Booth’s boss was William Wheatley, the lessee and manager of the Arch.8 Wheatley had been on the stage for thirty years, mixing in business adventures on Wall Street and in Nicaragua. An actor with a huge ego, Wheatley had a declamatory style ill suited for tragedy but quite funny in comedy roles. As a manager he was an industrious impresario with a quick eye and good judgment.9 Wheatley encouraged young stock players, called “muffins,” but only if they worked hard.10 He had no patience with slackers. Long runs and good houses were his watchwords. A handsome man, Wheatley struck some as pompous and shallow, but he was unquestionably a dynamic leader with a gambler’s inclinations. The Arch would need both his skill and his luck to contend for the entertainment dollar in Philadelphia against two rival theaters, an opera house, and numerous music, lecture, and variety halls.
Twenty-nine men and women formed the Arch’s stock company.11 Wheatley promoted them as “the Celebrated Star Company” even though many were beginners or little more. They had been hired for their ability to fill specialized lines of work. There was the “leading man,” E. L. Davenport, a veteran actor who took the principal male part in productions. Fanny Vining, his wife, made an accomplished “leading lady.” Clarke, the “low comedian,” took the star roles in his line or in farces presented as afterpieces to the featured plays. Wheatley performed in support of these three and at other times played the lead himself. Other stock characters included a “heavy,” who was the play’s villain or tyrant; an “old man” and an “old woman,” who played older characters and persons of consequence; a “juvenile lead,” who was the theater’s young hero and lover; “walking gentlemen and ladies” (like Booth), who served a tutelage by playing small roles; “utility actors,” or “utes,” who took what scraps remained; and “supernumeraries,” the actors in crowd scenes who might be permitted to shout “Hurrah!!” when Davenport concluded a stirring speech. The walkers, utes, and supers were naturally ambitious to move up the ladder, and Junius Sr., John’s father, had predicted that these lower orders would eventually disappear. “They’ll all be stars!” he had said derisively.12
Booth and the rest of the company assembled on Wednesday, August 12, 1857, at the call of William S. Fredericks, acting and stage manager.13 They met in the theater’s greenroom, a common room near the stage where performers customarily gathered to chat, read announcements, and check themselves in long mirrors before going onstage. Wheatley had a plain message for them: “The end and purpose of the stage is, in the language of Shakespeare, ‘to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.’ To do this, and do it well, will be our earnest aim and endeavor.”14 Wheatley was justifiably proud of the Arch. Its exterior looked like a classical temple, while the interior had been beautifully remodeled over the summer with gilded decorations, new wallpaper, oil paintings, and plush cushions on the seats. An open house for the press produced the opinion from journalists that the Arch was the prettiest theater in the city.15
The season began on the intensely hot evening of Saturday, August 15. The Belle’s Stratagem, a popular old-fashioned comedy, was presented to an overflowing house.16 Booth took the tiny role of Second Mask.17 A guest at a masquerade ball, Booth had only a few sentences, the longest—delivered to one of the male leads—being “How the devil came you here?” Reaction to this brief appearance is not known. On the following Monday he made a definite impression, however. He played the Courier in a drama titled The Wife. He had several little speeches to make, but when he came before the footlights, he looked startled and ill at ease. “Such was his nervousness that he blundered continually,” recalled Townsend. And the problem persisted. On three subsequent nights Booth flubbed his lines and was hissed by the audience.18
Stage nerves are common in beginners. Edwin suffered so badly from them in his earliest efforts that he stood about shyly and spoke his lines like a schoolboy.19 Embarrassed friends reminded him that there were other good trades available to a promising youngster like himself. Edwin overcame the problem in time, but younger brother Joe could not. While performing with Edwin in 1859, Joe seemed thunderstruck. He stumbled over his lines repeatedly. Edwin finally whispered to him, “Get off the stage!”20 The remark was no cue; it was career advice.
