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Edwin Forrest
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==Early acting career== The theatres of New York and Philadelphia were already crowded with trained and successful actors, mostly the offspring of well-known British theatrical families or at least with British training. Few American actors were able to make much headway in these theaters, whose managers were highly skeptical of the quality of local talent. Forrest therefore accepted an offer from Joshua Collins and William Jones, who owned theatres in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Lexington, and were scouting Philadelphia for actors who were willing to face the rigors of performing in the new cities along the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. His tour through a rough country—with the inconveniences of long distances, the necessity of presenting his plays in rude halls, insufficient support, and poor scenery—was not altogether successful, but the discipline to mind and body was felt in all his subsequent career.<ref name="appletons">{{Cite Appletons'|last=Barrett|first=Lawrence|authorlink=Lawrence Barrett|wstitle=Forrest, Edwin|year=1900}}</ref> In 1824 he travelled from Louisville down to New Orleans, where he had been invited to join the company of the American Theatre, under the management of William Caldwell. There he began to act in a higher quality of production - though usually in roles secondary to Caldwell - and began to attract favorable responses from New Orleans audiences. However, Forrest vied with his employer for the affections of the leading actress of the company, Jane Placide. In a fury of jealousy, he quit the company and spent two months living in the Louisiana wilderness. Later Forrest would claim he spent much of this time in the company of a Choctaw Indian chief named Push-ma-ta-ha, though recent scholarship has come to question much of his account. By 1825 he was back in Philadelphia, and then went north to act with the Pearl Street Theatre in Albany, New York, where he was able to act with, and learn from, such eminent actors as William Conway and Edmund Kean.
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