Edwin Booth

Lore & Background

Booth was born in Bel Air, Maryland, into the Anglo-American theatrical Booth family. He was the son of the famous actor Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes. He was named after Edwin Forrest and Thomas Flynn. He was the younger brother of Junius Brutus Booth Jr. and the elder brother of John Wilkes Booth. Politically Edwin was a Unionist; John supported the Confederacy and later became notorious as the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln, from serious injury on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1863 or early 1864. In 1869, Edwin acquired his brother John's body after repeatedly writing to President Andrew Johnson pleading for it. Johnson finally released the remains, and Edwin had them buried, unmarked, in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.

Reader's Guide

In early appearances, Booth usually performed alongside his father, making his stage debut as Tressel in Colley Cibber's version of Richard III in Boston on September 10, 1849. 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 Lincoln, Edwin appeared with his two brothers in Julius Caesar in 1864. From 1863 to 1867, Booth managed the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City. In 1863, he bought the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. After John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, Edwin Booth abandoned the stage for many months. He made his return to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre in January 1866, playing the title role in Hamlet. In 1874, he played the titular role in Othello in Chicago, trading off with James O'Neill. On April 23, 1879, Mark Gray, a traveling salesman from Keokuk, Iowa, fired two shots from a pistol at Booth. Booth was playing the title role in Richard II at McVicker's Theatre in Chicago. Gray's shots missed Booth. In 1888, Booth founded The Players. His final performance was in his signature role of Hamlet in 1891 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Did You Know?

• Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of President Abraham Lincoln, from injury on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey, in late 1863 or early 1864.
• In 1864, Edwin Booth performed with his brothers John Wilkes Booth and Junius Brutus Booth Jr. in Julius Caesar—the only time the three brothers appeared together on stage.
• Booth's Theatre in Manhattan opened on February 3, 1869, with a production of Romeo and Juliet starring Booth as Romeo.
• On April 23, 1879, a traveling salesman named Mark Gray attempted to shoot Booth during a performance of Richard II in Chicago, but missed.