Edward Franklin Albee

Albee, E[dward] F[ranklin] (1857–1930), manager. The scion of an old and wealthy Maine family, he ran away from home to join a circus, serving first as a common roustabout and then as principal ticket seller. On a visit to Boston in 1885, he stumbled on a shabby variety house being managed by B. F. Keith. Business was poor, but under Albee's guidance the house flourished, offering variety at cut‐rate prices. Keith and Albee quickly began buying and restoring old theatres in New England, then building his first new house in Philadelphia. Within a short time, Albee was effectively running the Keith circuit, with Keith remaining loftily behind the scenes. For a while Albee succeeded in monopolizing booking arrangements and on several occasions broke performers' attempts to form unions, at one point establishing an in‐house union. By vaudeville's heyday in the first quarter of the 20th century, the Keith chain dominated Eastern vaudeville. Albee was forced out a year before his death by Joseph P. Kennedy, who merged the then faltering Keith and Orpheum circuits into a motion picture theatre chain.