The Cavalcade of America presented by DuPont, maker of better things for better living through
chemistry.
Tonight the Cavalcade of America comes to you on a different day and to many of you
at a different time.
To our old friends and new friends alike, we say the Cavalcade is for you.
If you will write and tell us which Cavalcade programs you have liked best in the past or
would like to hear in the future, it will help us to select the best subjects for our
future broadcasts from among the great number we have under consideration.
Just address your letters or postcards to the DuPont company Wilmington, Delaware.
The Cavalcade of America presents the distinguished American actor Paul Muni in the role of one
of the most renowned players in the history of the American stage, Edwin Booth.
Supporting Mr. Muni are the Cavalcade players in our original radio drama written by Norman
Boston. Our orchestra and the original musical score are under the direction of Don Vouris.
DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry, presents Paul Muni
as Edwin Booth on the Cavalcade of America.
A winter's night in the year 1873. It is three o'clock in the morning. Outside Edwin Booth's
theater in New York City, the storm is still raging. Inside, in the hushed gloom of the
deserted playhouse where Edwin Booth made his home, a figure appears with a lantern
upon the empty stage, then crosses into the wings and on through a heavily beamed door.
Mr. Booth. Mr. Booth, wake up. What? Who is it? It's Gary, sir. You told me to wake
you at three o'clock. Oh, yes. Yes. Help me with my coat, Gary. Yes, sir. Thank you.
Now fetch the lantern, please. We're going to the furnace room. Is anything wrong, sir?
No, Gary, not a thing, except that I'm an old man. Wait. Let me stand here on the empty
stage a moment. Nothing is as lonely as being in the middle of this dark universe. Yes,
Mr. Booth. So strange and silent in the theater this hour of the night, isn't it, Gary? A little
frightening, eh? You'd better take my arm, sir. Thank you. Here they are, sir. Good. Close
the door, Gary. Yes, sir. And you had the furnace man bang the fires as I ordered? You
can see for yourself, Mr. Booth. Yes. Now we'll have those flames roaring soon enough. Gary,
help me drag the trunk over to the furnace. Yes, sir. That's it. Now take that axe and
cut the cords around it. Mr. Booth, you can't. You're not going to burn those cords. Cut
the cords, Gary, or I'll do it alone. Good. Now we'll open it. Ah, but it smells of death,
doesn't it, Gary? These costumes look pretty, eh? They shall look prettier in the fire. I
don't quite understand, Mr. Booth. I've decided to destroy a few ghosts. That is all. The fire
is strong now. It reaches out like little red hands. I've brought many gifts for you. All
these costumes, these colors and capes and plumes. You will make ashes of them. Even the
applause shall go up into the sky and be heard no more. This cloak, you see it, Gary? Yes,
Mr. Booth. It was my brother's. Your cloak, John Wilkes, you shall haunt me no longer.
You've given me enough grief for two lifetimes. Ah, how slowly you burn. And yet so well,
so royal, Mr. Booth. I can't bear to watch. Next, this satin waistcoat and silk stockings
and these velvet Othello slippers and this jewel studded shirt. Yes, I shall burn them, too. You
can't do that, Mr. Booth. How beautifully you postured in them, John Wilkes. How dazzlingly you
walked with silver spurs. And what is this? This belted purple robe, trimmed with fur. My
father's. I remember he had it for many years. Look at it now. Ancient, musty and torn. My father,
he looked so keenly in this robe, Gary. Yes, sir. It takes me back to the first time I played a
leading role on the stage, the beginning of my life. It was Richard III. We were in Boston.
I was alone with my father in his dressing room just before curtain time.
Well, Edwin, how does your father look tonight? Handsome, huh? Very much like a king,
father. I am that. Every inch King Richard III. Junior Spruce Booth is always ready. Set him
upon a stage and call out the name of the play and you shall have it. Aye, scene by scene. My
conscience has a thousand several voices. Several tongues, father. Simple light of you to be
correcting your father, Edwin. I'm a genius lad. There can't be more than one in any family.
You see these spurs, a mark of genius. My father wore them before me. They'll never be worn by another.
