New Gallery – Junius Brutus Booth, Jr.

As the eldest child of Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes, Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. never achieved the fame (or infamy) of his brothers Edwin and John Wilkes but was a moderately successful actor and theatrical manager in his own right.   During the Civil War, he shared his brother John’s sympathies for the Confederacy and, unlike Edwin, June was imprisoned for suspicion following John’s assassination of Lincoln.  More than anything else, however, June was his father’s son.  In his later years, he resembled his father so closely that many images of June are convincingly mislabeled as Junius, Sr.  He also followed in his father’s footsteps when it came to his martial relationships.  June abandoned his first wife and assumed child, just like his father did, and ran off with a younger actress to California.  He had one child by her before her death in 1859.  In 1867, June married Agnes Perry who bore him four boys, two of which died during childhood.  All of June’s children (and all of his wives for that matter) became actors to various degrees of fame.  They all seemed to have money troubles at some point in their lives, with the pressures of debt causing one of his sons, Junius Brutus Booth III, to kill his wife and commit suicide.

The newest Picture Gallery here on BoothieBarn has to do with Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. and his family.  To visit the gallery, click HERE or on Junius, Jr.’s picture in the image below: