Booth, Edwin

Related Category: Theater: Biographies

1833–93, one of the first great American actors, b. “Tudor Hall,” near Bel Air, Md. After years of touring with his father, Junius Brutus Booth, he appeared in New York City (1857) and later toured (1861–63) England. On returning to New York he leased the Winter Garden Theatre, where in 1864 he presented his famous 100-night run of Hamlet (a record unbroken until John Barrymore's 101-night run in 1922). His productions at the Winter Garden terminated in 1865, when his brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln. The ensuing scandal forced Edwin Booth to retire, but he returned to the Winter Garden in 1866. When it burned down, he built Booth's Theatre, New York (1869). He again toured (1880–82) England; his last appearance was in 1891.

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).