Sir, if I could but try to earn them. Curtain ready to go up, Mr. Booth? You must be bright
the prompt book, my boy. That's your role. Father, why is it always the prompt book? And when shall
I stop throwing lines to others? When I hold the prompt book, father, and the curtain rises,
I become wondrously alive. There's a feeling of flying in my heart. My eyes open up on a kind of
heaven. Is the true feeling, lad? Then I shall drink to it. Aye, to your dreaming. No, father,
not after what happened in Hartford and last week in Providence. You're too great a man for that.
Yes, you can't expect me to storm my way through five bloody acts of Shakespeare without one drink
for each act, can you? There. I feel better. No, I feel faint. Father, what is it? I feel
strangely ill. What's down here? Help me, sir. He helps me. Father. You're on in a moment.
Mr. Booth. Edwin, what's happened here? What's the matter? Shall we hold the curtain? Same thing.
I don't think so, Mr. Scott. He just all of a sudden fainted. Drunk again, that's what. Don't say
that. I'll say what I like. Quiet, quiet. There's a poor house out there. What do we do? I know the line,
sir. Let me go on. I played Richard like all the kings in history. I played with my head,
my heart, my very blood. All right, Edwin. Get into the costume. I'll make the announcement.
The rest of you, come with me to your places in the wings. Tell Edwin to be ready to go on
as soon as I finish. I'll be brief enough. Listen, and somebody pray. Ladies and gentlemen,
owing to a regrettable and unforeseen illness, Mr. Junior Sprootis Booth will be unable to appear.
In his place, our company is proud to present Mr. Edwin Booth, the son of Junior Sprootis Booth,
who will essay in his father's stead the role of Richard Third. All right, I'm ready.
Here, let me fix that wig or it'll come off. Stand still, Edwin. I'll pin the cloak to your shoulder.
Then you won't have to hold it. All right, all right, lad. Here's your chance. Ready? I am, sir.
Bring out the curtain. Edwin, good luck to you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Go out there, lad.
You're on.
I shall never forget that night, Gary. For the first time my heart told me I was alive.
I felt an awful silence like this empty theater above us. No sense of time, nor space, nothing.
I was alone in the universe, and then after an eternity I seemed to hear somewhere from
afar off the voice of Richard. Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer
by the son of York. Yes, it was I. I was speaking lines, Gary, the lines of Shakespeare. I was on the stage.
I won my father's spurs that night, yes, and wearing this very robe. Mr. Booth, sir, please don't burn that robe.
I must, Gary. All my memories into the fire with it. You shouldn't. Into the fire, I say.
Yes, we shall purge by fire and more fire. Come now, what else have we?
There's a setting cloak, Mr. Booth. That cloak, Romeo's cloak.
Let me hold it a moment, for she held it once with me in it in her arms in life.
I played Romeo once to the sweetest Juliet that ever lived. I've played Romeo many times, Gary,
but only once did I find my real Juliet. Her eyes spoke to me as I was rehearsing the play with my company all through one long afternoon.
That will be all. I believe we've had enough rehearsal for today. Oh, Miss Devlin. Yes. Would you stay?
You want to scold me after school, is that it? Oh, no, not at all. You read very well. Oh, some day shall I play opposite you then?
Am I that appealing, Romeo? Oh, yes. Well, that is, we do read well together.
Now, if you put the question to me, am I that appealing a Juliet, I should not know how to answer. Am I that appealing a Juliet, sir?
Yes, and, well, that is, we do read well together. There's so much I should like to say. Yes. But I don't know my cues here.
There are no cues but those of the heart. They're found in no pump book. I can only recite a speech in blank verse, but that would be inadequate for you.
I don't want a speech from Shakespeare. I want a few mere lines from Edwin Booth. I find it difficult, Mary. There are lines in my head, but I've played them too often.
There seems to be no speech for you. Perhaps then it's not the time for speaking. Thus, for my lips by yours, my sin is purged.
Juliet, my Juliet. Edwin. It shall not be easy for you. My work has already taken half my heart.
But there must be a small warm place left for me to dwell in. I should be content as a minor heroine.
