27 Facts About Edwin Forrest

Edwin Forrest was a nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actor.

Edwin Forrest's mother was a member of an affluent German-American family.

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.

Edwin 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.

However, Edwin Forrest vied with his employer for the affections of the leading actress of the company, Jane Placide.

British writer Thomas Hamilton marveled at, and dissented from, the acclaim that Edwin Forrest enjoyed at that time:.

Edwin Forrest is a coarse and vulgar actor, without grace, without dignity, with little flexibility of feature, and utterly common-place in his conceptions of character.

In 1829 Edwin Forrest was featured as Metamora in the play Metamora; or, The Last of the Wampanoags by John Augustus Stone.

Edwin Forrest 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 Drury Lane as Spartacus in The Gladiator in 1836.

Edwin Forrest's 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.

Edwin Forrest began a playwriting contest from 1828 to 1847.

Edwin Forrest was now known as a great Shakespearean actor as well as a supporter of emerging American playwrights.

Edwin Forrest visited London a second time in 1845, accompanied by his wife, who was welcomed in the intellectual circles of English and Scottish society.

Edwin Forrest met with great success in Virginius and other parts, but when he attempted to personate Macbeth, a character unsuited to his physique and style of acting, the performance was hissed by the audience.

Edwin Forrest attributed the hissing to the professional jealousy and machinations of Macready, although that artist had been kind and helpful to him when he first came before London audiences.

Willis defended Catherine, who maintained her innocence, in his magazine Home Journal and suggested that Edwin Forrest was merely jealous of her intellectual superiority.

On June 17,1850, shortly after Edwin Forrest had filed for divorce in the New York Supreme Court, Edwin Forrest beat Willis with a gutta-percha whip in New York's Washington Square, shouting "this man is the seducer of my wife".

Edwin Forrest became interested in politics, being spoken of as a candidate for congress.

Edwin Forrest played his last New York engagement in February 1871, the plays being Richelieu and King Lear.

In October 1871, Edwin Forrest commenced his last annual tour, starting at the Walnut Theater in his home town of Philadelphia.

Edwin Forrest struggled through the role of Richelieu on Monday night, and rare bursts of eloquence lighted the gloom, but he labored piteously against the disease which was fast conquering him.

Edwin Forrest eventually recovered from the severe attack of pneumonia.

Edwin Forrest's servant found him dead, alone, and apparently asleep, in his home in Philadelphia December 12,1872.

Edwin Forrest's body was interred in Old Saint Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Philadelphia.

Edwin Forrest had purchased, about 1850, a site on the banks of the Hudson, on which he erected a castellated structure.

Edwin Forrest sheltered actors at his Summer home near Philadelphia and, in 1876, four years after his death at the age of 66, his will instructed that there should be formed the Forrest Home for retired actors in Philadelphia, which was to last for over one hundred years before being folded into the much larger Actors Fund facility in Englewood, New Jersey.

Edwin Forrest's will instructed that a two thousand dollars bequest be provided to Actors' Order of Friendship, whose New York City Lodge was named after him.