Eddie Foy: A Biography of the Early Popular Stage Comedian [Hardcover]

Armond Fields (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0786407026 | ISBN-13: 978-0786407026 | Publication Date: October 1999

Just a century ago Eddie Foy was the consummate stage comedian. A versatile performer, Foy contributed to the development of popular theater from the Civil War to the Roaring Twenties, from poverty-inspired Irish two-acts to lavish musical comedies. This first-ever biography of Foy tells the story of his indigent childhood in New York's Bowery and in Chicago, his tough uphill climb as a "variety artist" at Western outposts, his success in vaudeville and Broadway, and his arrival as a national icon with the Seven Little Foys. Foy's career mirrored the growth of popular theater entertainment in America. Exhaustively researched, this work contains many rare personal photographs from the Foy family archives.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Strongly recommended. --Choice --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Armond Fields is a social historian specializing in American popular theater. He is also the author of Lillian Russell (1998). He lives in Culver City, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 260 pages
• Publisher: Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786407026
• ISBN-13: 978-0786407026
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,936,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eddie Foy and 60 years of the Golden Age of the Stage, July 4, 2000

By 

Frank Cullen "Frank Cullen, American Vaudevil... (formerly Boston, MA and now Edgewood, New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eddie Foy: A Biography of the Early Popular Stage Comedian (Hardcover)

Congratulations to author Armond Fields and publisher McFarland & Company for this absorbing, well-written and meticulously researched biography of comedian & eccentric dancer, Eddie Foy. The story, as Fields tells it, leaves nothing to be desired, yet it isn't cluttered with footnotes. It reads easily because it is as defty organized and told as a good stage production. The scene is laid out before us, time and place, before Mr. Foy enters the scene: the Nineteenth Century, the newly arrived Irish immigrants and New York City's Bowery. When Foy's adventures take up the tale, the scene segues to the Civil War, Chicago, Dodge City, Leadville, Denver and San Francisco, and the great and glorious characters who inhabit these places and befriended Foy: Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Gentlemen Jim Corbett and dozens of theatrical managers and performers. Foy's life and career spanned the Civil War, the Westward migrations, the reach of the railways, the lawlessness of cattle-towns, the small towns and big cities of a growing America. Show Business grew too, from saloons to variety and Opera Houses, to Broadway musical comedies and vaudeville, and Eddie Foy lived and worked until the dawn of the sound films. Mr. Fields traces Foy's influences and growth as a performer and clarifies the record about Foy's personal life with no intent except telling a good story well and true.