You should be all my heroines, and most of all, my Juliet.
But, Gary, it wasn't that the way it is in the play. My Juliet died first. Had I been the true Romeo, I should have been at her side as it was written.
But no, my role was Hamlet. Always Hamlet. I never knew what was happening around me. Life always passed me before I could touch it.
And it was that way with my own wife. I never understood what there was for me to do. I never acted, but that it was too late for action.
Well, Edwin, return to be leaving in a moment.
I shouldn't let you go by yourself.
No, you couldn't nurse me anyway. All I need is some rest. I'll be ready to assume my duties again, such as they are.
Oh, but they are important to me. Suppose I cancel the Hamlet tour and we'll go off together, eh?
Oh, but you can't. Your tour's scheduled. You can't run away from your audience, not Edwin Booth.
I shall become ill then. Better. I shall arrange to cut the tour and return home a month earlier. There.
Whenever you're through, my darling, I shall be there waiting, just like a minor heroine.
Oh, Mary, I really shouldn't let you go. Somehow I shouldn't, I shouldn't leave you.
Goodbye. Play well, my dear. I shall be with you, somewhere in the applause, near you somehow.
She left me that way, and I didn't know she was going off to die.
And while I strutted the stage like a fool, she was like patience on the monument, smiling at grief.
I never saw her alive again. She died, and then they told me. I was, I was even late for her death, Garrett.
I was late for all my cues, Garrett. All my cues. Now hand me that book there.
Oh, no, Mr. Booth, no. All your notices are in this book. Thousands of clippings. It's your history, sir, the record of your art.
My art, Garrett. My art. Was it me? Was it Edwin Booth?
Or had I become the part I played and was the applause not for me, but for Hamlet?
And was it really for Hamlet? No, it was for himself that each person wept and wondered.
I made them each a Hamlet to suffer and die and be born again.
That is the art of the player, Gary, and it is too real for even this fire to consume her.
I shouldn't have let you, sir. I shouldn't have let you do it.
Enough of this talk, Gary. What else have we there in the trunk?
Those sandals. The cursed sandals of my brother John Wicks.
There was the weight that pulled me down. There was the curse that blotted out my sun, my moon, and stars forever.
God have mercy on your soul, John, for I have none.
Caesar was the play. I was Brutus and you were Antony, John Wicks.
That night when evil darkened my sky like a great cloud.
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
Judgment, thou art fled to Brutus' base, and men have lost their reason.
Now, wait a minute. Listen, listen everyone. Now listen to me.
Southern blood is the rich red blood of the pioneers. It's drenching this soil now.
John Wicks, you fool, have you lost your mind? Blood, blood is being spilled by that abolition ape, Abraham Lincoln.
Drive him from the White House, I say. The day of judgment is at hand, I tell you. Abraham Lincoln is a traitor.
Stop it, you're a mad man. I won't have any speeches for those of the text, do you hear me?
I have a speech to make and by heaven I'll make it.
By heavens you won't? The President of the United States will not be desecrated in this house.
Bring down the carton. What?
Why'd you stop me? I didn't yet, but I shall now with my hands I'll tear your lying tongue from your mouth.
Stop it, somebody.
Here, here, I'm talking to both of you. Mr. Boo.
My hands weren't held now, brother. I teach you in blood.
Never mind the brother. I am a patriot first.
Stop your babbling, you fool. You're a mad man, not a fool. Get out of this company.
Good, good. I have other things to do, not with words, but by deed.
We shall hear about the name Booth very soon.
I never saw him again, Gary. He went away. I didn't know where.
The months went by and I dreaded the days and nights. I feared something would happen.
And on one frightful day, Gary, my world came to an end.
Unexpectedly, silently, without flood or earthquake, but by a simple act, my star was taken out of the heavens forever.
What are the bells ringing for today, Patrick?
It's holy week, sir. A special week for the bells, it is.
Oh, yes. Is that the theater ahead?
Oh, it is, Mr. Booth. And with that crowd in front of it, you'd think it was a place for drinking.
It's a place for worship. The worshippers have a way of changing their God.
Right you are, Mr. Booth. I was remembering to tell the old lady that.
