Puckish comedian Eddie Foy, later head of the famous Seven Little Foys
vaudeville act, became one of America's greatest thespian heroes during
Chicago's terrible Iroquois Theatre fire, but even his bravery couldn't
prevent the deaths of 589 people.
Foy was starring in a bargain matinee performance of Mr. Bluebeard,
playing the role of Sister Anne. The low admission price attracted a large
number of mothers and children and the house was overcrowded with 2,400
people, too many of them standing. The Iroquois had been widely advertised
as “fireproof” by the syndicate that owned it, and few people gave a
thought to the possibility of fire. But the syndicate – a clique of
producers who tried to corner the market in American theater entertainment
– had little but contempt for safety regulations, as the coming tragedy
would prove.
During the musical number “In the Pale Moonlight,” not far into the play's
second act, a high-temperature carbon arc lamp used to create the illusion
of moonlight brushed against a flammable painted canvas wing and the
canvas caught fire. The blaze quickly spread to the flammable props and
droops made of gauze and muslin. Soon ropes, catwalks, and second curtains
were on fire. It all took only seconds, and it seemed as if only Foy had
the presence of mind to do anything about it.
Foy rushed out to center stage and ordered the asbestos fire curtain
lowered so that the flames cold be contained backstage. He pleaded with
the audience to remain calm and had the orchestra play a loud overture.
But sight of the flames and smoke panicked the packed house. While Foy
improvised an act onstage, dancing acrobatically and singing loudly, many
people began fighting their way toward the theatre's thirty unlighted
exits. Women and children fell in the aisles and were trampled by the
stampeding crowds of people around them. Those who seized fire
extinguishers found them defective; there were no water hoses in working
order.
It took only about eight minutes for 589 people to die. None of them
succumbed to the flames – Foy had seen to this by containing the fire. All
were trampled to death before the doors could be opened and order
restored. Later, the Chicago fire commissioner said that Foy's quick
thinking and heroic actions in calming some of the crowd had saved another
six hundred lives.
The loss of life in the Iroquois disaster created a national scandal that
inspired stringent theater safety regulations throughout America,
including the requirement of the common “panic doors” in today's theaters
that open outward from pressure on a bar. As a result, fires in theaters
have become comparatively rare, almost always occurring only when safety
regulations are evaded.