DEATH OF MR. EDWIN BOOTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9221, 8 June 1893, Page 5

DEATH OF MR. EDWIN BOOTH.

Press Association—Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. New York, June 7. The death is announced of Mr. Edwin Booth, the American actor, in his 60th year. "V 'V r 'V';

The late Mr. Booth was born at Bel Air, near Baltimore, Maryland, November 15, 1833. He was a son of the actor Junius Brutus Booth, and was trained for the dramatic profession under his father's guidance. Having filled a few minor parts e made his first regular appearance on the stage as Tressel, in " Richard III.." at Boston, in 1849, and in 1851 performed the character of Richard 111., at New York, in place of his father, who had been suddenly taken ill. After a tour through California, Australia, and many of the Pacific islands he re-appeared at New York in 1857, visited England and the Continent in 1861, and returning sto New York com. menced a series of. Shakesperian revivals at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1863. After a series of engagements in Boston, Philadelphia and other large cities, he began in 1868 the erection of a new theatre in New York, which was opened February 3, 1869: but the copt of the building in which Mr. Booth had invested all his means prevented ultimate pecuniary success, and the theatre passed from hie hands, and was finally pulled down in 1882. For several years he virtually retired from the stage, but near the close of 1877 he began in New York a series of performances. He rarely undertook * any except the leading characters of Shakspore : Hamlet, Othello, lago, Shy lock, and Richard 111., Hamlet being his most admired impersonation. In 188.1 he went to England, where he remained for two years, and where he alternately j took the parts of Othello and lago with Mr. Irving. In the early part of 1883 he played Shakrperean parts at Berlin and Hamburg. He published in 1877-78 an edition of the principal plays in which he appeared. ___________ ..yZ :'j