Ogarita Booth Henderson

Ogarita Booth Henderson as Mary, Queen of Scots. Photographer: Warren's Portrait's, 465 Washington St, Boston. Photograph taken: date unknown

Ogarita Booth Henderson (October 23, 1859 - April 12, 1892) was an American actress who was born Ogarita Elizabeth Bellows.

Ogarita first appeared on stage in January 1875 at the Globe Theatre in Boston in support of the British comedian J. L. Toole. She was 15 at the time and appeared under the stage name Ogarita Wilkes. A few months later Ogarita was on stage as Donalbain in Macbeth, in the farewell engagement of Charlotte Cushman. From this point and for the rest of her life, Ogarita travelled across the United States and Canada with various theater companies, except for brief periods away.

Ogarita was the daughter of the actress Martha Lizola Mills (1837–1887). According to the birth certificate, it was Mills' husband, the mariner Charles Still Bellows, who was Ogarita's father. According to Mills herself, though, it was the actor John Wilkes Booth (who later became infamous for being Lincoln's assassin) who was the father. Throughout her life, Ogarita believed that Booth was her father. As for Bellows, muster rolls show that he was on board a ship near Montevideo for a long time period, making it impossible for him to have been the father of Ogarita.^[1] It seemed natural for Ogarita to use Wilkes as a stage name when first appearing on stage, and she did so until 1883. In 1884 she began using the stage name Rita Booth, which she did for the last eight years of her life.

Ogarita gave birth to Izola Forrester in 1878, and was not married to the father. The following year, 19-year-old Ogarita married the 64-year-old mill owner William Ross Wilson who took care of her and little Izola. They lived in Burrillville, Rhode Island, but after a while Ogarita returned to theater life, causing Wilson in 1882 to file a divorce petition on the grounds that she was a member of the Theatre Comique in Providence. According to her husband, it was a "disreputable place".^[2]

In October 1882, Ogarita was in the W. E. Sterling & Marie Wellesley Company and appeared on stage in such roles as Eliza in Uncle Tom's Cabin (also Izola's stage debut, as Little Harry). Another play Ogarita was in at this time was The Old Cross! or The Dogs of the Forest. In the same play was Alexander Henderson (1850–1920), a London-born musical director and actor who grew up in Scotland and went to the United States in the 1870s. The two soon became a couple and married around 1884. Henderson appeared on stage with Lillian Russell and Edward Solomon in their 1885 winter tour.^[3]

In 1885 Ogarita gave birth to Beatrice Rosalie "Booth" Henderson, who followed the family tradition and became an actress, and later in life ran a summer theater in Keene, New Hampshire and directed plays in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the winter time.

An actress of note, Ogarita was interviewed by numerous newspapers throughout her career. On May 29, 1890, while playing at the Globe Theater in Columbus, Ohio with the Boston Comic Opera Company, she told a reporter of The Columbus Dispatch that she had been "on the stage more or less for the past fifteen years. She was the leading lady with George C. Milne, the preacher-actor, a few years since, and late with Grace Hawthorn. She made her first appearance on the stage at the Boston Globe Theater, in a minor part. She first appeared in this city at the old Comstock, now Metropolitan Opera House, about seven years ago with Palmer in the "Danites." She appeared later with the Bennett A. Moulton Opera Company, at the Grand, four years ago. ... Mrs. Booth-Henderson has many of the characteristic features so marked in the Booth family and her facial resemblance, as well as her love for the stage, would seem to be strong evidence of the statement she makes. She states that she has a diary containing much important memoranda of her father's life and papers of his, and that at some time not far distant she will make them public."^[4]

Ogarita Booth Henderson died from pneumonia at age 32 while on the road with Floy Crowell's Dramatic Company in Binghamton, New York, and was buried there. On January 1, 1893 Rita Booth was listed in the Chicago Tribune's Necrology of 1892 among the "Distinguished Dead" from across the world.

External links

• Izola L. Forrester Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Contains a collection of letters written by Ogarita Booth Henderson and other documents regarding her and the family.
• Izola Forrester Family Papers Website. Free access to the digitalized version of the Izola Forrester Family Papers, identical to that at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.

Sources

• This One Mad Act, 1937, by Izola Forrester
• The Elusive Booths of Burrillville, 1991, by Patrichia Mehrtens and Joyce Knibb
• "The Macabre Saga of Ogarita Booth Henderson", by J.T. Colfax

Notes and references

1. ^ The Elusive Booths of Burrillville, p 146
2. ^ The Elusive Booths of Burrillville, Supplement-J
3. ^ The Daily Review Decatur, December 8, 1885
4. ^ Columbus Evening Dispatch, May 29, 1890, page 6, column 5

Persondata
Name	Henderson, Ogarita Booth
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	October 23, 1859
Place of birth
Date of death	April 12, 1892
Place of death