Jean Hosmer

Jean Haskell Hosmer (January 29, 1842 – January 29, 1890) was an American actress and tragedienne who reached the zenith of her career directly following the American Civil War, and is associated through her career with actor and Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth along his brother Edwin Booth.

Hosmer was a cousin of sculptor Harriet Hosmer and of poet William H. C. Hosmer.

Early life Born in 1842, near Boston, Massachusetts, Her parents, influenced by her father's failings in business, Hosmer began her career in Buffalo doing ballet at the age of 15. In announcing her farewell week there, the Spirit of the Times wrote:The current is the sixth and positively last week of the brilliantly successful engagement of Miss Hosmer at this house. I say brilliant both in an artistic and financial point of view, for rarely, if ever, has an artiste achieved a more legitimate and well-merited artistic success or been rewarded with a more substantial one as soon as her unqestionable genius became known to the play-going public. I regard Miss Hosmer's engagement as one of the most extraordinary in every way that has been played in this city for many years. She came among us unheralded and unpuffed; content, it would seem, to rely on her own intrinsic merits, and stand or fall by the freely-expressed opinion of her auditors and the critical acumen of the press. To triumph over the former was an easy task; to win the good opinion of the latter, one of great difficulty. Bad personal habits began to affect her work,

Death In the winter of 1889–90, Hosmer took a job acting with the small Ramage's Standard Theatre company playing in Midwestern towns. While at a production in a small town near Cleveland, Ohio, she suddenly began to severely hemorrhage. Hosmer was quickly sent to her sister's home in Buffalo, where she died in obscurity on her birthday of January 29. She was 48 years old.

Legacy

Association with the Booths At McVicker's, Hosmer appeared in supporting roles to John Wilkes Booth and his brother Edwin. Of John, Hosmer later remarked:I consider him a greater actor than his brother. He better represented the genius of his father, the first Junius Brutus Booth, and he played with such fire and vigor that he made us in his company actually fear him. But he did not have the refinement, grace, and crystal clearness of elocution possessed by Edwin. While supporting Wilkes Booth, Hosmer kept a lock of his hair and held onto it following her departure from Chicago. Following his death, Hosmer sent the lock of hair to his mother, Mary Ann Holmes Booth.