Shirley Booth Education & Community
| 
Shirley Booth, My Sister Eileen, Bucks County Playhouse, 1947, Playbill courtesy of the Spruance Collection of the Bucks County Historical Society | | |
Education and Training:
Shirley Booth attended public schools in Brooklyn and Hartford, but dropped out at the age of 14 to seek a stage career. She learned her craft byperforming in 60 plays in stock companies before she appeared in some 40 plays on Broadway.
Teachers and Influences:
George S. Kaufman, director of My Sister Eileen on Broadway in 1940 and again at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1947.
Humphrey Bogart, George Abbott
Connection to Bucks County:
Shirley Booth lived in Bucks County on Route 413 in Newtown while married to her second husband, William H. Baker, Jr. From the late 1940s to 1950, they lived on Wind Race Estate, a remodeled stone farmhouse located on Doylestown Pike. She recreated her Broadway performance in My Sister Eileen (1947) at the Bucks County Playhouse and also appeared there in The Vinegar Tree (1948). She appeared in Justin Herman's short subject film Strawhat Cinderella, which was filmed at the Bucks County Playhouse. She left Bucks County after the death of her husband in 1951.
Colleagues and Affiliations:
Mike Ellis, Margaret Mullen Root, George Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath, Moss Hart, and Oscar Hammerstein II.
|
|
|
|
