Forrest, EDWIN

Forrest, EDWIN, actor, was born in Philadelphia, 9th March 1806, his father being of Scotch descent, his mother a German, and made his first regular appearance on the stage there in 1820, as Douglas in Home's tragedy. At the age of twenty he appeared as Othello at the old Bowery Theatre in New York, where his immediate success was the foundation of a popularity that survived for many years. He played in London with great success in 1836-37, but at his appearance in 1845 his Macbeth was hissed by the audience; and an unworthy and spiteful resentment that prompted him, a few weeks later, to stand up in a private box in the Edinburgh Theatre and hiss Macready, utterly destroyed his reputation in England and Scotland. A more serious result of his jealous action was the Astor Place riot in New York in 1849, which ensued on the hissing of Macready's Macbeth by Forrest's sympathisers, and which ended in the death of twenty-two men. These events, and the public scandal attendant on a suit for divorce brought by his wife, lessened his fame and embittered his temper. He retired from the stage between 1853 and 1860, when he returned to fill at Niblo's Garden, New York, the most successful engagement of his life. Later tours proved failures, and, after a long struggle against weakness and disease, he made his last appearance as an actor in the part of Richelieu, at the Boston Globe Theatre in 1871. Even then a craving for the old-time applause led him to give readings from Shakespeare in several large towns; but these, too, proved unsuccessful, and he retired to his home in his native city, where he died of paralysis, 12th December 1872. Forrest's powers as a tragedian were of a very high order; his Lear, Othello, Coriolanus, and several other parts were justly ranked in their own day as memorable performances. With him the line of great American actors begins. See lives by Alger (1877), Barrett (1881), and Harrison (1889).