ttdz_000_023 Audio Zykov American Gothic. By Gene Smith. Unabridged Narration by Nelson Runger. Recorded Book. 9 tapes.

ttdz_000_023 Audio Zykov  American Gothic. By Gene Smith.  Unabridged Narration by Nelson Runger. Recorded Book. 9 tapes.

AMERICAN GOTHIC

The Story of America’s Legendary Theatrical Family—Junius, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth by Gene Smith Narrated by Nelson Runger

They were three of the 19th

century’s most fascinating personalities, and they comprised America’s first, perhaps greatest, theatrical family.

Junius Booth, the family patriarch, was a flamboyant bigamist and alcoholic who counted among his drinking buddies Sam Houston and Edgar Allan Poe. Notorious for his excesses both on and off the stage, he terrorized his leading ladies with his erratic, often violent behavior, and shocked his friends by slipping in and out of character at the most inopportune moments. (He entered churches wearing the robes used for playing Cardinal Richelieu.)

Son Edwin, who served as his father’s dresser for years before 

light, was a socially fearfu assuming man who exuded personal reticence and restra: utilized brilliantly for Shak Hamlet. Edwin’s portray melancholy Dane ran to an и 100 performances, a record arrival of John Barrymore.

And finally, John Wilke spite of his lesser talent, m upstage all the others. The о child among a brood of aloo pondent children, he br< athletic grace and virility to performances. Likable and “Johnny’s” meteoric rise t( was often thought to have n with his stunning appearanc the most beautiful man to American stage. In a gesture ly and appropriately theati enigmatic man would mi nation’s president only five ( Appomattox, brandishing dagger before a spellbound and dying as a specter of tobacco barn in Virginia.

Gene Smith, author of si lar histories as Lee and G) vides an engrossing picture ( talented and tortured family riotous age, and captures t and irony of Lincoln’s last he

“ You can't put the bool —The New York Times 93308 (9 cass/12.25 hrs) ISBN: 1-f ©1992 by Gene Smith ©1993 by Recorded Books, Inc. By arrangement with Curtis Browi Cover art by Timothy Kelly; ©1‘ Recorded Books, Inc.

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