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Eugene O’Neill (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)

Early Life

Eugene Gladstone O’Neill was born in a Broadway hotel at a corner of Times Square on October 16, 1888. His father, James O’Neill (1846-1920), came to the United States from Ireland when he was ten and established himself as a talented Shakespearean actor, expected to inherit the mantle of Edwin Booth. In 1883, the elder O’Neill opened as the protagonist Edmond Dantès in a dramatization of The Count of Monte-Cristo (1844-1845), by Alexandre Dumas, père. The...

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