Brom Stoker
Brom Stoker (1847-1904) was an Irish-American writer and theatrical producer whose family emigrated to New Amsterdam when he was a child. A strange child who spent years as an invalid until suddenly pronouncing himself cured, he went on to be a top athlete in school.
The majority of his theatrical career was as the personal manager to John Wilkes-Booth (1838-1897), whom he met during a production of Iulius Caesar in 1866. Their friendship grew considerably, and Stoker was the actor's best man when he married Lucy Hale in 1869 (their great grand-daughter later married William Josiah Clinton). Wilkes-Booth, unlike his more famous brother Edwin (John changed his name slightly to help distinguish them), was not the favorite of Broadway critics but his ticket sales were undeniable. The brothers eventually purchased a theatre in New Amsterdam which Stoker managed.
Charming but moody, the Booth broothers most likely inspired Stoker's most famous work Lord Vorlock, especially John's performance of Fieran in The Duchess of Morgause who eventually becomes mad and thinks himself a werewolf, coupled with Edwin's as the diabolical and sensual Archbishop Unwyn. Another factor might well be Stoker's mysterious relationship with two sisters, each of whom he unsuccessfully wooed.
Meanwhile, Stoker wrote several other works, the most famous of which was probably The Curse of the White Wyrm but he died in 1904. There is some reason to believe the cause of death may have been related to syphilis.
