Lawrence Barrett

Lawrence Patrick Barrett (April 4, 1838 – March 20, 1891) was an American stage actor born in Paterson, New Jersey, to Irish immigrants Mary Agnes Barrett and Thomas Barrett, a tailor. He was raised in Detroit, where he made his first stage appearance in 1853, playing Murad in The French Spy. In December 1856, he made his New York debut at the Chambers Street Theatre as Sir Thomas Clifford in The Hunchback. By 1858, he had joined the repertory company at the Boston Museum. On September 4, 1859, he married Mary F. Mayer at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.

In 1862, Barrett enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War, receiving an appointment as captain in Company B of the 28th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He resigned his commission in 1863 and returned to the stage. From 1868 to 1870, he co-managed the California Theatre in San Francisco alongside actor John McCullough, regularly touring interior towns with McCullough and casts drawn from the theater. Barrett also acted in London in 1867, 1882, 1883, and 1884.

His Broadway appearances ran from 1870 to 1871 and included Under the Palm, True as Steel, Jonquil, and The Duke's Motto. Among the many roles Barrett performed throughout his career were Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Shylock, Richard III, Wolsey, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, David Garrick, Hernani, Alfred Evelyn, Lanciotto in George Henry Boker's Francesca da Rimini, and James Harebell in The Man o' Airlie. His portrayal of Cardinal Richelieu in Edward Bulwer-Lytton's drama was widely regarded as his finest work. In December 1870, he performed for a week at the Coates Opera House in Kansas City, Missouri, during its inaugural season, and returned to that venue eleven additional times.

Barrett maintained a close professional relationship with actor Edwin Booth. He played Othello to Booth's Iago and Cassius to his Brutus in Julius Caesar, and in 1887 proposed that the two tour together. Their collaboration over the following years proved both critically and financially successful. On April 3, 1889, during a performance of Othello, Booth lost his voice before delivering Iago's opening lines. Barrett lowered the curtain, summoned doctors, and addressed the audience to cancel the performance.

In 1889, Barrett produced William Young's play Ganelon, taking the title role himself in the medieval-set production, which achieved a successful run. That same year, he produced the first performance of Oscar Wilde's The Duchess of Padua under the retitled Guido Ferranti, starring in the title role. Barrett's health began to deteriorate in 1890; a glandular condition left his face swollen and his voice weakened. In March 1891, during a performance of Richelieu at the Broadway Theatre, he whispered to Booth that he could not continue, finished the scene, and was replaced by his understudy. He died three days later.

Beyond performing, Barrett wrote a life of Edwin Forrest in the American Actors Series (Boston, 1881) and contributed a sketch of Booth to Edwin Booth and his Contemporaries (Boston, 1886). He was managed for many years by Robert E. Stevens, the father of actress Emily Stevens and theater director Robert Stevens. Barrett was a close friend of George Armstrong Custer, and in 1872 accompanied him on a buffalo hunt across the Great Plains. He was the grandfather of stage and screen actress Edith Barrett, the first wife of Vincent Price.