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"...Time and the
hour runs through the roughest day."
MacBeth
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| Edwin Booth |
Brother Edwin, now a full-blown matinee idol, was fast inheriting his
father’s thespian mantle, for the spotlights were now shining bright onstage wherever
he appeared. Billed as the son of the great Junius Brutus Booth, people flocked to see
this new genius. Letters sent home from Edwin described the mining camps and cow towns he
played, then the great theatres in goliaths like Denver and San Francisco. He wrote of
great rivers and snow-capped mountains, of a vast desert and the Pacific Ocean, of wealthy
and exciting patrons of the arts.Wilkes, at home, grew dizzy with jealousy. "Fame,
I must have fame!" he would rave to anyone who listened. Since her husband had passed, Mrs. Booth spent less time at Tudor Hall and more
time in convenient Baltimore, where they lived on Exeter Street. Asia had by this time
acquainted the city’s top theatrical comedian, J. Sleeper Clarke, and Wilkes began
pestering Asia to have Clarke procure for him a role in one of his productions.
Persistence paying off, Clarke talked the city’s Charles Street Theatre into
offering Wilkes, then 17, the hefty role of Lord Richmond in Richard III.
The much-awaited performance of the latest Booth was a shambles. Wilkes moaned and
droned his lines like an amateur. Critics were kind, but audiences brutalized him with
insulting laughter and catcalls. The farce reached even Edwin, playing the Sierra Nevadas
in California.
Wilkes hid his face in shame. He swore he would never return to the platform. But,
Sleeper Clarke, on Asia’s persistence, tutored him to refine the rough edges. After
Clarke and Asia married and moved to Philadelphia in 1859, Clarke convinced the management
of the Arch Street Theatre to cast Wilkes in a potpourri of supporting roles where he
could sharpen his craft hands on. Of his own volition, the boy chose to use the moniker
John Wilkes so as not to dishonor the Booth name further.
The venture nearly ruined Clarke’s credibility, for if audiences didn’t laugh
his pupil offstage they hissed him off. One time, in The Gamester, fellow actors
had to carry Wilkes off after he froze with stage fright. Then there was the time
he was played an Italian courtier named Petruchio Pandolfe in the play, Lucretia Borgia.
During the previous months, he had begun to show an emerging talent; as well, women
theatre goers alarmed at his dark good looks and would tarry near the stage entrance after
performances to steal a closer peek as he exited. Maybe the country had a new star after
all! But...then came opening night of Lucretia Borgia and Wilkes entered to the
roll of drums: "Allow me to offer my services, Countess of the House of
Borgia, for I
will fight the enemy battering your borders! I am yours! I am Petru...." and he
blanked. Mumbling incoherences, he finally lost composure, turned to a fellow actor and
blurted, "Drat it! Who the hell am I?"
A tumult of guffaws sent him racing for the wings. His star seemed to have crashed
before it had a chance to shine.
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