Eddie Leonard

Eddie Leonard, born Lemuel Gordon Toney in Richmond, Virginia, was a vaudevillian and minstrel performer whose Broadway career spanned from 1904 to 1919. His birth date is listed variously as October 17, 1870, October 18, 1875, or 1871, and he died on July 28, 1941. His 1941 obituary in Time magazine referred to him as the "last of the great minstrels." He published a memoir, What a Life I'm Telling You, in 1934.

Toney grew up in the Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond, later moving with his family to South Richmond and Manchester. At twelve years old, he began performing at Putnam's Theatre Comique on East Franklin Street in Richmond, adopting the stage name Eddie Leonard. During his youth he also worked as a water boy at Tredegar Iron Works on Belle Isle and performed alongside Bill Robinson in Richmond. Before committing fully to entertainment, Leonard briefly pursued baseball, trying out for John McGraw and playing center field for the Baltimore Orioles. While in the clubhouse, he sang and danced for the players, where George H. Primrose discovered him and brought him into the minstrel world. Leonard subsequently performed with the George Primrose Minstrels.

In 1890, Leonard departed Richmond with a road show, eventually reaching New York City, where he was hired for McFadden's Flats. Around 1900 he joined Jack Haverly's minstrel show, and in 1903 he performed alongside Primrose and Decker. He developed a ragtime vocal style he called "syncopated syllabication" and became known for his soft-shoe dancing. Among the more than 40 songs he wrote over his career, "Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider" sold 500,000 copies. He was also associated with "Roly Boly Eyes" and "Big Brown Booloo Eyes."

Leonard's Broadway appearances included Lifting the Lid, Lew Dockstader's Minstrels, and the Cohan and Harris Minstrels in 1908, the latter backed by George M. Cohan. He also appeared in the musical The Southerners. His musical comedy Roly-Boly Eyes set a house record at the Knickerbocker Theatre in Manhattan in 1919. By 1910, his weekly salary had reached $6,000. Leonard performed in vaudeville for 45 years before the medium declined in the 1920s, frequently appearing alongside his wife, Mabel Russell, whom he married in 1908 and who was herself a vaudeville performer.

Leonard appeared in the 1929 film Melody Lane as well as The Minstrel Show that same year, and later in If I Had My Way in 1940. In 1932, a planned tour with Walter C. Kelly, Joe Frisco, Dannie Dare, Eddie Miller, and George Price was cancelled. Later in life he operated a bar and grill in Brooklyn called Eddie Leonard Minstrel Bar and Grill, which closed after six years. For a period he resided at the Imperial Hotel at Broadway and 31st Street in New York City, and at the time of his death he and his wife were living at the King Edward Hotel at 120 West 44th Street. He was found dead on July 29, 1941, at the Imperial Hotel, having been reported missing by his wife the previous evening; his death is estimated to have occurred on July 28. He was buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Queens, New York.