The gypsy woman told my momma
Before I was born:
"You got a boy child's comin'"
"He's gonna be a bad one, that one"
"He gonna make all the ladies"
"Jump and shout"
"The whole wide world gonna wonder"
"What this all about?"
Posted on 04/15/2015 11:05:21 AM PDT by nickcarraway
John Wilkes Booth was the man who pulled the trigger, capping off a coordinated plot to murder President Abraham Lincoln.
But historian Terry Alford, an expert on all things Booth, says that there's much more to Booth's life. His new biography, Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, delves deep into his life — before Booth went down in history as the man who assassinated a president.
Booth was born into a prominent family of actors. According to Alford, he had good looks and an exceptional acting range, playing both dark roles as bad guys and softer roles such as Romeo. By 1865, the 26-year-old was a headliner on the American stage. As Alford tells Morning Edition's Renee Montagne, Booth was the first actor known to have "had his clothes torn by fans."
"When he was coming out of a theater in Boston, the manager had to come back and tell people, 'Back up, let him out, just let him walk to his hotel.' "
Alford says it's interesting that, "over the years, as people felt free to talk about Booth, and while they shrank away from what he did, they didn't really shrink from him. They remembered things about him like courtesies and acts of heroism."
Like this example:
"One time onstage, he saved a young woman whose dress caught on fire," he says, "a young actress who had wandered too close to the gas footlights."
Booth was not a madman, according to Alford. In fact, he was politically motivated to assassinate Lincoln.
"John Wilkes Booth was one of those people who thought the best country in the history of the world was the United States as it existed before the Civil War," Alford says. "And then when Lincoln came along, he was changing that in fundamental ways."
"John Wilkes Booth was one of those people who thought the best country in the history of the world was the United States as it existed before the Civil War. And then when Lincoln came along, he was changing that in fundamental ways." - Terry Alford Those ideological differences include increasing the power of the federal government and emancipating the slaves, both things Booth was vehemently against. He was angered that the government instituted an income tax and the military draft, and that the government occasionally suspended habeas corpus, a legal protection against unlawful imprisonment. All these things, Alford says, agitated Booth.
"But Booth brought to that agitation an extremism, the passion almost of a fanatic," Alford says. "And it was very dangerous, as we find out."
Booth's opposition to Lincoln's policies persuaded him to fight with the Confederate army during the Civil War. But, according to Alford, his mother was a widow and had already lost four of her children. So she pleaded for him to stay clear of the war. Booth agreed.
"But he felt like a slacker," Alford says. "He even uses the word 'coward' to describe himself because, as an actor, he played a hero onstage but really wasn't one."
One of the people closest to Booth was his older sister, Asia Booth Clarke. After Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Asia and her family went into exile in England. There she wrote a secret memoir about her brother, but it wasn't published until 1938. Alford wrote the forward in the latest edition. In her memoir, Clarke recalls a time where a psychic predicted John Wilkes' Booth's untimely death.
Revisiting The Night Abraham Lincoln Was Shot 150 Years Ago "The old gypsy said [to him], 'You've got a bad hand; it's full of sorrow. Trouble plenty everywhere I look. I see you'll break hearts. You'll die young, and you will leave many to mourn you. You'll be rich, you'll be free but you're born under an unlucky star,' " Alford says. "And his sister said, 'Oh, don't let that worry you. These gypsies will just say anything for money.' And he laughed and said, 'That's right.' "
Alford adds that Booth would refer to the gypsy's predictions years later in conversations.
"The little fortune he wrote down grew tattered from folding and unfolding, as he would get it out and look at it and put it back," he says. "So thoughts like that preyed on his mind."
Alford says the assassination of President Lincoln – one of the most heinous acts in American history - shattered the Booth family.
"The brothers were actors," he says. "In other words, you've got to get out in front of thousands of strangers and dozens of towns and be public again. And this was exceptionally hard, because a lot of people did feel you are your brother's keeper. 'Why didn't you do something about this? What did you know? Why didn't you take care of it?' And, so it was extremely hard to be a Booth for a long, long time."
Update at 12:00 p.m. ET: We have changed the headline of this post, which originally said "John Wilkes Booth Was Not A Deranged Longer, Historian Says," and clarified in the text that Booth was not a lone gunman, but rather, a part of a group of conspirators."
What is “hmmmm”? It’s true.
I wonder if this author has ever heard of the New York Draft riots in 1863, where immigrant mobs attacked transplanted blacks because they feared their jobs were in jeopardy.
Interesting. He had to be referring to the confederacy.
Next we’ll hear he kissed babies and helped old women cross streets. He was a murdering coward.
In those days acting wasn’t looked on as a very reputable profession. Oddly enough neither was politics. Stranger still is that in many ways the two are a lot alike.
Yes, actors were looked down upon and the women treated like prostitutes. Of course, there were admired actors and actresses like Edwin Booth and Laura Keene. Edwin Booth founded The Players (a club) in order to improve their lives and their reputation. 125 years and it’s still going strong.
Honestly miss marmelstein, there are very few actors I ever thought were good actors and decent people. Truth is, the ones I truly admire are long gone. My favorite was Claude Rains. The epitome of the polished urban sophisticate.
Oh, jma! There’s a well-known story that he once knocked down a homeless baby while running on the way to post a telegram. He picked the baby up, kissed it, wiped away his tears and crammed his hands with money. Booth could be amazingly kind and good natured. He certainly turned to the dark side at the end of his life - he was mad and a very heavy drinker and obsessed with the Confederate cause.
The story I told you is relayed in Clara Morris’s memoir. She worked with him in The Marble Heart.
I’ve studied the Booth family for 30 years.
Booth was well-known at Fords Theater. But you’re right: the guard was not there.
The latter part of Booth you describe was the the real one, the angry drinker, trust me I know all about that dark heart of the human condition . Everything else in the light of day in ones heart, as it were , is just the ‘’down time’’ in between drinking bouts.
He’s a hero to some FReepers; we know that much.
Who?
The Lincoln-hating neo-Confederates.
What, you haven't noticed them???
He was also named for the British radical John Wilkes, who supported American independence and for whom Wilkes Barre Pa. was named. He also was the first one quoted in the following exchange,””Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox,” Wilkes is reported to have replied, “That depends, my lord, on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.”
These guys were an odd mix back then.
As I said, I’ve been studying the Booth family for 30 years. I hope this link works but if it doesn’t, just google Clara Morris. I’m not excusing his crime - it exploded in the south’s face. I am just telling you there was another side of his personality. This is why no one at first believed he could have done it.
http://www.authorama.com/19th-century-actor-autobiographies-5.html
Here's one - Patriot08
Booth saw himself as a patriot to the Confederate Cause—Remember—the war was still very much on. Jefferson Davis was still the president of the CSA with his new capital at Danville. Johnston was still in the field along with many other rebel leaders. Only Lee had surrended just days before the assassination. Confederate ships were still waging war at sea. These were confusing time and its hard for us to know what it was really like.
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