Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth

by Alford, Terry

  Clara Morris added thoughtfully, “Who shall draw a line and say—here genius ends and madness begins?”

  Family members understood him no better. June worried that a “crack runs thro’ the male portion of our family, myself included,” as he wrote Edwin in 1862. “Father in his highest had it.” But June did not have John in mind when he wrote these words. Joe, he believed, was the most troubled member of the family, and Edwin agreed that Joe bore watching. “Strange, wild, ever roving,” Edwin wrote of the youngest brother, “he causes us all some degree of anxiety.”55

  Edwin adored John, wrote their friend Norcross. “Meeting him in the street his long refined face would light up and he would smile.” And yet Edwin never knew what made his brother tick. “I cannot understand why my brother did this,” he said at the time of Lincoln’s murder, unless John had driven himself mad over politics.56

  Edwin was still perplexed a quarter century later. He was standing in the wings with his fellow player Frank Oakes Rose awaiting an entrance when the talk turned to the ill-fated brother. “Yes, indeed, that was very sad,” Edwin said. “He was so peculiar. I never seemed to know him.

  “Do you know, Rose,” he continued, “I believe I am as well acquainted with you as I ever was with John.”57

  james henry hackett, one of Lincoln’s favorite actors, wrote that young people constituted the great majority of Civil War playgoers.58 Of that number women formed an increased percentage of the audience, since the war allowed them more latitude to go to places of public amusement at night,59 and Booth was the recipient of their new freedom. “Ladies flocked to his performances,” recalled the actor Henry A. Weaver. “It was no unusual sight to see numbers standing all over the house.”60 During his second visit to Boston, in February 1863, he entranced them with his acting.61 “John, at any performance, could be counted on to draw into the house three-hundred chambermaids, three-hundred wet nurses, and a score of widows,” teased his friend John McCullough.62

  His sister-in-law Mary saw him in the dual roles of Fabien and Louis in The Corsican Brothers and found him overly melodramatic. “ ‘Look at his arm!’ ” she quoted the audience as saying, and explained, “His sleeves were rolled up—the muscles eclipsing everything else. [Yet] highly delighted the audience seemed at this exhibition.”63 For such scenes Booth was occasionally compared to Forrest, who William Warren thought would make a good boss in a slaughterhouse.64 Like Forrest, Booth won applause by his physicality and swordplay, but he excelled the great man in one important additional particular, which Mary did not mention. Joined to his physical work was the ability to enact scenes of great tenderness. Said another way, Booth wrung tears from his audiences.65

  The result was predictable. “The stage door was always blocked with silly women, waiting to catch a glimpse, as he passed, of his superb face and figure,” wrote Kate Reignolds.66 At the Boston Museum a wave of crinoline surged toward the star as he left the theater for his hotel after the play. Keach came out to remind the women that they were ladies and furthermore to say that he would permit no such behavior at his theater. The wave parted, and the star, dressed impeccably and wearing kid gloves, strode forward, his overcoat slung casually over his arm. He looked as if he were sitting for a picture.67 His eyes darted among those in the crowd until he saw a pretty face, and then he smiled, tipped his hat, and nodded. Some admirers asked for the privilege of touching his cloak. Others did not ask, and Booth became the first actor known to have his clothes shredded by enthusiastic fans.68

  The relentless attention of strangers in such a manner should have induced a state of absolute self-centeredness in Booth. “It is not surprising that stars feel entitled to exceptional treatment when that privilege is constantly reinforced by acquaintances and strangers alike,” wrote a perceptive observer of stage life.69 Happily, Booth maintained an honest view of his accomplishments. When an admirer gushed, “You’re great! You’re wonderful!” Booth suggested the young man go onstage himself—as a comedian.70