Here we are. Whoa, whoa, that.
Call for me at 5.30, will you, Patrick?
5.30 it is, sir.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Good afternoon to you all.
Come on down from that carriage, you.
We mean you, Booth.
What? What does this mean?
We'll show you, with a rope.
But I don't understand. Gentlemen.
Assasin, don with it, Booth.
Pull him down. Let me through, please.
Wait a minute, Mr. Not so fast, please.
Excuse me, let me through, if you please.
Don't let him get away.
Pull him out.
What's going on, Stanley?
Mr. Booth, we've had to cancel this afternoon's performance.
Cancel? That's impo... Is anyone ill?
What was happening?
Well, the point is, it's all very sudden.
Haven't you heard?
What's happened? Speak, man.
Those bells, sir.
Haven't you heard?
The President.
Mr. Lincoln is dead.
Tell me, Stanley, there's more.
He was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth.
Aye, John.
Mr. Booth.
What are they waiting for?
I'll explain.
The crowd is wild.
They've mistaken me for someone else.
I'll explain it to them.
I'm Edwin Booth.
Edwin Booth. Don't they understand?
Better not leave by the stage door, Mr. Booth.
Go out by the front of the house.
I'll go with you, sir.
No, Stanley, I'll go myself.
I must go myself.
I must face this alone.
You burn well, John.
Fire becomes you.
Fire has touched you before.
Was it not a barn, they said, fire, too?
Your hiding place before they shot you down?
These little hands of fire give you your last applause.
And take you out of my life forever, John Wilkes.
You are beautiful in ashes.
Well, come, Gary.
You are finished now.
Close the door of the furnace.
The Cavalcade of America thanks Paul Munie and the Cavalcade players for their performance of Edwin Booth.
And now Dupont brings you news of chemistry at work in our world.
For centuries, the only cooling agent known to man was natural ice, later manufactured ice.
Then 20 years ago, the home-sized mechanical refrigerator made its appearance.
Using it, 30 million American families today manufacture their own cold cheaply, efficiently, and hygienically.
The main spring of your mechanical refrigerator is a chemical fluid called a refrigerant,
which circulates in the system, absorbs heat, and carries it to the outside air.
Spectacular progress in refrigerating engineering has gone hand in hand with chemical research on new and better refrigerants.
The result of this research is Freon refrigerant, efficient and safe.
Today, stores, office buildings, theaters, railroad trains, buses, and homes are air-conditioned with Freon.
Printers depend on Freon air conditioning to eliminate variations in humidity that would throw their fine multicolor printing out of register.
New airplane factories are being air-conditioned throughout so that constant temperature may be maintained
and tolerances of ten thousandths of an inch achieved on engine parts.
With quick frozen foods, we now have corn on the cob in midwinter, and fish comes to us with the precious vitamins intact.
Aided too by another chemical contribution, cellophane cellulose film for packaging,
the frozen food industry is rapidly becoming a potent force in our national food supply.
The laboratory story of Freon refrigerant is a thrilling one.
It was known that such a compound existed.
There was only one known way to make it, however, and it cost anywhere from five to fifteen dollars a pound.
Then one day, a young DuPont chemist scribbled a curious chain of symbols on a pad.
Beginning with charcoal, sulfur, common salt, and fluorospore, he had mapped a new trail to a laboratory curiosity, dichlorodifluoromethane.
Mechanics worked all night making the apparatus for his experiment.
In the morning, it was ready.
The first day, no results.
The second day, down from a slim steel tube fell 22 drops of Freon, just 22 precious drops.
Today, those 22 drops have become millions of pounds a year, and the price has been reduced to less than one-tenth of its original cost.
And Freon safe refrigerant has been added to DuPont's diversified list of better things for better living through chemistry.
Next week, the Cavalcade of America presents an original radio drama by one of America's most distinguished playwrights, Maxwell Anderson.
It's a story of John Keats and America.
We hope you'll join us on Cavalcade at the same time next week.
On the Cavalcade of America, your announcer is Clayton Collier, sending best wishes from DuPont.
This is the National Broadcasting Company.