The porter threatens to shoot him, causing the unwanted rival to leave and return with his own pistol. His first film was The Railroad Porter (also released as The Pullman Porter), a two-reeler in which the title character discovers his wife with another man, a waiter. Bolstered by these contacts, Foster founded a company to make films for African American audiences.įoster followed the taste of the times in producing short slapstick comedies. In this capacity he met many Black vaudeville artists.

With the 1906 opening of Chicago’s Pekin Theater, one of the emporiums catering to Black audiences (the most famous of which was the Apollo in Harlem), Foster moved to the Windy City as the booking agent for the new venue. In the latter role, he covered the Black entertainment scene for the Chicago Defender and other publications. Using the pen name of Juli Jones, he also worked as an actor and a journalist. He worked as a publicist for Black performers, most notably the comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker. Not much is known of Foster’s early life.

Race films were to provide Black audiences with realistic alternatives to demeaning Hollywood stereotypes in the period 1913-1950. Although his company only lasted a few years, Foster managed to rack up a number of firsts that paved the way for the 20th century “race film” industry. He was the first African American to establish a movie production organization, the Foster Photoplay Company, which he started in Chicago in 1910. “Bill” Foster was a late 19th/ early 20th century showman who was among the first to prove the commercial viability of making Black-cast films and marketing them to Black audiences.

Foster Fox by William D. Writer