It’s the last day of August; I guess I better post the August inductee into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame!
By tradition, the new member for August in any year has a connection to TV Westerns, and for some of my Toobers, it might come as a surprise that this year’s inductee was most often seen in Toobworld in the Old West.
From Wikipedia:
Edwin Thomas Booth (November 13, 1833 – June 7, 1893) was an American actor who toured throughout the United States and the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespearean plays. In 1869, he founded Booth's Theatre in New York. Some theatrical historians consider him the greatest American actor, and the greatest Prince Hamlet, of the 19th century. His achievements are often overshadowed by his relationship with his younger brother, actor John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
After John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, the infamy associated with the Booth name forced Edwin Booth to abandon the stage for many months. Edwin, who had been feuding with John Wilkes before the assassination, disowned him afterward, refusing to have John's name spoken in his house. He made his return to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre in January 1866, playing the title role in Hamlet, which would eventually become his signature role.
In 1869, Edwin acquired his brother John's body after repeatedly writing to President Andrew Johnson pleading for it. Johnson finally released the remains, and Edwin had them buried, unmarked, in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.
On April 23, 1879, Mark Gray, a traveling salesman from Keokuk, Iowa, fired two shots from a pistol at Booth. Booth was playing the title role in Richard II at McVicker's Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, during the final act of the William Shakespeare tragedy. Gray gave as his motive a wrong done to a friend by Booth. Gray's shots, which were fired from a distance of thirty-four feet, missed Booth, burying themselves in the stage floor. The would-be assassin was jailed at Central Station in Chicago. Booth was not acquainted with Gray, who worked for a St. Louis, Missouri dry goods firm. A letter to a woman in Ohio was found on Gray's person. The correspondence affirmed Gray's intent to murder Booth. The attempted assassination occurred on Shakespeare's supposed birthday and came at a time when Booth was receiving numerous death threats by mail.
In 1888, Booth founded The Players, a private club for performing, literary, and visual artists and their supporters, purchasing and furnishing a home on Gramercy Park as its clubhouse.
His final performance was, fittingly, in his signature role of Hamlet, in 1891 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Edwin Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert, from serious injury or even death. The incident occurred on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date of the incident is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1864 or early 1865. Robert Lincoln recalled the incident in a 1909 letter to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of The Century Magazine.
The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.
Booth did not know the identity of the man whose life he had saved until some months later, when he received a letter from a friend, Colonel Adam Badeau, who was an officer on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. Badeau had heard the story from Robert Lincoln, who had since joined the Union Army and was also serving on Grant's staff. In the letter, Badeau gave his compliments to Booth for the heroic deed. The fact that he had saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son was said to have been of some comfort to Edwin Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.
Edwin Booth had a small stroke in 1891, which precipitated his decline. He suffered another stroke in April 1893 and died June 7, 1893, in his apartment in The Players clubhouse. He was buried next to his first wife at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His bedroom in the club has been kept untouched since his death. The New York Times reported his death.
In 1959, the actor Robert McQueeney played Booth in the episode "The Man Who Loved Lincoln" on the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, ‘Colt .45’, starring Wayde Preston as the fictitious undercover agent Christopher Colt, who in the story line is assigned to protect Booth from a death threat.
In 1960, the anthology series television series ‘Death Valley Days’ broadcast "His Brother's Keeper", in which Booth visits a small town after the Lincoln assassination, with one of the town's influential citizens trying to have him run out of town.
In 1966, Martin Landau played Edwin Booth in the episode "This Stage of Fools" of the NBC western television series, ‘Branded’, starring Chuck Connors as Jason McCord. In the story line, McCord takes a job as the bodyguard to the actor Edwin Booth, brother of the presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth.
In 2013, Will Forte played Edwin Booth in the "Washington, D.C." episode of the Comedy Central's series, ‘Drunk History’, created by Derek Waters.
In 2014, Edwin Booth was played by Gordon Tanner in ‘The Pinkertons’ episode, "The Play's the Thing" (S1:E3). In the episode, both the "Hundred nights Hamlet" and Edwin's rescue of Robert Lincoln are mentioned.
Despite all of these actors who played Booth, none of them are from alternate Toobworlds. To splain away the difference in appearances, each of them is how they appear to some other character in that episode, colored by sentiment. And then we see Booth through that other character’s eyes. For example, the Edwin Booth played by Martin Landau was how Jason McCord saw him. John Crawford’s Booth was Will Santee’s opinion of his looks.
The only one who isn’t a true version of Edwin Booth in any TV Universe is the one played by Will Forte in an episode of ‘Drunk History’. He is depicted as how Derek Waters, who was the host of ‘Drunk History’, envisioned him in the story told by one of the drunken narrators.
Here are Edwin Booth’s qualifications to join the TVXOHOF:
THE MAN WHO LOVED LINCOLN (1959)
(Played by Robert McQueeney)
Colt is hired as bodyguard to actor Edwin Booth, brother of the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.
DEATH VALLEY DAYS
(Played by Harry Townes)
Edwin Booth arrives in Downieville to do a Shakespearean show 6 months after his brother assassinated Lincoln. Town tough Rogan and his cronies try to prevent the performance. It's up to Jeb Hayes to show his son to stand up for what's right.
WAGON TRAIN
(Played by John Crawford)
The Santee family---Will, his mother, and his younger sister---join the wagon train under a false surname. They have been forced out of town after town because of a terrible thing a family member did. They confide in Hale, Hawks, and Charlie, who agree to keep their secret from the others on the train. But it soon comes out anyway, and things get complicated when Will falls for a young woman from the wagon train.
BRONCO
(Played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.)
Bronco and Col. Bart Traver meet with Shakespearian actor Edwin Booth on a train during a short stopover. He and his troupe are on the way to Virginia City, Nevada for an engagement. Col. Traver reveals that President Grant has sent him to request Booth's help with uncovering and stopping a group hoping to overthrow the federal government by playing on the sympathies of southerners to get their support. Edwin has always been a strong supporter of the Union although ten years earlier his younger brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln. They want him to pretend to hate the Union and support the Confederacy while in Virginia City to attract the attention of the traitors they are after. Bronco will act as his friend and bodyguard. Booth, although tired of theohn pain his name has caused him due to his brother, reluctantly agrees to help them. In Virginia City tempers run high among the people there. Booth's comments eventually leads to the hoped connection but before that happens other dangers must be confronted.
BRANDED
(Played by Martin Landau)
Jason gets mixed up in the aftermath of President Lincoln's assassination when he agrees to take a job to protect a man out for revenge against those who 'helped' his brother, John Wilkes Booth, kill the President of the United States.
DRUNK HISTORY
(Played by Will Forte)
Woodward and Bernstein blow open the Watergate scandal; actors/brothers Edwin and John Wilkes Booth engage in a tragic feud; and Elvis crashes the White House to meet Nixon. Guest starring Jack Black, Dave Grohl, Bob Odenkirk.
THE PINKERTONS
THE PLAY'S THE THING (2014)
(Played by Gordon Tanner)
Will and Kate get more drama than they bargained for when an actor dies during a performance of "Hamlet" and Will is forced to go undercover as a member of a traveling theater troupe.
Welcome to the TV Crossover Hall of Fame, Mr. Booth!
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