John Wilkes Booth John Wilkes Booth was a very notorious person. Mostly people think about him assassinating Abe Lincoln, but he was a very famous actor and had a very interesting life. He was born on May 10, 1838, in Bel Air, Maryland, in a log cabin. His parents, Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Holmes, had been married in England and then come to America. He was one of ten children. His only sister was a writer. She would later write books about their family. Booth called himself JB Wilkes. His friends called him Wilkes. One of his brothers, Edwin, was a famous actor just like his father. His father started acting wh