Эдвин Томас Бут: Жизнь и творчество американского актера.

American actor (1833–1893)

Edwin Thomas Booth (November 13, 1833 – June 7, 1893) was an American actor who toured throughout the United States and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869, he founded Booth's Theatre in New York. Some theatrical historians consider him the greatest American actor, and the greatest Prince Hamlet, of the 19th century. His achievements are often overshadowed by his relationship with his younger brother, actor John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.

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, an Englishman, who named Edwin after Edwin Forrest and Thomas Flynn, two of Junius' colleagues. He was the elder brother of John Wilkes Booth, himself a successful actor, who became notorious as the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. Nora Titone, in her book My 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 a Unionist; John supported the Confederacy. 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."

In early appearances, Booth usually performed alongside his father, making his stage debut as Tressel or Tressil in Colley Cibber's version of Richard III in Boston on September 10, 1849. His first appearance in New York City was in the character of Wilford in The Iron Chest, which he played at the National 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. 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 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 performance, and the only time that the three brothers appeared 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 afterwards, Edwin Booth began a production of Hamlet on the same stage, which came to be known as the "hundred nights Hamlet", setting a record that lasted until John Barrymore broke the record in 1922, playing the title character for 101 performances. From 1863 to 1867, Booth managed the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City, mostly staging Shakespearean tragedies. In 1863, he bought the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. 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. He made his return to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre in January 1866, playing the title role in Hamlet, which would eventually become his signature role. In 1874, he played the titular role in Othello in Chicago, trading off with James O'Neill. Casting O'Neill, an Irish American actor who was called Black Irish because of his black hair, has been marked as one possible origin of disputes about whether the character Othello was meant to merely to have black hair and swarthy skin, rather than to be of sub Saharan African origin. The attempted assassination occurred on Shakespeare's supposed birthday and came at a time when Booth was receiving numerous death threats by mail. Robert Todd Lincoln, 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. 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.

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 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 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.

In 1879 Booth purchased land in Middletown, Rhode Island on the Sakonnet River; he hired Calvert Vaux, whose son Downing Vaux was (briefly) engaged to Booth's daughter Edwina, to design a grand summer cottage estate there. Booth enjoyed ten years After Edwina sold Boothden in 1903, the house passed through a series of owners, and saw a full restoration in 2017. The New York Times reported his death.

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

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). Other examples of his legacy include:
The Players still exists in its original clubhouse at 16 Gramercy Park South in Manhattan. A statue of Booth as Hamlet, by Edmond T. Quinn, has been the centerpiece of the private Gramercy Park since 1916. It can be seen by the public through the south gate of the park. Booth left a few recordings of his voice preserved on wax cylinder. One of them can be heard on the Naxos Records set Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings and Other Miscellany. Another place to hear his preserved voice is on the site shown here [3:34] Booth's voice is barely audible with all the surface noise, but what can be deciphered reveals it to have been rich and deep. Memorials of Booth can still be found around Bel Air, Maryland. In front of the courthouse 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 by Harford County, Maryland, to become a museum. A chamber in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is called "Booth's Amphitheatre" – so called because Booth visited the cave and allegedly entertained visitors there. Broadway's Booth Theatre was the first, and remains the oldest, Broadway theatre to be named in honor of an actor. Stephen Sondheim's musical Assassins mentions Edwin in "The Ballad of Booth" with the lyrics: "Your brother made you jealous, John/You couldn't fill his shoes". Edwin Booth is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. The Edwin Booth Family Collection archives are held in the University Library at California State University, Northridge.