ALBEE, EDWARD FRANKLIN

born Oct. 8, 1857, Machias, Maine, U.S. died March 11, 1930, Palm Beach, Fla. theatrical manager who, as the general manager of the Keith-Albee theatre circuit, was the most influential person in vaudeville in the United States. A circus ticket seller when he joined Benjamin Franklin Keith in 1885 to establish the Boston Bijou Theatre, he was responsible for the expansion of the Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit. By the 1920s it controlled nearly 400 theatres in the East and Midwest. Albee was president of the United Bookings Office from its formation in 1900. In 1916 he organized a union, the National Vaudeville Artists, thus gaining a near monopoly on both talent and production in U.S. vaudeville. Albee dominated vaudeville until 1928, when RKO, a film company, absorbed his circuit in order to acquire the theatres. His adopted grandson, and namesake, was an American playwright.