Long concerned about his lack of grace and difficulty in memorizing lines, John was frustrated by these episodes. Occasionally he did well. In February 1858 he performed selected scenes from Shakespeare’s Richard III, taking the role of Richmond while Clarke played a comic Richard. As straight man to the comedian’s clownish villain, “Booth showed some energy and obtained some applause.”21 But failure followed. The very next week Booth was cast in the role of Ascanio Petrucci in Victor Hugo’s Lucretia Borgia. Toward the end of the first act, he came onstage with a number of other young noblemen to find his companion Gennaro, played by Wheatley, in conversation with Mary Ann Farren’s Lucretia. The comrades introduced themselves in turn to the evil duchess. “Madame, I am Maffio Orsini, brother to the Duke of Gravina, whom you caused to be stabbed in his dungeon,” said the first. “Madame, I am Beppo Liveretto, brother of Liveretto Vittelli, whom your ruffians strangled while he slept,” the second continued.
Booth was to have said, “Madame, I am Ascanio Petrucci, cousin of Pandolfo Petrucci, Lord of Sienna, who was assassinated by your order that you might seize his fair city.” His head swimming with names, Booth exclaimed, “Madame, I am Pondolfio Pet—, Pedoflio Pat—, Pantuchio Ped—. Damn it, what am I?!”
The audience roared with laughter, Townsend reported, as Booth stood there mortified. Realizing the absurdity of the situation, there was little he could do but laugh with them.
Presented the next night was The Gamester, a “moral tragedy” about the destructive effects of gambling upon a family. John Dolman of the stock company took the character of Stukely, a villain seeking to ruin a wealthy friend. Booth was cast as Dawson, Stukely’s companion in crime. The role called for Dawson to dress like an aristocrat. Davenport had always advised novices like Booth to spend what they could on a wig or bit of wardrobe to enhance their performances, even if it meant skipping a meal. “There is very much in appearance,” he counseled.22 Dutifully, “Booth bought a new dress to wear on this night and made abundant preparations to do himself honor.” So confident was he in his ability to acquit himself, he invited friends to the theater to witness the triumph.
Dawson does not come onstage until the final act of The Gamester, but the part of this henchman is important to the conclusion of the play. When Booth appeared, some in the audience recognized him as “Pondolfio Pet—” of the previous evening. They burst into laughter and hisses. The young actor, out to plot villainy with Dolman, was dumbstruck at their behavior. Unable to utter a word, he stood there like a mannequin. The audience rewarded him with a round of cynical mock applause. To bring the play to a conclusion, Dolman had to strike Booth from the piece.
These episodes upset and embarrassed Booth, whose ambition to excel in his profession was boundless. “I must have fame!” he cried in exasperation to acquaintances.23 His boardinghouse near the theater, to which he had moved after leaving the Clarkes’ home, was filled with young men his age—aspiring medical students, artists, actors—each hoping to win a place in the world. None craved distinction more than Booth, yet none seemed idler. “He was not without ability and might, with study, have succeeded in earning a reputation in his profession; but he was both lazy and inordinately vain,” an unnamed fellow boarder recalled. He would not apply himself. “Booth protested that he studied faithfully,” Townsend wrote, “but that his want of confidence ruined him.” Whatever the case, Fredericks, whose job was to form the actors into a cohesive troupe, complained constantly about him. Booth was late to rehearsals, social instead of studious, and failed to take advantage of his opportunities. He was often worthless to the company.24 He must either find his stage legs, or, as Joseph Whitton, the theater
’s treasurer, put it, join that crowd at the bottom who never go beyond “‘My Lord, the carriage awaits,’ and six dollars a week.”25
