page_title: Peter F. Dailey
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Peter F. Dailey / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Comedian Peter F. Dailey ca. 1890s
context_page_description: Peter Francis Dailey was an American burlesque comedian and singer who became popular during the era remembered as the Gay Nineties.
context_section_description: Peter Dailey took to the stage at the age eight at the Globe Theatre on Broadway, where became popular performing the Barn Door Reel, a popular dance of the day.
  Later he joined Whitney's Circus as an acrobat and clown before finding success with a vaudeville troupe called "The American Four", with James F. Hoey, Pete Gale, and Joe Pettingill. After the troupe disbanded, Dailey performed for three years at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston, where for a season he played Le Blanc in the extravaganza Evangeline. His breakout role came in New York in 1892 playing Jack Potsand Poole in A Straight Tip, with James T. Powers.
  Over the following seasons Bailey would find success in such farce comedies as A Country Sport by John J. McNally at the Hollis Street Theatre and The Night Clerk with Jennie Yeamans and Raymond Hitchcock. After these engagements Dailey became a regular performer with Weber and Fields in New York. In 1900 he starred with Christie MacDonald in the musical comedy Hodge, Podge and Co, based on Im Himmelhof, a German farce adapted by George V. Hobart and in 1902 with Ada Lewis in Augustus Thomas' Champaign Charley.
  Dailey would remain demand performing in a number of productions over the remainder of the first decade of the new century. His last performance came in 1908 in The Merry Widow Burlesque with May Irwin.
caption: Library of Congress
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "26"}