Who is John Wilkes Booth?
I am an American stage actor and I was born on May 10, 1838 in Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, U.S.
I did my debut on August 14,1855 in the supporting role of the Earl of Richmond in Richard III at Baltimore's Charles Street Theatre.
My background and my early life
My parents, Junius Brutus Booth and my mistress Mary Ann Holmes, moved to the United States from England in June 1821. They purchased a 150-acre (61 ha) farm near Bel Air in Harford County, Maryland, where I was born in a four-room log house on May 10, 1838. I'm the ninth of ten children. I was named after the English radical politician John Wilkes, a distant relative.
As a boy, I was athletic and popular, I became skilled at horsemanship and fencing. Sometimes I was an indifferent student, I attended the Bel Air Academy (now Bel Air High School), where the headmaster described me as "not deficient in intelligence, but disinclined to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered to him."
Each day I rode back and forth from farm to school, taking more interest in what happened along the way than in reaching my classes on time".
In 1850-1851, I attended the Quaker-run Milton Boarding School for Boys located in Sparks, Maryland and later St. Timothy's Hall, an Episcopal military academy in Catonsville, Maryland, beginning when I was 13 years old. At Milton school, students recited classical works by such authors as Cicero, Herodotus, and Tacitus.Students at St. Timothy's wore military uniforms, and were subject to a regimen of daily formation drills and strict discipline. I left school at 14, after my father's death.
By the age of 16, I was interested in the theatre and in politics, and I became a delegate from Bel Air to a rally by the Know Nothing Party for Henry Winter Davis, the anti-immigrant party's candidate for Congress in the 1854 elections.
My theatrical career
Richmond Theatre
This is the Richmond Theatre, Richmond, Virginia, in 1858, when I made my first stage appearance there.
The audience hissed at my inexperienced action when i missed some of my lines.
I joined the stock company of the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where i played for a full season.
I played the part of an American Indian, Uncas, in a play staged in Petersburg, Virginia, and then I became a stock company actor at the Richmond Theatre in Virginia, where I became increasingly popular with audiences for my energetic performances.
On October 5, 1858, I played the part of Horatio in Hamlet, alongside my older brother Edwin in the title role. Afterwards, Edwin led me to the theatre's footlights and said to the audience, "I think he's done well, don't you?" In response, the audience applauded loudly and cried, "Yes! Yes!".In all, I performed in 83 plays in 1858. Among them were William Wallace and Brutus, having as their theme the killing or overthrow of an unjust ruler.
Some critics called me "the handsomest man in America" and a "natural genius", and noted that i have an "astonishing memory"; others were mixed in their estimation of my acting.
After finishing the 1859-1860 theatre season in Richmond, Virginia, I embarked on my first national tour as a leading actor.
MY FAVORITE PICTURES
My business ventures
I invested some of my growing wealth in various enterprises during the early 1860s, including land speculation in Boston's Back Bay section. I also started a business partnership with John A. Ellsler, manager of the Cleveland Academy of Music, and another friend, Thomas Mears, to develop oil wells in northwestern Pennsylvania, where an oil boom had started in August 1859, following Edwin Drake's discovery of oil there.
Presentation Costs
Play
200 €
Teaching Action
400 €
My gratitude to you!
I want to thank you and everybody who has visited my page. I am honored to have so many people reading about my life and are very glad you took your time in learning about me.