on a stone foundation, designed in theQueen Anne Revival style withStick style motifs and large plate glass windows.^[18][19] Boothden featured a dance hall, stables, boathouse, and a windmill folly with a henhouse at its base.^[18][19] Booth enjoyed ten years^[18] at Boothden, willing it to Edwina on his death in 1893.^[17] After Edwina sold Boothden in 1903, the house passed through a series of owners, and saw a full restoration in 2017.^[18]

Booth had a small stroke in 1891, which precipitated his decline. He suffered another stroke in April 1893 and died June 7, 1893, in his apartment inThe Players clubhouse. He was buried next to his first wife atMount Auburn Cemetery inCambridge, Massachusetts.^[20] His bedroom in the club has been kept untouched since his death.^[21][22]

In December 2010, Booth's descendants' reported that they obtained permission to exhume the Shakespearean actor's body to obtainDNA samples to compare with a sample of his brother John's DNA to refute the rumor he had escaped after the assassination. However, a spokesperson from the Mount Auburn Cemetery, where Booth is buried, denied reports that the family had contacted them and requested to exhume Edwin's body.^[23] The family hopes to obtain DNA samples from artifacts belonging to John Wilkes, or from remains such as vertebrae stored at theNational Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland.^[24][25] On March 30, 2013, museum spokesperson Carol Johnson announced that the family's request to extract DNA from the vertebrae had been rejected.^[26]

A number of modern dramatizations have been made of Edwin Booth's life, on both stage and screen.

One of the best known is the 1955 filmPrince of Players written byMoss Hart, based loosely on the popular book of that name by Eleanor Ruggles. It was directed by Philip Dunne and starsRichard Burton andRaymond Massey as Edwin and Junius Brutus Booth Sr., withCharles Bickford as Prescott, producer of their Shakespeare tour. The cast also includesEva Le Gallienne, who plays Gertrude to Burton's Hamlet, and who is listed on the opening credits as "Special Consultant on Shakespearean Scenes". The film depicts events in Booth's life well before, and then surrounding, the assassination of Lincoln by Booth's younger brother.^[27]

The opening scenes ofPrince of Players are very similar to scenes in the earlier 1946John Ford westernMy Darling Clementine. In that movie, the character of Granville Thorndyke (as acted byAlan Mowbray) is an obvious nod to Booth's fatherJunius, and the scenes portray essentially the same sequence where the great actor has to be retrieved from a bar and dragged back to the theatre where he is overdue to give a performance in front of a restless audience.^[28][29]

In 1958,José Ferrer produced, directed, and played the title role in a playEdwin Booth. It ran for three weeks.

In 1959, the actorRobert McQueeney played Booth in the episode "The Man Who Loved Lincoln" on theABC/Warner Brotherswesterntelevision series,Colt .45, starringWayde Preston as the fictitious undercover agent Christopher Colt, who in the story line is assigned to protect Booth from a death threat.

In 1960, the anthology series television seriesDeath Valley Days broadcast "His Brother's Keeper", in which Booth visits a small town after the Lincoln assassination, with one of the town's influential citizens trying to have him run out of town.

In 1966,Martin Landau played Edwin Booth in the episode "This Stage of Fools" of theNBC western television series,Branded, starringChuck Connors as Jason McCord. In the story line, McCord takes a job as the bodyguard to the actor Edwin Booth, brother of the presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

The Brothers BOOTH!, by W. Stuart McDowell, which focuses on the relationships of the three Booth brothers leading up to the assassination of Lincoln, was workshopped and given a series of staged readings featuringDavid Strathairn,David Dukes,Angela Goethals,Maryann Plunkett, andStephen Lang at the New Harmony Project,^[30] and atThe Guthrie Theatre Lab inMinneapolis, and later presented in New York at the Players' Club, theSecond Stage Theatre, and theBoston Athenaeum. It was given its first fully staged professional production at the Bristol Riverside Theatre outside Philadelphia in 1992.^[31][32][33] A second play by the same name,The Brothers Booth, which focuses on "the world of the 1860s theatre and its leading family"^[34] was written by Marshell Bradley and staged in New York at the Perry Street Theatre in 2004.

Austin Pendleton's play,Booth, which depicts the early years of the brothers Edwin, Junius, and John Wilkes Booth and their father, was producedoff Broadway at the York Theatre, starringFrank Langella as Junius Brutus Booth Sr. In a review, the play was called "a psychodrama about the legendary theatrical family of the 19th century" byThe New York Times.^[35] Pendleton had adapted this version from his earlier work,Booth Is Back, produced atLong Wharf Theatre inNew Haven, Connecticut, in the 1991–1992 season.

