Eddie Foy, Sr. (born Edwin Fitzgerald March 9, 1856, in Greenwich Village, New York City; died February 16, 1928, Kansas City, Missouri), was an actor, comedian, dancer and vaudevillian.
Foy's parents, Richard and Mary Fitzgerald immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1855 and lived first in New York's Bowery, then in Greenwich Village, where Eddie was born. Richard Fitzgerald died in an insane asylum in 1862 from syphilis-induced dement...
more
Eddie Foy, Sr. (born Edwin Fitzgerald March 9, 1856, in Greenwich Village, New York City; died February 16, 1928, Kansas City, Missouri), was an actor, comedian, dancer and vaudevillian.
Foy's parents, Richard and Mary Fitzgerald immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1855 and lived first in New York's Bowery, then in Greenwich Village, where Eddie was born. Richard Fitzgerald died in an insane asylum in 1862 from syphilis-induced dementia, and his widow took her four children (Eddie was second oldest) to Chicago, where she reportedly at one time tended the mentally ill widow of Abraham Lincoln. Six-year-old Eddie began performing in in the streets and local saloons to support his family. At 15, he changed his name to Foy and with a partner began dancing in bars, traveling throughout the western United States. He worked for a time as a supernumerary in theatrical productions, sharing a stage at times with such leading men of the time as Edwin Booth and Joseph Jefferson....
less
