Word: booth
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John Wilkes Booth, 26, was among the most famous American actors of his time, but in the year before he killed Abraham Lincoln, his career was clouded with doom. "I must have fame-fame!" he would cry, but his grand Shakespearean voice was slipping into a chronic and desperate hoarseness, and he wildly determined to find his destiny away from the stage. "What a glorious opportunity for a man to immortalize himself by killing Abraham Lincoln!" he remarked to friends in Chicago two years before his crime...
...Booth enlisted several conspirators in a plan to abduct Lincoln and hold him hostage in exchange for imprisoned Confederate troops, but as his plot disintegrated he decided on murder instead, and a number of the others withdrew. Booth nervously bided his time until he could seize a dramatic moment. He chose the night of April 14, 1865 when Lincoln was to attend a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington. Booth visited the presidential box-No. 7-a few hours before curtain time, saw that the lock on its door was broken...
Lincoln's only guard was drinking at a nearby tavern when Booth struck. While the audience cheered and hooted over a slapstick line in the play ("Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal-you sockdologizimg old mantrap"), Booth slipped into the box. With a shout of "Sic semper tyrannis! [Thus always to tyrants!] " he fired a shot from his derringer into the back of Lincoln's head. He slashed his way past Lincoln's companion leaped ten feet to the stage and, with a broken shinbone' hurtled himself past startled...
...robbed!" came the battle cry. A youth hurdled a 3½-ft. fence onto the track, brandished a fist-and hundreds swarmed after him. They attacked the judge's booth at the finish line, injuring John DeMatteo, who was pinned inside. They threw bottles at the infield tote board until the lights that indicate the amount of money bet finally winked out. They pulled a sulky from the paddock and set it afire. Bands of vandals dashed wildly through the stands, breaking windows, lighting bonfires, ripping program booths apart...
...pure Kerr dialogue helps. Mary is Debbie Reynolds, giving one of her sprightliest performances as the wickedly witty, nearly divorced wife of Publisher Barry Nelson, who repeats his stage role in sharp, swinging style. "Life with Mary was like going into a telephone booth with an open umbrella," he rasps. "No matter which way you turned, you got it in the eye." Her bill of particulars includes: "It was hard to communicate with you. You were always communicating with yourself. The line was busy...