Page 339 - Foy

In the 1800s EDWIN FITZGERALD was a popular comedian and song and
dance man. His wife, MADELINDA MORANDO, was a ballerina. They had five
boys and two girls named BRYAN, CHARLIE, RICHARD, IRVING, EDDIE
JR, MARY and MADELINE.

EDWIN (EDDIE) FITZGERALD changed his name to EDDIE FOY in 1873 at
the age of 16 after playing in a concert hall with an act he had admired
enormously, THE FOY SISTERS. It did not occur to him to go to court to have
that name made legal. Even after establishing the act, the SEVEN LITTLE
FOYS, he did not make the name change legal and, in fact up until 1955 it still
had not been done.

According to Los Angeles newspapers there was no better stage comic and
musical comedy star than EDDIE FOY SR who began entertaining in New York
at the age of eight and was active for fifty seven years on the stage until the day
of his death.

Starting in 1910 EDDIE FOY SR and his seven children became one of the
zaniest and most popular acts in Vaudeville. EDDIE FOY SR died in 1928 but
the act remained popular into the 1930s. The life and times of the group was the
subject of the 1955 Bob Hope movie THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS where Bob
Hope played Eddie Foy, Sr.

BRYAN (Byrnie) FOY, the oldest of the SEVEN LITTLE FOYS became a
producer/director of low budget films for Warner Brothers Studios and was a
pioneer in early sound pictures. He died in April 1977 at age 82. His name is
credited in 248 films by Warner Brothers between the years 1932 to 1940.

In 1941 BYRNIE moved to 20th Century Fox and later to Eagle Lion Studios.
He later returned to Warner Brothers and produced such movies as I Was a
Communist For The FBI and Miracle Of Fatima and the 3d movie House of Wax.
His last movie was the John F. Kennedy biography in 1963, PT 109.

As noted above, CHARLIE FOY appeared in many movies from 1912 to 1940.
In 1941 he opened and often performed in CHARLIE FOY’S SUPPER CLUB in
the San Fernando Valley area (where MAY and WILL lived). He narrated the
Bob Hope film THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS.

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