Elmer Booth

Elmer Booth

Booth as Jack Doogan in the Carlyle Moore play Stop Thief! (1913)
Born William Elmer Booth
(1882-12-09)December 9, 1882
Los Angeles, California,
United States
Died June 16, 1915(1915-06-16) (aged 32)
Los Angeles, California,
United States
Occupation stage actor, film actor
Years active 1901-1915
Spouse(s) Irene Outtrim (1908–unknown)

William Elmer Booth (9 December 1882 - 16 June 1915) was an American actor. He was born in Los Angeles, California and was the elder brother of film editor Margaret Booth.[1]

Elmer began acting in touring stock companies as a teenager and achieved great success in the stock company at the Central Theater in San Francisco from 1903-1906. Between 1910 and 1915 he starred in 40 movies; one of those was D. W. Griffith's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), cited by many film experts as the first gangster movie. Playing The Snapper Kid, a Manhattan street tough engaged in a turf war on the Lower East Side, Booth interpreted the gangster as a cocky, entertaining antihero, far different from the standard teeth-gnashing movie bad guys of his time. His groundbreaking performance created a new character type and paved the way "for all the Cagneys, Bogarts, and Robinsons who later shot their way across the screen."[2]

Booth died at the age of 32 in a car crash in Los Angeles, caused by actor and director Tod Browning. D.W. Griffith, who had planned to give Booth an important role in Intolerance, delivered the actor's graveside eulogy.[2]

Selected filmography

References

  1. Brownlow, Kevin (1968). The Parade's Gone By. Ballantine Books. p. 342.
  2. 1 2 findagrave.com
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