Edwin Forrest
Edwin Forrest | |
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | |
Died | December 12, 1872 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | (aged 66)
Occupation | Actor |
Signature | |
Edwin Forrest (March 9, 1806 – December 12, 1872) was a prominent nineteenth-century American
Early life
Forrest was born in
At the age of 11, Forrest made his first appearance on the legitimate stage at Philadelphia's South Street Theatre, playing the female role Rosalia de Borgia in the John D. Turnbull melodrama Rudolph: or, The Robbers of Calabria. After Forrest's father died in 1819, he attempted to apprentice with a printer, a cooper, and finally a ship chandler. When attending a lecture in early 1820, he volunteered to participate in an experiment on the effects of nitrous oxide. While under the influence of the gas, he broke into a soliloquy from Shakespeare's Richard III that impressed eminent Philadelphia lawyer John Swift so much that Swift arranged an audition at the Walnut Street Theatre; this led to Forrest's formal stage debut on November 27, 1820, as Young Norval in John Home's Douglas.[1][2][3]
Early acting career
The theatres of New York and Philadelphia were already crowded with trained and successful actors, mostly the offspring of well-known British theatrical families or at least with British training. Few American actors were able to make much headway in these theaters, whose managers were highly skeptical of the quality of local talent.
Forrest therefore accepted an offer from Joshua Collins and William Jones, who owned theatres in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Lexington, and were scouting Philadelphia for actors who were willing to face the rigors of performing in the new cities along the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. His tour through a rough country—with the inconveniences of long distances, the necessity of presenting his plays in rude halls, insufficient support, and poor scenery—was not altogether successful, but the discipline to mind and body was felt in all his subsequent career.[4]
In 1824 he travelled from Louisville down to New Orleans, where he had been invited to join the company of the American Theatre, under the management of William Caldwell. There he began to act in a higher quality of production - though usually in roles secondary to Caldwell - and began to attract favorable responses from New Orleans audiences. However, Forrest vied with his employer for the affections of the leading actress of the company, Jane Placide. In a fury of jealousy, he quit the company and spent two months living in the Louisiana wilderness. Later Forrest would claim he spent much of this time in the company of a Choctaw Indian chief named Push-ma-ta-ha, though recent scholarship has come to question much of his account. By 1825 he was back in Philadelphia, and then went north to act with the Pearl Street Theatre in Albany, New York, where he was able to act with, and learn from, such eminent actors as William Conway and Edmund Kean.
New York success
In 1826, he had a great success at the Bowery Theatre in New York City as Othello. The management employed him at a salary far below his worth, and he was at once offered increased payment at another theatre; but he refused to break his word, and carried out the contract to his own detriment. This strict sense of honor was characteristic of him throughout his career.[4]
His New York success was repeated in every city he visited. In 1829 he was featured as Metamora in the play Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags by John Augustus Stone. After a few years of profitable labor, during which he had encouraged native talent by liberal offers for new American plays, he went to Europe for rest and travel and larger observation, and was received with much courtesy by actors and scholars.[4]
He returned to Philadelphia in 1831, and played there and in New York and elsewhere with triumphant success until September 1836, when he sailed for England, this time professionally, and made his first appearance at
During this engagement he married, in June 1837, Miss Catherine Norton Sinclair, daughter of John Sinclair, a popular English singer. He returned to Philadelphia in November of the same year and began an engagement. His wife made a deep impression wherever she was presented, and it was argued that domestic happiness would be the fitting crown of his public career. But these predictions were disappointed.[4]
Playwriting contest
Edwin Forrest began a playwriting contest from 1828 to 1847. The only rule the plays had to follow was that the lead Character had to fit Forrest and the plays typically followed American themes. The first play to win the contest was Metamora by John Augustus Stone in 1828. The winner the following year was The Gladiator by Robert Montgomery Bird. Other winning titles include Richard Penn Smith's Caius Marcus; two other plays by Robert Montgomery Bird: Oralloosa and The Broker of Bogota; and Robert T. Conrad's Jack Cade. Forrest was now known as a great Shakespearean actor as well as a supporter of emerging American playwrights. However, though his contest did raise the general reputation of American playwrights, it did little to help get the winners' plays produced elsewhere. Metamora, The Gladiator, and Jack Cade so well suited Forrest's strengths as a performer, showing off his strong voice and well-developed physique, that they remained in Forrest's personal repertory for the rest of his career.