Booth bemoaned his fate to John McCullough, one of the utes who was doing nicely in his small parts. McCullough was a young Irishman who immigrated to the United States in 1847. While at work in his uncle’s chair-making shop in Philadelphia, he loved listening to a coworker recite Shakespeare and gladly submitted to murder by paintbrush in Julius Caesar. Enraptured by the make-believe, McCullough fled to a nearby alley and joined the Boothenian Dramatic Association, an amateur acting club named for the elder Booth. Fredericks saw him there, and, although McCullough looked dreadful acting Othello, he was so perfect in his lines that the stage manager hired him for the utility corps. He made his debut on the same August evening as Booth, and they became fast friends.26 Broad-shouldered and full of fun, “Genial John” had a happy nature. “McCullough was the sort of man Booth wanted for agreeable companionship, and Booth would fight for his friend,” Townsend remembered. For his part, McCullough found Booth lovable and sincere. The two were kindred spirits.27
Booth was well liked in and about the theater, making friends like McCullough readily.28 “He had the most superb masculine beauty I ever saw—was, in fact, a young Apollo in face and figure,” his boardinghouse critic conceded.29 “All who knew him well were captivated by him,” wrote Henry V. Gray, a medical student. “He was the most hospitable, genial fellow to be met,” quick at the tables with a bit of poetry or Shakespearean quotation.30 For William A. Howell the captivation was complete. One of the Boothenians, Howell recalled that the young actor “was that sort of man that if you ever came within range of his personal magnetism and fascination, you would involuntarily be bound to him as with hooks of steel.”31 Another Philadelphian felt “he was neither cruel nor murderous by nature, and I always doubted whether he was the monster of vice which men [would later] deem him,” yet at times he appeared ridiculous. Blustering that a young man at the boardinghouse had wounded his honor, he wrote out a challenge to a duel. Unfortunately, “the writing was that of a boy of seven.” It was so wretchedly spelled that when word of it got around Booth became the laughingstock of the house.32
Developments at the theater were less amusing. The economic downturn known as the Panic of 1857 was raising unemployment and driving prices down nationwide. Places of amusement were highly vulnerable to such developments, and by October it was reported in theatrical circles that “there is not probably in the Union two theaters earning expenses.”33 The Arch felt the pinch. In November hard times and strong opposition from the rival Walnut Street Theatre forced Wheatley to cut admission prices to all parts of the house except the choicest seats.34 Advertising was severely curtailed, and salaries were threatened. Then in February 1858 Davenport fell out with Wheatley, and “like a chap on board a ship in a storm at sea, he took his carpet bag and stepped ashore,” as a trade paper put it.35
The departure of Davenport was a personal setback for Booth. He had learned much from the older actor, whom he admired for the polished nature of his performances.36 Davenport had been an encouraging mentor, bringing even utes like McCullough before the curtain for applause. The remaining seniors were not congenial. Clarke never praised the efforts of the youngsters.37 Wheatley was hemorrhaging dollars, while the hot-tempered Fredericks displayed “that reputation for crabbedness that struck terror in the hearts of the entire profession.”38 The managers reorganized upon the decamping of Davenport, bringing in new faces and reshuffling others. Booth suffered in the shake-up. Theater playbills that occasionally list his name below that of McCullough (who made half his salary) suggest a demotion.39 Clearly, Booth had lost some of the management’s confidence just as the management was losing the city’s. “With nobodies acting the principal male characters and women as leading actresses who are incompetent, the Arch seems in a sad way,” a critic in the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch complained in April.40 The resourceful Wheatley recovered some ground by bringing in name talent from out of town, but it was with relief that Booth saw the long theatrical year close on June 19, 1858.
