English Stage Actor. He was named after Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the lead assassins in William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar. His interests in theater came after seeing Othello at the Covent Garden Theatre. The prospects of fame, fortune and freedom were very appealing to him and he demonstrated a talent for acting from an early age, deciding on a career in the theatre by the age of 17. He performed roles in several small theatres throughout England, joined a tour of the Low Countries in 1814, and returned the next year to make his London debut. He gained national fame in England with his performance in the title role of Richard III in 1817 at the Covent Garden Theatre. In 1821, he emigrated to the United States with Mary Ann Holmes, a flower girl, abandoning his wife and their young son. The couple claimed to be married that year and settled in 1822 near Bel Air, Maryland. For years they lived in a log cabin Booth bought on 150 acres. Just before his death, he began building a much grander house which he named Tudor Hall. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. He was quickly hired to play Richard III. In less than a year, he became the most prominent actor in the United States. He had a 30-year career that made him famous throughout the country. In 1825 to 1826 and 1836 to 1837, he returned to England and took his family with him for the second trip. While staying in England, one of his children succumbed to smallpox. Although his relationship with Holmes, his supposed wife, was relatively happy, four of their children died. Three of them died in 1833 when epidemics of cholera occurred. In addition, he suffered from alcoholism, which had an effect on the entire family. His own alcoholism caused him to become increasingly unpredictable and reckless. He would drop lines, miss scenes, and cause chaos onstage. During a performance of Hamlet, he suddenly left the scene he was playing with Ophelia, scurried up a ladder, and perched up in the backdrops crowing like a rooster until his manager retrieved him. He was once booked for a sold-out performance in Richmond, then disappeared from town for several days. His alcoholism and violent nature often caused problems onstage during his performances. He soon became so unreliable that he had to be locked into his hotel rooms with a guard standing watch. Often, he would still find ways of escaping to drink at a nearby tavern. His violent behavior offstage was notable as well. In Charleston in 1838, he was so intoxicated that he attacked a friend, Tom Flynn, with a fireplace andiron. To defend himself, Flynn hit Booth in the face, breaking his nose and forever altering the actor's profile and voice. From February 1817 onward, he played almost 3000 performances and brought a romantic, natural acting style to America, which he pioneered in the hearts of American audiences. To help him maintain a modicum of stability and also to ensure that he sent his earnings home to the family, he and his consort chose their son Edwin to accompany him as his dresser, aid, and guardian. This was an exhausting job because he could go without sleep for very long periods of time and would often disappear. He had told his first wife at the time of his initial departure from England that he would be touring the United States for several years, but would send her money to support her and his young son. His sister and brother-in-law later arrived with their children from England and demanded to be housed and supported in exchange for keeping quiet about his American family. After some years, this arrangement became financially untenable, and he stopped sending his wife money so regularly. This prompted his wife to send their son, now 25, to Baltimore. For three years, he was somehow able to fool him into believing that he lived alone, but eventually his son discovered the truth. He sent word to his mother, who arrived in Baltimore in December 1846 and confronted Booth when he returned home from touring in March. After living the requisite three years in Maryland, she was able to divorce him in February 1851. On May 10, 1851, with the youngest of their 10 children now 11 years of age, Booth finally legally married Mary Ann Holmes. While traveling by steamboat from New Orleans to Cincinnati in 1852, he developed a fever, presumably from drinking impure river water. No physician was on board, and he died aboard the steamboat near Louisville, Kentucky, on November 30, 1852. Booth's widow traveled to Cincinnati alone to claim his body. He was the father of actor John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. His other children included Edwin Booth, the foremost tragedian of the mid-to-late 19th century, Junius Brutus Booth Jr., an actor and theatre manager, and Asia Booth Clarke, a poet and writer. He was posthumously inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981.