Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Eddie Foy, Sr.; Jr.; & III

Three little Foys.  I guess that is more famously the Seven Little Foys.  Let's start at the beginning, but we will only cover film accomplishments, and only for Eddies (plural).

Richard Fitzgerald came to America from Ireland.  His son, Edward Fitzgerald, who became Eddie Foy at age 15, was one of the best loved stage and vaudeville performers of all time.  Richard was in no movies.  He died in 1862 and they weren't invented yet.

Eddie Foy, Sr. (1856 - 1928) was only in a handful of movies from 1910 to 1919, and they would all have been silent.  His last film was called Yankee Doodle in Berlin which had nothing to do with George M. Cohan.

Senior knew Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday, and was appearing in Tombstone, AZ at the time of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. 

He and his seven children were billed with him as The Seven Little Foys.  One of them was:

Eddie Foy, Jr. (1905 - 1983).  Junior made 62 movies and had about 19 TV appearances.  His first two films were silents, then he started acting in his own films in 1929 in Queen of the Nightclubs, which was also George Raft's film debut, and was directed by brother Bryan Foy.

Junior was in some good movies and was able to sing and dance in a lot of them.  I bet his father would have loved doing that as well.  He was in Bells are Ringing in 1960 with Judy Holliday and Dean Martin.  Later he appeared in several of the Gidget movies, and his last film, in 1976, was...are you ready?...Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood.  (I have to watch that film.  It had a great cast.)

Eddie Foy III was Junior's son.  Born in 1935, he worked mostly in the casting department and as a producer.  He acted in five movies and on five TV productions.  His best known film would be Run Silent, Run Deep with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in 1958. 

All of the above Foys, including the four other Little Foys, appeared in only one film together, that was in 1915 in a movie called A Favorite Fool.  It would have been great to have them in a sound film.

Eddie Foy, Jr. was able to play his father in four movies and on TV once.  One of those films was Yankee Doodle Dandy starring James Cagney as George M. Cohan in 1942.  A later film in 1955 called The Seven Little Foys was made about their family.  That one starred Bob Hope as Eddie Foy, Sr. and also included James Cagney again playing George M. Cohan

What a talented family.  Which actors today will leave a legacy like this one?

2 comments:

  1. Very nice. I didn't know about the Tombstone bit. That must have been interesting.

    Eddie Foy, Jr. is also the extremely jealous Hinesy in PAJAMA GAME [film and stage]. I can't help but laugh as he spreads himself on the floor to demonstrate a pair of pajamas.

    Family Legacy? The ones with some serious stage craft in the family tend to leave the best legacy, it seems [take the Tyrone Powers, all of the them; the John Mills family; the Zimbalists ]. Today's family of actors? I don't know any of them well enough to say.

    Or is that meant to be a rhetorical question?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gary Busey and Jake Busey? All of the Baldwin brothers?

    All my questions are rhetorical. Aren't they?

    ReplyDelete

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