The Tragedian, by playwright and actor Rodney Lee Rogers, is a one-man show about Booth that was produced by PURE Theatre ofCharleston, South Carolina, in 2007. It was revived for inclusion in the Piccolo Spoleto Arts Festival in May and June 2008.^[36]

A play byLuigi Creatore calledError of the Moon played off-Broadway onTheatre Row in New York City from August 13 to October 10, 2010. The play is a fictionalized account of Booth's life, hinging on the personal, professional, and political tensions between brothers Edwin and John Wilkes, leading up to the assassination of Lincoln.^[37]

In 2013,Will Forte played Edwin Booth in the "Washington, D.C." episode of theComedy Central series,Drunk History, created byDerek Waters.

In 2014, Edwin Booth was played by Gordon Tanner inThe Pinkertons episode, "The Play's the Thing" (S1:E3). In the episode, both the "Hundred nights Hamlet" and Edwin's rescue of Robert Lincoln are mentioned.

In 2023,Tyrants, an original musical about the life of Edwin Booth, was presented at theNational Archives Museum in Washington, D.C. With music and lyrics by Alexander Sage Oyen and a book by Nora Brigid Monahan, the musical starred A.J. Shively as Edwin Booth, under the direction of John Simpkins.^[38]

Booth was portrayed by Nick Westrate in the 2024Apple TV+ miniseries seriesManhunt.

Booth left a considerable estate upon his death. He left charitable bequests that furthered the development of the acting profession and the treatment of mental illness. He left bequests of $5,000 each (almost $150,000 in 2021 dollars) to the Actor's' Fund, the Actors' Association of Friendship of the City of New York (Edwin Forrest Lodge), The Actors' Association of Friendship of the City of Philadelphia (Shakespeare Lodge), the Asylum Fund of New York and the Home for Incurables (West Farms, New York).^[39] Other examples of his legacy include:

• The Players still exists in its original clubhouse at 16 Gramercy Park South in Manhattan.^[40] A statue of Booth, byEdmond Thomas Quinn, has been the centerpiece of the privateGramercy Park since 1916. It can be seen by the public through the south gate of the park.^{[citation needed]}
• Booth left a few recordings of his voice preserved onwax cylinder. One of them can be heard on the Naxos Records setGreat Historical Shakespeare Recordings and Other Miscellany.^[41] Another place to hear his preserved voice is on the siteshown here [3:34]. Booth's voice is barely audible with all thesurface noise, but what can be deciphered reveals it to have been rich and deep.^{[citation needed][42]}
• Memorials of Booth can still be found aroundBel Air, Maryland. In front of thecourthouse is a fountain dedicated to his memory. Inside the post office is a portrait of him. Also, his family's home,Tudor Hall, still stands and was bought in 2006 byHarford County, Maryland, to become a museum.^{[citation needed]}
• A chamber inMammoth Cave inKentucky is called "Booth's Amphitheatre" – so called because Booth visited the cave and allegedly entertained visitors there.^{[citation needed]}
• TheBooth Theatre was the first, and remains the oldest,Broadway theatre to be named in honor of an actor.
• Stephen Sondheim's musicalAssassins mentions Booth in "The Ballad of Booth" with the lyrics: "Your brother made you jealous, John/You couldn't fill his shoes".^{[citation needed]}
• Booth is a member of theAmerican Theater Hall of Fame and theHall of Fame for Great Americans.^[43]
• The Edwin Booth Family Collection archives are held in the University Library atCalifornia State University, Northridge.^[44]

In 1894, Booth's daughter,Edwina Booth Grossman, published a book about her father, reportedly concerned that his legacy as an actor would be marred by his brother's assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.^[45] The volume was titledEdwin Booth: Recollections by His Daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman, and Letters to Her and to His Friends. As the title suggests, the book describes Grossman's memories of her father and contains edited transcripts of letters written by him.^[46][47]

• Giblin, James Cross (2005).Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.ISBN 978-0618096428.
• Watermeier, Daniel J. (2015).American Tragedian: The Life of Edwin Booth. University of Missouri Press.ISBN 978-0826220486.

• Edwin Booth at theInternet Broadway Database 
• Works by or about Edwin Booth at theInternet Archive
• Theater Arts Manuscripts: An Inventory of the Collection at theHarry Ransom Center
• Booth-Grossman family papers, 1840–1953, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division,New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
• Letters and observations to his daughter and friends
• The memory palace podcast episode about Edwin Booth.Archived March 9, 2013, at theWayback Machine
• Edwin Booth: Broadway Photographs at theUniversity of South Carolina
• Edwin Booth once graced Bloomington stage – Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois newspaper)
• The voice of Booth, reading Othello