  This down-to-earth nature earned the esteem of his colleagues. He had his moments of petulance, such as the time in Detroit when, after an argument with the stage manager G. P. De Groat, he refused to appear until De Groat’s name was struck off the playbill. Generally, however, “Booth was universally liked upon the stage,” recalled a Chicago friend. “His manner to all of the profession with which he was thrown together was urbane and gentlemanly, and from supernumerary (or extra) to manager he treated all with courtesy and consideration.”71 When he cued them in rehearsal with a blast on his silver whistle, “he was always considerate of the other actors and if he had a suggestion to make, made it with the utmost courtesy, prefacing it with, ‘Now, Mr. ——, don’t you think that perhaps this might be a better way to interpret that?’ ” recalled Edwin A. Emerson.72 Martin L. Wright, starting his career at Cleveland’s Academy of Music in 1863, felt that “any supernumerary could go to him for advice. Whoever went to him was received with gentle courtesy and generally came away an admirer. Of all the stars that came to play with us the one we loved and admired the most was John Wilkes Booth. He was not high and mighty like most of the stars. There was never a better fellow.”73

  Booth’s sense of humor relieved many of their anxious onstage moments. Sometimes the humor was spontaneous, as in Buffalo when he was playing Richard III and his Norfolk embarrassed him by coming in from the wrong entrance. Booth greeted him with “What thinks thou, Norfolk?—and why the devil didn’t you come in on the other side?” The house shook with laughter for five minutes at the remark.74 At other times his wit was prankish. William Ferguson recalled a night at Ford’s when Booth, in The Taming of the Shrew, had a prop ham covered on the underside with moist lampblack. Playing an angry Petruchio chastising his servants at the dinner table, the star seized the ham and smudged it against the cheeks of the actors. “Magically, on one cheek and then on the other dusky smears appeared until we all looked like darkies,” recalled Ferguson. “The audience shrieked with laughter, shouts rising louder and louder as each black smudge was added.”75

  When things turned serious, Booth could be considerate. He was in stage combat with James Clarke McCollom when the latter lost count of the number of head blows he had delivered. As Booth shifted to parry a thrust, McCollom brought his sword down across Booth’s forehead, cutting one eyebrow cleanly through. “Blood spurted and flowed down over his face,” wrote an eyewitness. Flinging the blood from his eyes with his left hand, Booth insisted they finish the combat and then shrugged off the incident when the curtain fell. “You couldn’t help it, Mac. It was my fault,” Booth said. Ice and vinegar paper were applied to the star’s wound. “Now if my eye had gone, that would have been bad. But don’t worry. It’s all right, old man,” he remarked matter-of-factly, and he shook McCollom’s hand reassuringly as a physician arrived with needle and thread. Later, led faint and nearly blind to his dressing room, Booth reflected upon the sanguinary spectacle they had just given the audience. “That was splendid!” he muttered.76

  Backstage Booth was a good colleague. He recommended Ben DeBar take in George DeVere and his wife, Nellie Mortimer, an English couple refused permission by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to travel south and play in Richmond. He encouraged Matilda Vining Wood, a New York manager, to hire Charles Wyndham, the struggling actor fired by Grover. And he bucked up Joseph Wheelock at a discouraging moment for the youngster by encouraging him to persevere in his craft. Wheelock went on to become a fine professional and president of the Actors’ Society of America, an organization formed to protect actors from predatory producers.77

  how good an actor was Booth? Stuart Robson believed it was impossible to evaluate an actor whom one never saw perform. If an actor’s work is known only by a description of it, one might by analogy try to appreciate a symphony by reading about it. In fact, it is more difficult than that. At least a composer leaves a score, just as an author leaves a book and an artist leaves a painting. An actor of Booth’s generation
leaves only a memory.78

  Compounding the difficulty of assessing his work was the short time Booth spent onstage. There were three years as trainee, one as fledging lead, and three as star. “Three little years,” as Morris phrased it with deliberation. John McCullough played for twenty-seven years, Clarke for thirty-six, and Edwin, June, and Maggie Mitchell each for forty-plus. These performers had time to mature as artists, unlike John. Considered that way, he was less a star, with its fixity, than a comet. “His rise was as sudden as his fall. We scarcely knew him before we lost him,” reflected the manager John Ellsler.79

