Foy, the man who gave wings to actors, dies at 79

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 9:52 a.m.

He put wings on the stars.

Peter Foy, who in 1950 invented the device that allowed performers to glide through the air across stage and screen, died Feb. 17 in Las Vegas of heart failure. He was 79.

Among the performers strapped into his flying devices were every major actress who portrayed Peter Pan on Broadway, Sally Field in "The Flying Nun," Bob Hope on "The Jack Benny Special," Frank Sinatra on "The Phil Silvers Show" and Celine Dion in "A Brand New Day" at Caesars Palace.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 29 years will be noon Sunday at Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave.

Foy also was the head of Flying by Foy, a company formed in 1957 to market his flying devices to shows, and the Athletic Arts Academy in Green Valley, an ice rink/fitness center/drama school.

Foy, a British-born, ex-part-time actor, stressed that discipline was a key element for an actor to best utilize his devices and appear as though he were flying under his own power.

"Discipline is important in every business, not only theater," Foy told the Sun in a June 15, 2000, story. "How you present yourself and having confidence are important."

His wife, singer Barbara Foy, said her husband thought of himself foremost as "an idea man."

"He would go to business meetings and listen to what others suggested, then he would pitch them something that was so much more marvelous and spectacular," Barbara Foy said. "I'd ask him afterward how he was going to pull it off and he'd say 'I'm not sure.'

"But my husband also was a finisher. He would start something and see it through no matter what."

Barbara Foy said one of her husband's proudest simulated human flight accomplishments was a series of platforms he built at New York's Radio City Music Hall, from which ballet dancers would fly, swooping through a shimmering net curtain, creating the effect of ripples on water.

In 1969, Foy created the simulator that was used by NASA to demonstrate to TV viewers what they could expect to see when Apollo 11 astronauts walked on the moon that July.

Much of America first came to know of Foy's work when Mary Martin soared across their small black-and-white television screens in the 1955 live NBC broadcast of "Peter Pan."

Foy had introduced his invention five years earlier for the Broadway production of "Peter Pan." Since then, numerous other Broadway productions and movies have used Flying by Foy.

The biggest stars in show business have flown with the help of Foy. Among them: Lucille Ball, Rosanne Barr, Jack Benny, Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson, Sean Connery, Phyllis Diller, Eminem, Tom Hanks, Michael Jordan, Gene Kelly, Alan King, David Letterman, Jerry Lewis, Debbie Reynolds and Andy Williams.

Foy improved his products over the years to meet the demands of more sophisticated, high-tech shows, among them illusionists Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage.

Foy began his flying career at age 15, maneuvering through the air on a wire cable in a British production of "Where The Rainbow Ends." He took over the backstage flying controls when the stage manager fell ill and mastered the equipment that preceded his devices.

During World War II, Foy served in the Royal Air Force, where he was a navigator and entertainment officer.

Foy came to Las Vegas in the early 1960s to produce a flying ballet at the Stardust hotel's long-running Lido de Paris show.

In 1976 the Foys moved to Las Vegas where Peter created the haunted house scene for Donn Arden's "Hello America" at the old Desert Inn. In that production, Barbara flew with ghosts and was the lead singer.

Foy also did the flying scenes for "Hallelujah Hollywood" at the MGM, now Bally's.

Since then, every major Las Vegas hotel showroom that has used human flight as part of their productions have employed Flying by Foy devices. That includes David Cassidy and Michael Crawford in EFX, the late Liberace in his Strip shows and magicians Penn & Teller in Sin City Spectacular.

In 1990, the U.S. Institute of Theatre Technology presented Foy with the International Entertainment Safety Award.

Last year, as part of the Olympic torch relay in America, a Foy device, under Flying by Foy supervisor Joe McGeough, flew gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci 170 feet from New York's NASDAQ Building to Times Square. Flying by Foy effects also were used in the opening ceremony of the Games of Athens.

In addition to his wife, Foy is survived by a son Garry S. Foy; a daughter, Teresa Foy McGeough; and two grandchildren, Daniel McGeough and James McGeough.

The family requests donations to The Actors Fund of America, 729 Seventh Avenue, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10019.