Fostell, Al Emmett, 1856-1920

Al Emmett Fostell (born Foster), minstrel show and variety performer, theatrical manager, and operator of a traveling dime museum, began his career in 1872 performing for New Yorkers at clam bakes and picnics with the monologist Frank Bush. As a teenager in the 1870s he appeared with Birch, Backus, Wambold, and White's Junior Minstrels (named after the senior troupe), worked in a musical and slack wire act, and changed his name to Fostell. In the early 1880s he toured the American South and West, particularly Texas, and later claimed to have performed in Mexico in the 1880s. For a time he managed a theater in New Orleans where he produced the opening acts and afterpieces of each evening's entertainment.

In 1885 Fostell joined Keith & Batcheler's stock company in Boston where he met his wife, the singer Florence Emmett. By 1887 the couple was appearing together as Fostell and Emmett, the Dutch [German dialect] Musical Comedy Team. Fostell played Fritz the German Musician, accompanied by his wife's comedic yodeling. The Fostells' daughter Gilberta Fostell (stage name Vesta Gilbert) joined her parents' act in 1913. Fostell and Emmett was by far the family's most successful act, performed for twenty-eight years until Fostell's retirement from the stage in 1915.

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