15 Facts About Eddie Foy

Six-year-old Eddie Foy began performing in the streets and local saloons to support his family.

Eddie Foy 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.

In later years, Eddie Foy told of an altercation over a girl with fellow actor Charles Chaplin, who was drunkenly taking pot-shots at Eddie Foy.

Eddie Foy is rumored to have been in Tombstone, Arizona, in October 1881, appearing at the Birdcage Theater when the Gunfight at the OK.

In 1879, Eddie Foy married Rose Howland, one of the singing Howland Sisters, who were traveling the same circuit.

Eddie Foy lingered with the troupe for two seasons and then returned to the road.

Eddie Foy joined David Henderson's troupe and traveled all around the US, dancing, doing comedy, and acting in farces.

Eddie Foy returned to Chicago in 1888 as the star comedian in variety shows and revues, initially for his own company.

Eddie Foy played the variety circuits for years in a series of song and dance acts.

In 1896, Eddie Foy married his third wife, Madeline Morando, a dancer with his company.

Eddie Foy gave him eleven children, of whom seven survived childhood: Bryan ; Charley ; Mary ; Madeline ; Eddie Jr.

The children began to go their separate ways after Eddie Foy married Marie Reilly Coombs in 1923, but four of the younger children performed together until the mid 1930s.

Eddie Foy has appeared in vaudeville and starred in the hit Broadway comedy The Fallen Star in 1927.

Eddie Foy died of a heart attack while headlining on the Orpheum circuit in Kansas City, Missouri, at age 71.

On February 16th, 1928, at age 71, Eddie Foy died of a heart attack at the Hotel Baltimore in Kansas City, Missouri.