Fred Foy
March 27, 1921 – December 22, 2010
Born Frederick William Foy, Fred Foy the announcer who made famous the lead in to the Lone Ranger died recently on 22nd December 2010 at the age of 89.
Foy was born in Detroit in 1921, graduated from that city's Eastern High School in 1938 and landed a job on the announcing staff of radio station WXYZ in Detroit in 1942. He was drafted into the Army that year and served in an Armed Forces Radio unit in Cairo during World War II.
Fred Foy returned to WXYZ in 1946 after the war was over and worked as an announcer on Challenge of the Yukon and occasionally as acting support on The Green Hornet.
He took over the position of announcer and narrator for radio's The Lone Ranger beginning July 2, 1948 and continuing until the series ended on September 3, 1954.
Radio historian Jim Harmon, who called him "perhaps the greatest announcer-narrator in the history of radio drama” said, “Foy's dramatic introduction and narration, performed in a powerful baritone, were so good it made many people forget there were others before him."
Fred Foy also understudied the Lone Ranger part and stepped into the role on March 29, 1954 when Brace Beemer had laryngitis. His long run as announcer and narrator of The Lone Ranger made Foy's distinctive voice a radio trademark.
In the early 1960’s Fred Foy was a staff announcer for the ABC network and among his television announcing duties he was the announcer on the radio suspense and science fiction drama Theater Five, so called because of the time it was broadcast each day. He worked on this radio program from 1964 until 1965, the end of the golden age of radio.
Fred Foy worked on the staff of the ABC television network until he retired in 1985 and narrated network documentary specials in tribute to Sir Winston Churchill, JFK and Herbert Hoover.
He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2000 and received the Golden Voice of Radio Award at the 2004 Golden Boot Awards.
He died of natural causes at his Woburn, Massachusetts home and is survived by his wife of 63 years, Frances Foy, their three children Nancy Foy, Wendy Foy Griffiths, Fritz Foy and three grandchildren.
Happy listening my friends,