  To understand his stature as an actor, one must first acknowledge his special gift. “There was a spirit in Booth such as made actors,” said McCullough.80 At its highest level the spirit was a concoction of intelligence, spontaneity, vitality, and, as Plato said, a dash of madness. His friend John M. Barron believed it akin to a divine spark.81 It was intuitive, not studied. “In his soul the fires of genius burned brightly,” Clara Morris told a reporter in 1890.82

  The gifts were a legacy from his father, or so these friends believed. Early in his career the father and son’s bold, above-the-fold styles were recognized as remarkably similar. “He comes nearer to the fire and passion of his renowned father than any [other] actor,” wrote Judge Theodore J. Barnett (“Erasmus”) in the National Intelligencer.83 The manager Leonard Grover thought of this style as that of the earlier English actor Edmund Kean—all fire.84 With the sizzle came episodes of eccentricity, excitability, and moodiness. But at least the son was more disciplined on stage than the father, more reliable, and more appealing.

  That Booth was kissed by genius was a given. The New York correspondent of the Washington Evening Star, collecting Broadway gossip in the 1890s, wrote, “It is an odd circumstance that nearly every old-time actor, actress, and manager believes firmly that John Wilkes Booth was the greatest star of his day. His crime has not shaken their belief in his genius. There is still no faltering in their worship of his brilliant and meteoric stage achievements, which, after a lapse of a quarter century, have gained rather than lost luster.”85 Charles B. Jefferson, one of those old-timers, knew the truth of that. “Booth was a genius whose dramatic powers were little less than marvelous. At its best the art of Wilkes Booth was like a divine flash—an inspiration—that wonderful gift of nature.”86

  Booth approached acting by attempting to identify himself with the characters he played.87 “He told me that when playing,” recalled Louise Wooster, “he forgot his own identity completely and for a time would feel that he was really the character.”88 Charles Krone believed that his success lay in his ability to effect this transformation.89 “He seemed to live the character,” confirmed actor Louis James. “While I personally do not believe in such methods, it seemed to fit the man.”90

  A better education would have improved his work. Even the minimally educated Forrest conceded that “a higher sense of an author’s intentions could be best conveyed by a richly stored mind.” But Forrest also knew that a player could become a fine actor without being a scholar, adding—almost proudly—that he was ignorant of grammar long after he played the principal characters of Shakespeare with success.91 Booth’s indifferent education showed itself most notably in the way he mispronounced certain words. This was the only blemish in his performance, thought Robson, “but his voice was so beautiful and his intensity so great that when he became aroused, these mispronunciations were not noticed.”92 Such defects were no more fatal in him than they were in his brothers. None of the sons, however, was the intellectual equal of the father.

  To what brains he had, Booth added his wonderful physique. “He was the most remarkable actor we probably had on the stage for hardiness, endurance, and strength,” said Canning. “We sometimes called him the cast-iron man from the crown of his head to his feet.”93 He was also a fine gymnast.94 “Full of impulse, like a colt,” John Ellsler told Clara Morris, “his heels are in the air nearly as often as his head.”95 Beyond the leaps and bounds he was one of the best fencers of his era, once crossing blades in a rehearsal with two actors and disarming both in seconds.96 Since nature gives a reckless impulse to the born artist, Booth got as good as he gave, “and he generally slept smothered in steak and oysters to cure his bruises,” wrote Reignolds.97

  It has been said that the hallmark of brilliance is not perfection but originality. “If originality is a virtue,” wrote a Chicago critic, “Booth is virtuous to an extreme degree. No actor ever displayed more independence of, or disregard for, the old beaten path than he does.”98 He often inserted completely unstudied effects into a play. When the curtain rang down one night in Cleveland, Ellsler questioned him about something he had done during the performance. “Did you rehearse that today, John?” “No, I didn’t rehearse it,” was the reply. “It just came to me in the scene and I couldn’t help doing it. But it went alright, didn’t it?”99 Booth could be original without being eccentric, said one old hand, “and he made telling points in his plays that no other actor of his time would dare to attempt.”100

