Quotes and Words of Wisdom From Peter
Foy
"That's what we enjoy doing --
inventing! Twenty years ago I could have sat back and
said 'hey, I've got all this equipment and I don't have
to do anything but collect money for it.' But who wants
to live that way? If I get an idea, I want to see if it
works." Peter Foy quoted in the
12/7/1988 Chicago Daily Herald
“You should not be controlled by the
capacities of the equipment. I always start
with what I want to see as the final result, then
develop the equipment”
From a 1987 interview with The New York Times
"Once somebody is flying, you can't take
your eyes off them. I've pulled the ropes myself in a
theatre when 80% of the audience could see me, but even
my friends who came to watch me work didn't see me."
Foy quoted in the July 26, 1986
Daily News of Huntingdon, PA
"It is wrong to assume that I invented
flying, because it is historically the oldest theatrical
device in the world. Number two is the trap door."
Foy quoted in The Las Vegas
Sun, January 13, 1980
Foy's Contribution to the art of stage
flight: "to give theatrical flying a greater freedom"
Foy quoted in The Las Vegas
Sun, January 13, 1980
"The person holding the rope is not a
counterweight as some might think. Rather I like to
think of it as an adagio team like in ballet."
Foy quoted in The Las Vegas
Sun, January 13, 1980
On theatre: "If you love it - you'll
learn everything you can about it - do anything you can
in it - and almost assuredly you will be rewarded -
sometimes in the most unexpected way."
Salt Lake Tribune, May 13, 1984
On trying to figure out what to do
professionally: "Whatever it is you think about when you
don't have to think about anything -- that's what you
really want to do -- that's where your heart is."
On flying with the Royal Air Force: "We didn't have
radar in those days. We navigated by the stars (which is
of course what guided Peter Pan)".
Salt Lake Tribune, May 13, 1984
"I direct flying sequences that move people across the
air, which is much different than just raising and
lowering people with a harness. That is the advantage to
being a writer first. Most people who do flying think of
it purely from a technical standpoint, not an artistic
one. I see the end effect first, and then how to make it
happen, not the other way around."
Salt Lake Tribune, May 13, 1984
"I think from my wife's point of view,
she'd rather be married to Noel Coward."
New York Magazine, September
24, 1979 ....on being a stage flight choreographer.
"If Sandy [Duncan] had been born a boy,
she would have been Peter Pan"
Spoken to reporter, Ann C.
Emmons 8/6/1975 The Flint Journal
"Reporters always want to try flying.
Putting on a harness and saying you're going to fly is
like saying you want to be Margot Fonteyn and then
wearing her shoes! Flying is an art!"
Spoken to reporter, Ann C.
Emmons 8/6/1975 The Flint Journal
"Ordinary mortals who climb on top of
the dresser and try to fly to the ground usually land
with a thump. But then they don't have Peter Foy in the
wings operating the controls." 2/9/1963
"For the Minsky show, they want me to
fly a nude girl out over the audience. Now I ask you
..." Peter Foy speaking to
Hollywood Reporter, Erskine Johnson 10/18/1959
"People are very skeptical about flying
in musical tents. 'They don't believe it can be done'.
Now that it has they still don't believe it."
Foy to reporter Robert Fialka
7/21/1957
"I never have trouble with 'Peter Pans'
-- or children -- or anybody else except Wendys.
Frequently Wendys are timid. I think it must be because
producers pick a nervous type to play the role."
Peter Foy speaking to a
reporter of the Washington, DC Sunday Star. November 7,
1954
On whether he has dropped any actors:
"Not yet. I've been at this four years, here, and in
England, and never lost a passenger."
AP Article on Peter Pan 12/5/1950
by Saul Pelt
"After a weekend I almost always notice
that Miss Arthur has gained a pound or two, but we knock
it off of her during the week."
AP Article on Peter Pan 12/5/1950
by Saul Pelt
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