Elmer Booth

William Elmer Booth was born on December 9, 1882, in Los Angeles, California, and went on to establish himself as both a stage and film actor in the early twentieth century. He was the elder brother of Margaret Booth, who would become a prominent Hollywood film editor over a career spanning nearly seven decades.

Booth began his acting career in touring stock companies as a teenager before joining the stock company at the Central Theater in San Francisco, where he worked from 1903 to 1906. He then transitioned to Broadway, appearing in productions between 1906 and 1914. His stage credits included Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, The Cub, Sylvia Runs Away, A Gentleman of Leisure, and The Boys of Company "B," among others.

Alongside his stage work, Booth pursued a film career, appearing in approximately 40 movies between 1910 and 1915. Among the most notable was D. W. Griffith's The Musketeers of Pig Alley, released in 1912 and widely regarded by film historians as the first gangster film. In that picture, Booth portrayed a character known as the Snapper Kid, a street tough from Manhattan's Lower East Side involved in a territorial conflict. His interpretation of the role presented the gangster as a cocky antihero rather than the broadly villainous type common in films of that era. His other film appearances included A Beast at Bay, An Unseen Enemy, Gold and Glitter, The Adopted Brother, Mrs. Black is Back, Gasoline Gus, and A Chase by Moonlight. Griffith had planned to cast Booth in a significant role in Intolerance before the actor's death.

In 1908, Booth married actress Irene Outtrim. That same year the couple had a son, who died of pneumonia in March 1910.

Booth died on June 16, 1915, in California. He was a passenger in a car driven by actor and director Tod Browning of Reliance-Majestic Studios, with actor George Siegmann also present. The Los Angeles Times reported the following day that the three men were returning to downtown Los Angeles from a roadhouse when Browning's vehicle struck the rear of a flat car loaded with steel rails at Santa Fe Avenue and the Salt Lake Railroad tracks. Booth was killed instantly, while Browning and Siegmann survived with serious injuries. Later accounts attributed the crash in part to heavy fog. D. W. Griffith delivered the eulogy at Booth's graveside. Margaret Booth never forgave Browning for her brother's death. Elmer Booth was thirty-two years old at the time of his death.