{{short description|American actor (1882–1915)}}
{{more citations needed|date=June 2017}}{{Infobox person | name = Elmer Booth | image = EBThief6.jpg | caption = Booth as Jack Doogan in the<br>1913 play ''Stop Thief!'' | birth_name = {{nowrap|William Elmer Booth}} | birth_date = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1882|12|9}} | birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|mf=yes|1915|6|16|1882|12|9}} | death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S. | occupation = Stage and film actor | years_active = 1901–1915 | spouse = {{marriage|Irene Outtrim|1908}} | relatives = Margaret Booth (sister) | children = 1 }} '''William Elmer Booth''' (December 9, 1882 – June 16, 1915) was an American stage and film actor. He was born in Los Angeles, California and was the elder brother of Margaret Booth, a renowned film editor for Hollywood productions for nearly 70 years.<ref>{{cite book|last=Brownlow|first=Kevin|title=The Parade's Gone By|date=1968|publisher=Ballantine Books|page=342}}</ref>
==Career== Elmer began acting in touring stock companies as a teenager and achieved great success in the stock company at the Central Theater in San Francisco from 1903 to 1906. Between 1910 and 1915 he starred in 40 movies; one of those was D. W. Griffith's ''The Musketeers of Pig Alley'' (1912), cited by many film experts as the first gangster movie.{{citation needed|date=June 2017}}
Playing "The Snapper Kid", a Manhattan street tough engaged in a turf war on the Lower East Side, Booth interpreted the gangster as a cocky, entertaining antihero, far different from the standard teeth-gnashing movie bad guys of his time.{{Citation needed |date=May 2021}}
==Death== In the early hours of June 16, 1915, Booth died in an accident in California while riding in a car driven by Tod Browning, an actor and new director with Reliance-Majestic Studios in Hollywood.<ref name="LAT">"Investigating Ride to Death", ''Los Angeles Times'', Pictorial City Sheet II, June 17, 1915, p. 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers</ref> Actor George Siegmann was also a passenger in Browning's car. The day after the accident, the ''Los Angeles Times'' reported that the three men were returning to downtown Los Angeles from a roadhouse when Browning's car crashed into a train of the Salt Lake Railroad:{{blockquote|Elmer Booth was killed instantly. The motor car in which he was speeding towards Los Angeles with his two companions rammed the rear part of a flat car loaded with steel rails at Santa Fe avenue and Salt Lake tracks early yesterday morning. The conductor of the train, Harry Jones, approaching, had waved his lantern as a danger signal, and then had come to the crash that sent Elmer Booth, who was just realizing his dramatic ambitions, headforemost into the rails.<ref name="LAT"/>}}Browning and Siegmann survived, although they both suffered serious injuries.<ref name="LAT"/><ref name="MPW">[https://archive.org/stream/movingpicturewor25newy#page/74/mode/2up "Elmer Booth Killed"], ''Moving Picture World'', July 3, 1915, p.75. Internet Archive, San Francisco, California. Retrieved November 18, 2019.</ref> Later reports blamed the accident on heavy fog; nevertheless, Elmer's sister Margaret never forgave Browning for the loss of her brother.<ref name="MPW" /><ref name="Ska">{{cite book|title=The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror|author=Ska, David J.|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780571199969/page/35 35]|publisher=Macmillan|date=2001|isbn=978-0571199969|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780571199969/page/35}}</ref>
D. W. Griffith, who had planned to cast Booth in an important role in ''Intolerance'', delivered the actor's graveside eulogy.{{Citation needed |date=May 2021}}
==Personal life== Booth married actress Irene Outtrim in 1908. That same year, their son was born, but the son died of pneumonia in March 1910.<ref>{{cite news |title=Parents Permitted to Have Child Only Day Before Death Comes |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34637151/tragic-death-of-the-child-of-irene/ |access-date=April 7, 2021 |work=The Salt Lake Tribune |date=March 23, 1910 |page=20|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref>
==Selected filmography== * ''A Beast at Bay'' (1912) * ''An Unseen Enemy'' (1912) * ''The Musketeers of Pig Alley'' (1912) * ''Gold and Glitter'' (1912) * ''The Adopted Brother'' (1913) * ''Mrs. Black is Back'' (1914) * ''Gasoline Gus'' (1915) * ''A Chase by Moonlight'' (1915)
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Portal|Biography}} * {{IMDb name|0095695}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Booth, Elmer}} Category:1882 births Category:1915 deaths Category:American male film actors Category:Male actors from Los Angeles Category:Road incident deaths in California Category:20th-century American male actors Category:Burials at Inglewood Park Cemetery