![]() ![]() (It was McGuire's third and most substantial theatre of this name, the other two having been destroyed in fires.) (2) McGuire was a leading, but not the only, theatrical manager in the city. ![]() The year before Junius Jr., or June, as he was called, had traveled to San Francisco and quickly established himself as a leading actor and stage manager at the pioneering theatrical manager Tom McGuire's new Jenny Lind Theatre. The elder Booth had been enticed to California by his oldest child Junius, Jr. If one was a second-tier touring star or a workaday stock actor, however, the relative lack of competition and the pay scale were particularly attractive. Actors were drawn to California by the promise of earnings that might be two to three times what could be earned in Boston, New York, or Charleston, although expenses in California were significantly higher than in the Eastern states. By the early 1850s San Francisco had become the center of a dynamic theatrical circuit that included Sacramento, Stockton, and various mining towns, such as Marysville, Downieville, and Grass Valley. Theatres were initially makeshift affairs, but soon became more substantial establishments with corps of actors and bills of fare modeled after eastern stock companies. Many came to make a fortune mining gold others to prosper by providing services, including all sorts of theatrical entertainment, to the gold seekers. Tens of thousands of transients passed through the city on their way to the mining camps in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Booth's story also paints a concrete, vivid picture of theatrical life in Gold Rush California.įrom the discovery of gold in 1848 to 1852, the population of San Francisco swelled from a few hundred inhabitants to probably about 30,000 residents, predominately young men from the United States, South America, Europe, Australia, and China, all eager to strike it rich one way or another. When Booth went to California he was a callow, fledgling actor when he left, he was a much more mature, even worldly-wise, rising young star. He was a special needs teacher for many years at Case Junior High School. Born in Fall River, he was the son of the late Edwin Booth and Catherine (Zombric) Booth. One should not discount their value in the emotional growth and development of an aspiring actor. Booth, 78, of Swansea, husband of the late Patricia (Mello) Booth, passed away at home on Saturday, October 29, 2022, after an illness. In California, Booth also experienced various professional and personal ups and downs. It was the kind of performance experience that he was not likely to get in an eastern stock company in the early 1850s. In many respects, these were Booth's formative years, his "college" where he had the opportunity and the freedom to play numerous, diverse roles under various performance conditions. (1) It is an interesting, important episode in the life of a great American actor and merits revisiting. The story of Edwin's years in California, interrupted by a voyage to Australia, has been sketched by all of Booth's earlier biographers, but not as fully, nor in as much detail, particularly about his performances and their critical reception, as the account that follows. In July of 1852, in the company of his father Junius Brutus Booth, eighteen-year-old Edwin Booth arrived in San Francisco. ![]()
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