Rivalry with Macready
Forrest visited London a second time in 1845, accompanied by his wife, who was welcomed in the intellectual circles of English and Scottish society. He acted at the
A few weeks later, when Macready was playing Hamlet in
Divorce
In 1850, Forrest and his wife sought divorce, after Forrest's affair with actress
Later stage career
In 1853, he played Macbeth, with a strong cast and fine scenery, at the
In October 1871, Forrest commenced his last annual tour, starting at the Walnut Theater in his home town of Philadelphia. He passed through Columbus, OH; Cincinnati, OH; New Orleans, LA; Galveston, TX; Nashville, TN; Kansas City, MO; Leavenworth, KS; St. Louis, MO; Pittsburgh, PA; Detroit, MI; Buffalo, NY; and by late February the Opera House in Rochester, NY; February 27 through March 1. From Rochester he traveled on to Boston, MA.[14]
On the night of March 25, 1872, he appeared in
A stroke of paralysis ended his life suddenly and without pain. His servant found him dead, alone, and apparently asleep, in his home in Philadelphia December 12, 1872. His body was interred in Old Saint Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Philadelphia.
Philanthropic efforts
His love of the theatre was unbounded, and he is one of the few whose memory survives to this day, for he used his considerable accumulated wealth to support his fellow actors.
This began in 1865, the year of Lincoln's assassination by the actor
In the 1920s, architect Herbert J. Krapp was chosen to design two new theatres, one in New York City and the other in Philadelphia. Both were initially named the Forrest Theatre in honor of Forrest and his contributions to the theatre world. While the Philadelphia location is still called the Forrest Theatre, the building in New York has changed names over the years and is currently known as the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.[17][18]
See also
- Lawrence Barrett's Edwin Forrest (Boston, 1881)
- Edwin Forrest House
- Edwin Forrest School
Notes
- ^ a b Rees, James (1874). The life of Edwin Forrest: With Reminiscences and Personal Recollections. T. B. Peterson. p. 381. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
- ^ a b Barrett, Lawrence; Forrest, Edwin (1881). Edwin Forrest. J.R. Osgood. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
edwin forrest barrett.
- ^ "Forrest, Edwin". The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans: Volume IV. 1904. pp. 152–3.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Barrett, Lawrence (1900). . In Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J. (eds.). Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ Baker 2001, p. 116
- ^ Beers 1913, p. 309
- ^ Baker 2001, p. 118
- ^ Beers 1913, p. 311
- ^ Beers 1913, p. 312
- ^ Baker 2001, p. 115
- ^ a b Beers 1913, p. 313
- ^ a b Yellin 2004, p. 112
- ^ Yellin 2004, p. 113
- ^ Philadelphia Inquirer October 16, 1871; Portsmouth, Ohio, Daily Times October 28, 1871; Cincinnati Enquirer September 11, 1871; New Orleans Times Democrat November 24, 1871; Galveston Daily News August 12, 1871; Nashville Union and American December 23, 1871; New Orleans Times Democrat, December 31, 1871, Atchinson, Kansas, Daily Champion December 30, 1871; Atlanta Constitution January 19, 1872; Pittsburgh Commercial, January 29, 1872; Detroit Free Press April 2, 1872; Detroit Free Press June 2, 1872; Washington, DC National Republican February 24, 1872; Rochester Democrat & Chronicle February 26, 1872; Detroit Free Press March 24, 1872; Rochester Democrat & Chronicle April 4, 1872, Baltimore Sun June 4, 1872
- ^ University of Pennsylvania Libraries
- ^ "The Edwin Forrest Home". New York Daily Herald. December 18, 1872. p. 8. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
- ^ "The Forrest Theatre, Philadelphia" Archived August 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Shubert Organization. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
- ^ "History" Archived February 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
Bibliography
- Baker, Thomas N. (2001). Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512073-8.
- Beers, Henry A. (1913). Nathaniel Parker Willis. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Moody, Richard (1960). Edwin Forrest: First Star of the American Stage. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
- Yellin, Jean Fagan (2004). Harriet Jacobs: A Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basic Civitas Books. ISBN 978-0-465-09288-8.
External links
Media related to Edwin Forrest at Wikimedia Commons
- The Edwin Forrest Home Records, documenting the entire institutional history of the Edwin Forrest Home, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
- Edwin Forrest at Find a Grave
- Edwin Forrest biography and photo gallery
- Finding aid to the Edwin Forrest collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries
- Theater Arts Manuscripts: An Inventory of the Collection at the Harry Ransom Center