Clarke, who would comanage with Wheatley in the fall, believed Booth would make a good actor and wanted him back. “He don’t want too,” Mary Ann wrote June. “He is for trying another City.” John left the Arch without a backward glance, telling friends he had been unsuccessful there. He mother believed that he secretly wished he had done something else for a living but would not acknowledge it.41
A much-needed vacation followed. John, Edwin, Asia, and Jean Anderson, a family friend from Baltimore, took a trip to Niagara Falls.42 On their return they stopped in New York City at the St. Nicholas Hotel, an elaborately furnished house on Broadway popular with Southerners.43 As Jean grew up, she had grown interesting to the young actor. “John has an eye on you,” Asia teased her. He stole a kiss from Jean, whispering that it was her own fault that he did it: she was too sweet for him to resist. Asia hoped the two might become attached. That was not to be, but Jean liked John very much. Years later, after the assassination had made her brother notorious, Asia began praising John in a letter to Jean, then stopped herself in midsentence. “I won’t speak of his qualities,” she stated. “You knew him.”44
Booth seemed revitalized by his time off. He appeared to one female admirer “like a new blown rose with the morning dew upon it” when he returned to Baltimore.45 He responded eagerly when John T. Ford, manager of the Holliday Street Theatre, suggested a joint appearance with Edwin in Richard III. John played Richmond to Edwin’s title role. “Both performances were superb,” wrote the actor James H. Stoddart. “I shall never forget the fight between Richard and Richmond in the last act, an encounter which was terrible in its savage realism.”46 John surprised everyone favorably. Edwin wrote their niece Blanche, “I think he will make a good actor.”47 Ford thought so, too.
the marshall theatre of Richmond, Virginia, stood on the corner of Seventh and Broad Streets in the heart of the city’s business district.48 Named for the great jurist John Marshall, a Virginian who had been a theater buff and stockholder in the business, it was a handsome brick structure designed to seat one thousand people. There was nothing special about the large building except perhaps its unusual number of doors and windows. They were the deliberate legacy of a stampede of theatrical patrons during a horrifying fire in 1811, when seventy-two people (including the governor of the state) had died. The new building design was to ensure that that would never happen again. There were other halls in the city that could be rented for special events, but the “Old Marshall” was Richmond’s only full-time theater. Unlike the Arch, it operated without competition, serving the needs of Virginia’s capital city until 1862 when it, too, was destroyed by fire.
Kunkel and Company were the lessees and managers of the Marshall. The partners in this concern were John T. Ford, George Kunkel, and Thomas L. Moxley, all Baltimore-based friends of the Booth family.49 Ford recruited John Wilkes for the Marshall ensemble but was otherwise an absentee, living in Baltimore, where he managed the Holliday Theatre for the partnership. Day-to-day operation of the Marshall fell to Kunkel and Moxley. These showmen, both only in their thirties, had already performed together for years. Kunkel started his working life as a typesetter, but he soon learned there was money in his bass voice and skill with the accordion. He joined with Moxley to form a series of minstrel troupes that toured nationally for a decade. Kunkel was a talented singer and composer. Moxley was an exceptional dancer, often impersonating female characters to Kunkel’s male lead. The keen mimic abilities of this pair, who did blackface comedy and musical pieces, fed the racial stereotypes of the period, yet it should be noted that the two burlesqued white as quickly as black if the routine could get a laugh or make a dollar.
Kunkel and Moxley, having made “plenty of tin” on the minstrel stage, settled into the stationary life of management in Richmond.50 By the fall of 1858 they were entering their third year at the Marshall. The two had
spent July in New York City recruiting talent for the stock company. Having paid full salaries during the height of the preceding year’s financial panic, they had an excellent reputation and no difficulty gathering some two dozen actors, dancers, vocalists, and comedians for the coming season.51 A substantial number of the new company was from Baltimore. Booth was signed, again to be billed as “J. B. Wilkes,” at a salary of eleven dollars per week. The amount, a three-dollar raise over Philadelphia, indicated that his year at the Arch was not a complete loss professionally.52
During the summer months, while the theater was closed, the Marshall was renovated inside and out. New stucco, wallpaper, and frescoes went up. Sets were retouched, and the drop curtains were repainted. Ticket prices remained unchanged from the previous year, however. Seats in the dress circle or parquet, both on the main floor, cost fifty cents. Those in the family circle on the second tier were a quarter. The “Eastern Gallery for colored persons” had seats for 37½ cents each. Doors to the theater opened at 7:00 p.m., and the curtain rose promptly at 7:45.53
Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth Page 6