Page 10 - Litteratteur Redefining World December issue

Litterateur redefining world December 2020

Jack Foley's Father
John Harold Aloysius
("Jack") Foley: 1895-1967.

Jack Foley about his father

Publicity photo of young "you could go ahead and smoke." (I'm sure he
John Harold Aloysius,Jack Foley's Father
(on the left). eventually discovered the meaning of the term: he
lived through "Prohibition.") He also told me of
This team may have been Foley and Girard.
being with the songwriter, Jimmy McHugh. They
were passing the poetry section of a library when
McHugh turned to my father and, pointing to the
section, said, "Jack, it's all in there." In general my
father didn't tell stories about our family. He told
stories about his friends in show business. Later I
realized that the friends were almost always--
perhaps always--Irish. The people he knew in show
business became his real family. He married one of
them -Laura, one of the dancing Wood Sisters.

My father left show business when vaudeville, which
was his primary bread and butter, gave way to the

movies and died. In addition, his great mentor and
occasional employer, George M. Cohan, lost interest
in musicals and made an ill-fated attempt to
establish himself as a "straight" playwright. My
father opened a dance studio. He received a
telegram from Cohan wishing him luck and
tendering "kindest personal regards." The venture
failed. He turned to Postal Union- where he had

worked as a telegrapher during the summers- and then to Western Union, which
eventually made him manager of the Port Chester branch. He claimed that the sound of
the telegraph key reminded him of tap dancing. Recently I came upon a clipping, a
review of one of his performances it refers to him as a "great" dancer. Since childhood
I have collected recordings of vaudevillians: Cohan, Harry Lauder, Nora Bayes and
Jack Norworth, Gallagher and Shean, many others. All these recordings bring me
closer to my father, whose performing days were long past when I knew him.

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