Eddie Foy in 1907

Eddie Foy in "The Orchid"


The Rotograph Co. N.Y. City

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Eddie Foy, Sr. (born Edwin Fitzgerald March 9, 1856 - February 16, 1928) was an American actor, comedian, dancer and vaudevillian.

Between 1910 and 1913, he formed a family vaudeville act, and "Eddie Foy and The Seven Little Foys", which quickly became a national sensation. While Foy was a stern disciplinarian backstage – his wife Madeline died in 1918 – he portrayed an indulgent papa onstage, and the Foys toured successfully for over a decade, appearing in one motion picture. The children began to go their separate ways after Eddie remarried to Marie Reilly Coombs in 1923, but four of the younger children (Madeline, Mary, Charley, and Irving) performed together until the mid-1930s. A dedicated trouper, the elder Foy continued to appear in vaudeville and starred in the hit Broadway comedy The Fallen Star in 1927. He died of a heart attack while headlining on the Orpheum circuit in Kansas City, Missouri at age 71.