Times: Peter Foy

Here's the Times article, and an Old NPR Feature on Pete Foy...


March 2, 2005
Peter Foy, Who Sent Performers Flying, Dies at 79
By MARGALIT FOX

Peter Foy, an innovator in the art of theatrical flight who sent aloft figures from Mary Martin and Sally Field to rotund opera singers in full Valkyrie regalia, died on Feb. 17 in Las Vegas. He was 79 and lived in Las Vegas.

The cause was a heart attack, his wife, Barbara, said.

Described by The New York Times as "the most famous 'flyer' in show business," Mr. Foy spent his life suspending people by wires not much thicker than sewing thread and sailing them through the air by means of intricate systems of harnesses, pulleys and tracks he developed.

Mr. Foy lived, he often said, for the audible gasp from the audience when an earthbound performer suddenly took flight. He flew a string of Broadway Peter Pans, including Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan and Cathy Rigby. He flew Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Michael Jordan. He flew Garth Brooks over Texas Stadium and Nadia Comaneci over Times Square. He flew Liberace, piano and all.

Peter Stuart Foy was born in London on June 11, 1925. The Foys were a theatrical family, though no relation to the American vaudevillians of the same name, and Peter began his career as a child actor. At 15, he took his first onstage flight, suspended by a slender wire in the play "Where the Rainbow Ends." When the production's stage manager became ill, Peter took over for him, supervising the flights of other actors and the machinery that kept them aloft.

After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Mr. Foy went to work for the premier theatrical flying company in Britain, Kirby's Flying Ballets, purveyor, its letterhead proudly proclaimed, of "Peter Pan Flying Effects, Somersaulting, Diving and Auditorium Flying." In 1950, he was sent to New York to supervise the flying for a Broadway production of J. M. Barrie's stage play "Peter Pan," starring Jean Arthur.

The flying almost sank the show. Though the tradition of theatrical flying dates back perhaps 2,000 years to the creaky deus ex machina of classical antiquity, it was largely dormant in the United States when Mr. Foy arrived. His art was so unfamiliar that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, worried about the safety of the two young actors playing Wendy's brothers, threatened to halt the production. Mr. Foy prevailed.

He returned to America in 1954 to fly Ms. Martin in the musical version of "Peter Pan." In 1957, he started his own company, Foy Inventerprises, familiarly known to generations of theatergoers as Flying by Foy.

It takes two burly men to fly one person: one to hoist the actor, the other to move him through the air. Properly flown, actors do not simply dangle. They sail and spin and somersault. They move as their characters would: a horizontal streak for Superman, a soaring diagonal for Peter Pan. Mr. Foy developed much of the technology that made this possible. His wife of 52 years, the former Barbara Warren, gamely served as guinea pig.

Strapped into a harness and suspended by a wire that could be just over a sixteenth of an inch thick, the actor must appear to fly with no visible means of support. Lighting and backdrops hide the wires. "This is why, in a production of 'Peter Pan,' the nursery set will so often contain wallpaper that has vertical lines," James Hansen, general manager of Foy Inventerprises, explained in a telephone interview.

Among Mr. Foy's Broadway credits are "The Lion King," "Angels in America," "Aida," "Fool Moon, "Dracula, the Musical" and "Monty Python's Spamalot," now in previews. His other work includes the film "Fantastic Voyage" and the television series "The Flying Nun"; the opening ceremonies of the 2004 Olympics; the Ice Capades; and numerous rock extravaganzas, operas and ballets.

Besides his wife, Mr. Foy is survived by a sister, Patricia Musgrove, of London; a son, Garry, and a daughter, Teresa Foy McGeough, both of Las Vegas; and two grandchildren.

Given his work, Mr. Foy was understandably preoccupied with safety. (Ms. Martin once flew into a wall by accident.) In an interview with National Public Radio in 2002, he described the peculiar risks of "Peter Pan": "Once that person's in the air," he said, "you can't run out onstage and grab him with a hook. And so he'll fly towards that mantelpiece and go 'splat.' "

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

NPR Foy story: Peter Foy, "Airographer"