His parents were stock players at Boston’s Tremont Street Theatre, where Laff (his childhood nickname) and his five siblings were often called upon to play juvenile roles.

Fox made his debut at the Tremont Street Theatre at the age of five, though in later years his younger brothers, Charles and James, and his sister Caroline were considered the more talented.

[1][2][3] Fox's brother James continued acting for several years, even while attending Harvard Law School and would later become a successful lawyer and four-term mayor of Cambridge.

[1][2] In 1852 Howard commissioned his wife's cousin George L. Aiken to write a dramatization of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Fox continued to surrounded himself with an increasingly competent group of comedians and acrobats that included his brother Charles, who had become popular as an actor and a pantomime Clown performer.

[4][full citation needed] When Fox returned from the war he resumed playing pantomime roles to Lower East Side audiences.

This problem was compounded by competition from younger artists who were performing in ever more spectacular productions each year and by an unscrupulous partner who made promises he could not honor.