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American stage actor, musical comedy star, and vaudevillian who was a legendary figure of his time and who fathered a family of performers who went on to notable careers in motion pictures. Born Edward Fitzgerald at 23 8th Avenue in New York City, March 9, 1856, to an Irish-immigrant tailor, Richard Fitzgerald, and his wife Mary, Eddie moved to Chicago with his family after his father's death in an insane asylum from syphilis in 1862. His mother reportedly cared for Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's widow, during Mrs. Lincoln's mental illness. At the age of 8, Eddie began entertaining on the street for tips, doing acrobatic d
American stage actor, musical comedy star, and vaudevillian who was a legendary figure of his time and who fathered a family of performers who went on to notable careers in motion pictures. Born Edward Fitzgerald at 23 8th Avenue in New York City, March 9, 1856, to an Irish-immigrant tailor, Richard Fitzgerald, and his wife Mary, Eddie moved to Chicago with his family after his father's death in an insane asylum from syphilis in 1862. His mother reportedly cared for Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's widow, during Mrs. Lincoln's mental illness. At the age of 8, Eddie began entertaining on the street for tips, doing acrobatic dances. He changed his name to Foy when he was 15, and he and partner Jack Finnigan went on the road, dancing for meals in bars. They got work as supernumeraries in dramatic productions and Foy claimed to have worked in such a capacity with the leading actor of his day, Edwin Booth. With another partner, Jim Thompson, Foy traveled for three years in a saloon/theatre circuit through the West, including an extended stay in Dodge City, Kansas, where he met Doc Holliday, 'William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson', and Wyatt Earp. Also on the circuit was a girl singer act, the Howland Sisters. Eddie fell for one of them, Rose Howland, and they married in 1879. In 1882, the four (Thompson had married another singer) returned East, joining the Carncross Minstrels in Philadelphia. Shortly thereafter, however, Rose Foy and her newborn died in childbirth. By 1887, Foy was back in the West, touring with David Henderson's troupe across the country. He met Lola Sefton in San Francisco and they were a couple for the next decade until her death. (Many sources described them as husband and wife, though no record of a marriage has been found.) After Sefton's death, Foy started his own company and two years later married one of his dancers, Madeline Morando. She gave him eleven children, the seven surviving ones becoming world-famous in their father's act as The Seven Little Foys. In 1903, while playing the Iroquois Theatre, Foy heroically attempted to calm the crowd after fire broke out. Six hundred people died. Foy escaped by crawling through a sewer. Three years after bringing his children into the act, Foy and his family appeared in a film for Mack Sennett, one of only a handful the senior Foy would do. However, his children, in particular Bryan Foy and Eddie Foy Jr., would enjoy substantial careers in the movies. Eddie Sr. continued to headline in vaudeville and musical theatre until his death from a heart attack in 1928 while performing in vaudeville in Kansas City, Missouri.
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