 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 Mune in the role of one of the most renowned players in the history of the American stage, Edwin Booth. Supporting Mr. Mune are the Cavalcade players in our original radio drama written by Norman Rostin. Our orchestra and the original musical score are under the direction of Don Vouries. DuPont, maker of better things for better living through chemistry, presents Paul Mune 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. Another 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 feather 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. You have the furnace man banked the fires as I ordered. You can see for yourself, Mr. Booth. Come here. Now we'll have those flames roaring soon enough. Gary, to that trunk. Help me drag it 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. Let cords, Gary. Or I'll do it alone. Good. Now we'll open it. But it smells of death, doesn't it, Gary? These costumes look pretty, eh? They shall look prettier in the fire. You don't quite understand, Mr. Booth. I've decided to destroy a few ghosts. That is all. And 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. Miss Cloak, you see it, Gary? Yes, Mr. Booth. It was my brothers. Your Cloak, John Wilkes, you sure haunt me no longer. You've given me enough grief for two lifetimes. How slowly you burn. But 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 posture in them, John Wilkes. How dazzlingly you walked with silver spurs. And what is this? And it's belted purple robe, trim 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 kingly 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're 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. Junius Brutus Booth is always ready. Set him upon a stage and call out the name of the play, and you shall have it. I seen by seen. My conscience hath a thousand several voices. Your tongue's 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. I could but try to earn them. Curtain ready to go up, Mr. Booth? You must be bright as 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? I shall drink to it. To your dreaming. No, father, not after what happened in Hartford and last week in Providence. You're too great a man for that. I can't expect me to storm my way through five bloody acts of Shakespeare without one drink for each opinion. I feel better. No, I feel...faint. Father, what is it? I feel strangely ill. It's down here, son. Help me, Edwin. You're on in a moment. Mr. Poole. Edwin, what's happened here? What's the matter? Shall we haul the curtain? Hmm, same thing, Edwin. I don't think so, Mr. Scotty. Just all of a sudden fainted. Fainted? Drunk again. Don't say that. I'll say what I like. Quiet, quiet. There's a full house out there. What do we do? I know the lines, sir. Let me go on. I play Richard like all the kings in history. I'll play it 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 faces and the wings. Tell Edwin to be ready to go on as soon as I finish. I'll be briefing up. Listen, and somebody pray... Ladies and gentlemen, owing to a regrettable and unforeseen illness, Mr. Junius Frutus Booth will be unable to appear. In his place, in his place our company is proud to present Mr. Edwin Booth, the son of Junius Frutus Booth, who will essay in his father's stead the role of Richard Thurston. All right, I'm ready. I'm here. Let me fix that wager. It'll come off. Thank you, Edwin. I'll pin the coat 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 sun 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 whether you shouldn't... Into the fire, I say. Yes, we shall purge by fire in more fire. Come now, what else have we? There's a setting cloak, Mr. Booth. Ah, that cloak? Romeo's cloak? Let me hold it a moment. For she held it once with me in it in the realms 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. I 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. Someday shall I play opposite you then? Am I that appealing a 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. Well, that is, we do read well together. Mary, 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, and they're found in no prompt 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 made from both. 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 heroine, 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 a 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. You turned 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. Oh, but you can't. The tour is scheduled. You can't run away from your audience, not Edwin Boone. 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, you're calm. I should 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 should be with you somewhere in the applause, near you somehow. 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, Gary. I was late for all my queues, Gary. All my queues. Hand me that book there. Oh, no, Mr. Boone, no. All your notices are in this book. Thousands of clippings. It's your history, sir, the record of your art. My art, Gary. 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 true real for even this fire to consume. 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? Hmm? 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 a clay. I was Brutus, a new Anthony, John Wicks. That night when evil darkened my sky like a great cloud. 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 thus led to Brutus' death, and men have lost their reason. Now, wait a minute. Listen, everyone, listen to me. Southern blood is the rich red blood of the pioneers. It's trenching this soil now. John Wicks, you fool, have you lost your mind? But blood is being spilled by that abolitionist Abraham Lincoln. Drive him from the White House, I say. You listen to me, everybody. The day of judgment is at hand, I tell you. Abraham Lincoln is a traitor. Stop it. You're a madman. I won't have any speeches, but those are the texts. Do you hear me? I have a speech to make, and by heaven I'll make it. By heavens, you won't. The presidents of the United States will not be desecrated in this house. Bring down the cartons. Why do 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, stop it, stop it. Here, here. I'm not doing this, both of you. Mr. Boone. My hands weren't held now, brother. I teach you in blood. Never mind the brother. I am a patriot. Stop your babbling, you fool. You're a madman, not a fool. Get out of this company. Good. Good. I have other things to do, not with words, but by deeds. 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 the earthquake, but by a simple act, my star was taken out of the heavens forever. What is the bell's ring for today, Patrick? It is holy work, sir. A special week for the bells, it is. Oh, yes. Is that the theatre ahead? Oh, it is, Mr. Boone. With that crowd in front of it, you'd think it was a place for drinking. It's a place for worship. But the worshipers have a way of changing their guard. Right, you are, Mr. Boone. And remember it had the old lady that. Here we are. 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 may kneel, Boone. We'll show you with a rope. But I... I don't understand, gentlemen. Assassin, done with it, Boone. Pull him down. Let me through, please. It's not your first day. Excuse me, let me through, if you please. Don't let him get away. What's going on, Stanley? Mr. Boone, we... we've had to cancel this afternoon's performance. Cancel? That's impossible. Is anyone ill? What was happening? 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. Mr. Booth. I will speak to him. He's cut. That crowd is wild. There. They've mistaken me for someone else. I'll explain it to them. I'm 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. No, I'll go myself. I must go myself. I must face this alone. You're very well, John. Fire becomes you. Fire has touched you before. Was it not a bond they set fire to? 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. Come, Gary. You have finished now. Close the door of the furnace. Okay, players, for their performance of Edwin Booth. And now DuPath 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 to 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 floor spar, he had mapped a new trail to a laboratory curiosity. Di-chlorodifluoromethane. 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 twenty-two drops of Freon. Just twenty-two precious drops. Today, those twenty-two 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's 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 Keeps 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.