William Elmer Booth (9 December 1882 - 16 June 1915) was an US-American actor. He was born in Los Angeles, California and was the elder brother of film editor Margaret Booth.[1]
Elmer began acting in touring stock companies as a teenager. 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. 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, enterprising antihero, far different from the standard teeth-gnashing movie bad guys of the time. His groundbreaking performance created a new character type and paved the way "for all the Cagneys, Bogarts, and Robinsons who later shot their way across the screen."[2]
Booth died at the age of 32 in a car crash in Los Angeles, caused by actor and director Tod Browning. D.W. Griffith, who planned to give Booth an important role in Intolerance, delivered the actor's graveside eulogy.[2]