20th Century-Fox Dynamo (1954)

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Burton and Maggie McNamara (both in scene at left) are romantically involved in VPrince Of Players”. Though sworn he will never marry, Edwin Booth’s* heart was won by Mary Devlin, his leading lady. But, because of his drinking and melancholy manners, she died of tuber- culosis and a broken heart. In scene at right are Bickford, Burton and Elizabeth Sellars who plays his possessive sister, Asia. Richard Burton as Edwin Booth (seated) refuses to take seriously a complaint from his impresario, Charles Bickford. Edwin’s private life was as hectic as his professional career was fantastic. In "Prince Of Players” excerpts are played from "Hamlet”, " Richard III”, " Romeo And Juliet”, "Macbeth,” and "Othello.” Impresario and Raymond Massey, as Edwin’s father, Junius Brutus Booth (right), quarrel about the detrimental influence the latter’s behavior is having on the public. Junius, without waiting to be divorced took up with a young woman by whom he had 10 children. Page 32A PRINCE OF PLAYERS That great playwright Moss Hart’s screenplay, "Prince Of Players”, from Eleanor Ruggles’ best-selling novel, is patterned to be one of the major Cinemascope entertainments of 1955. Produced and directed by Philip Dunne, who wrote screenplays for "The Robe”, and many of this company’s outstanding boxoffice successes of the past more than 20 years, "Prince Of Players” is not only a dramatically biographical picturization of the foremost American actor, Edwin Booth, but also touches on the entire Booth clan, scanning the whole theatrical world of the 19th century. The story of Edwin Booth is. indeed, an exceptional American tragedy. It is a story of madness, drunkenness, success, murder, frustration and domestic calamities. To do justice to the mad genius and the characters in his life, Dunne has assembled an unusually brilliant cast of players. Richard Burton, who became a top boxoffice star for his performance in "The Robe”, plays Edwin Booth, Maggie McNamara, recalled for her superb works in "Three Coins In The Fountain” and "Moon Is Blue ”, is Booth’s leading lady and subsequently his wife. John Derek is John Wilkes Booth, Edwin’s brother who assassinated President Lincoln. Raymond Massey is his father, celebrated actor, a drunkard susceptible to madness. Charles Bickford is the West Coast impresario who gives Booth a chance to score his greatest triumphs after the latter had been repudiated by a public sickened with the scandals of his entire family. Elizabeth Sellars is Asia, Edwin’s possessive sister. Eva Le Gallienne, noted stage actress-director-producer, has staged and appears with Burton in excerpts from several Shakespearian plays. “Prince Of Players” spans a period of more than a half century. Edwin was the eighth offspring of Junius Brutus, but the seventh by the woman the latter married without waiting to be divorced by his first wife by whom he had one child. Junius Brutus Booth, who had settled in the early 1800’s in the wooded country north of Baltimore, was known as actor and drunkard. Drinking was only one sympton of something more alarming—derangement. lie went completely out of his mind when his second child died. Edwin toured with his father and, after spending a year with him in California, decided to make a name for himself. He returned East, where he had no trouble securing a booking on the strength of his father’s name, and was billed as "Edwin Booth, Son Of The Great Tragedian”. Subsequently, he succeeded on his own, becoming a New York matinee idol. But, he also inherited his father’s melancholy manners and fondness for the bottle. Edwin’s experiences with women since his adolescence had been unfortunate, so he swore he would never marry. But, he met gentle, modest and lady-like Mary Devlin, his leading woman, and married her. However, their bliss did not last long and he resumed heavy drinking. The emotional strain was too much on her and within a few years she con- tracted tuberculosis and died. Mary's death drove Edwin to the very brink of madness. Meantime, another great actor, Edwin Forrest, came into the limelight, and a fierce rivalry developed between them. Forrest, a gentleman of the old school, deplored Edwin’s excesses and tried by devious ways to force him to retire from the stage. But, the air of scandal surrounding the Booth name never reached such proportions as to force Edwin from professional life. The nearest thing to it came when his brother, John Wilkes Booth, in a fit of despondency over the outcome of the Civil War, shot and killed President Lincoln in the Baltimore theatre where he was appearing. The sensation of the assassination rocked the nation and the public howled for vengeance. Its anger spread not only to the Booth family, but to the entire acting profession as well. Booth decided to go to England until the scandal died down, But, he he was a dismal failure. However, in Germany he scored one of the great triumphs of his career, lie returned to America, built a theatre for himself in New York. But, after his wife died, his depression deepened and he became bothered with dizziness and an increasing tendency to stumble and fall. After he fell flat on stage during a performance of "Othello”, press and critics accused him of being drunk. He tried, in vain, to explain the true cause, llis doctors advised him to retire, but he refused. There- after, he was under constant attack from critics, his productions called shoddy and his acting deplorable. He died, a virtual hermit, at The Players Club in New York, in 1893.