Comment on For Philly, a relationship with Lincoln's assassin

For Philly, a relationship with Lincoln's assassin Associated Press Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Published 12:05 am, Saturday, March 9, 2013 His energetic performances in plays such as Richard III and The Marble Heart drew large crowds. [...] his dashing good looks — some called him "the handsomest man in America" — made him an instant heartthrob, the matinee idol of his day. "The audience was very enthusiastic, the ladies joining in the applause," The Inquirer wrote of one appearance. With so much attention focused on the 16th president through Civil War sesquicentennial events, new books, the Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, and record viewership for the National Geographic Channel's Killing Lincoln, Booth is again drawing an audience, historians say. Two local Booth family descendants — Joanne Hulme of Philadelphia's Kensington section and her sister Suzanne Flaherty of Bordentown — also have noticed the renewed interest in Booth but see him as more than an assassin. [...] Booth had his fans, especially among female audience members. [...] his mother, Mary Ann Holmes Booth, and other family lived in a house on Marshall Street, and his sister, Asia Booth Clarke, had a home at 13th and Callowhill Streets, said Alford, a history professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Louisa Lane Drew, an actress and an ancestor of the Barrymore acting family who operated the theater, "didn't think that much of Booth as an actor, but he was popular and she had to sell tickets," Alford said. Booth played many cities, especially in the South, where he gained a liking for the culture there, while older brother Edwin concentrated on the more profitable North. "There was a good deal of rivalry" between the Booth brothers, said Bernard Havard, president and producing artistic director of the Walnut Street.