  He had considerable talent in the invention of stage business. In Richard III he had the stump of a tree set in the center of the stage as far back as possible. “After parrying the first blow of Richmond, he deliberately turned and ran up the stage, his foot tripped against the stump, and he fell headlong backwards,” recalled Weaver, who supported Booth in his Cincinnati engagements. “Richmond ran up after him and, as he fell, aimed a blow at his head. This was immediately caught by Richard who was on his feet in an instant, raining blow after blow at his adversary and driving him down the stage to the footlights. This had an electrical effect on the audience.” John T. Ford stated, “He introduced into some Shakespearean plays some of the most extraordinary and outrageous leaps. In the play of Macbeth, in the entrance to the witch scene, he jumped from a high rock down on the stage, nearly as high as from the top of the scene. And he made the leap with apparent ease. He excelled in everything of that kind.”101

  His innovations extended to his characters’ look, where he sought realism. When Booth reached for the chalk, Chinese vermillion, and ochre, the results were startling, but he wanted his villains deeply dyed, outside as well as in, for he intended their external appearance to reflect their inner demons. His Richard III was a ragged, dirty, bloodstained madman.102 “He looked as though he had been run through the business end of a sausage machine,” recalled J. B. McCormick, who acted with him in Philadelphia.103 The look exceeded anything his contemporaries had seen. “With most tragedians it was a custom to rush on the stage while the fight was going on, looking as if dressed for court. Wilkes Booth made a terrible feature of this part of the performance. His face was covered with blood from wounds, his beaver was lost in the fray, his hair flying helter-skelter, his clothes all mussed, and he panted and fumed like a prize-fighter. He was truly original,” wrote T. Allston Brown of the Clipper.104

  Versatility was another strong point. Although drama was always his mainstay, “Booth was exceedingly good in light and eccentric comedy,” thought Weaver.105 He frolicked about as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew with a supper scene so lively and amusing that props from the table flew into the audience. As Romeo Jaffier Jenkins in Too Much for Good Nature, he parodied his own romantic staples as a laughably inept young lover. “I remember that Booth kept the audience in a roar of laughter all the time he was on stage,” Weaver continued. Booth could even clog dance if required. “Actors like Booth were trained in those days to play a part a night, to do anything at all on the boards from dancing a measure to battering down a broadsword guard, and what they did, they did as well as it could be done. They didn’t act on a capital of good looks, dress coats, Broadway promenades, and one change of parts a season!” growled a veteran Manhattan manager in 1890.106

  It is beyond dispute that Booth was a hit onstage. Most critics liked him, and even if they had not, it was not the critics who made a star. It was the audience. But while an audience can
make an actor successful, it can’t make one great, so the question remains: Was Booth truly distinguished? Was he among the best of the best? There were as many answers to this question as there were people with opinions, but Edwin Forrest provided a definition of acting greatness that is useful for making such a determination. While arbitrary, the definition has the merits of being both contemporary and provided by an individual universally acknowledged as a theatrical giant. Forrest believed that an actor was great if he could play three major leads better than anyone else in the nation.107

  Performing no fewer than twenty-two different roles between late 1861, when he commenced his star career in earnest, and 1865, Booth had a sizable repertoire in which to find three such parts. Lear was his favorite Shakespearean character. Booth lacked the maturity and gravitas to be top-notch in that role, however.108 He played Hamlet well but felt Edwin’s performance superior to his own and gave first place to his brother’s Macbeth as well.109 As Romeo, Judge Barnett thought he had no equal.110 Others raved over his dual roles as Fabian and Louis Dei Franchi in The Corsican Brothers. The Boston critic Benjamin Guild dissented, writing acerbically that if a Corsican brother was indeed the way Booth played him, it was regrettable there were two of them. Theatrical commonplace had it that one bad notice was worth five good ones, and Booth was so angry with Guild that he threatened to horsewhip him.111