16 Gramercy Place, Playbill biography of Edwin Booth and the Players theatrical club, 1959 April 13

              No. 16 Gramercy Park  "'<"'~  / Robert Downing  More than any theatrical club in Amei ica, The Players is identified with one mall -its founder and first president, Edwin  Booth. . ,  .Since December 31, 1888, this doughty band of actors, dramatists, authors, artists:"> and patrons of the arts has made its home at No. 16 Gramercy Park, New York City,   in the brownstone mansion provided for .the Club through the thoughtfulness and 'generosity of Edwin Booth, eminent nine­'teenth-century tragedian known to biogra­. phers as both The Darling of Misfortune (Richard Lockridge) and The Prince of  Players (Eleanor Ruggles) . .  Booth belonged to the clan another bi­ ographer (Stanley Kimmel) chose to call  The Mad Booths of Maryland. His father  was the great English' actor Junius Brutus  Booth. The son to whom Junius Brutus  Booth gave his name became a prominent  West Coast manager. Another son, John  Portrait of Edwin Booth (detail) by John Singer Sargent l.-In the Reading Room of The Players  Wilkes, at the early age of twenty-six had established himself as one of the hopes of the American classical stage. This career was terminated abruptly after the tragic night of April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre, Washington, when the star-crossed youth assassinated Abraham Lincoln.  Remaining to hold together the rem­nants of a crushed and sorrowing family, and to mend, as best he might, the melan choly that beset his own life, Edwin Booth distinguished himself in his art and in his  April 13, 1959 Vol. 3 No. 15  PLAYBILL is published weekly by Playbill, Incorporated, 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. © 1959 by Playbill, Incorporated. All rights reserved under Universal and Pan-Arnerlcan Conventions Reproduction without permission in whole or .;part of any material contained herein is prohibited  Printed in the U.S.A. Title Playbill® +::?:~N;0'  Gilman Kraft, Publisher Arthur Wolsoncroft, Managing Editor Thomas A. Steinfeld, Associate Publisher Alexander H. Carver, Jr., Director of Sales