1970s Child Star From a Legendary Music Group Dead at 64
Foster Sylvers was a member of the chart-topping R&B group, The Sylvers, who released the iconic song "Boogie Fever" as well as "Fool's Paradise" and "Hot Line." As reported by TMZ, Leon Sylvers III revealed that Foster died in hospice after a battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He was 64.
Foster was born on February 25, 1962, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was only 11 when he started his music career, back in 1973. His self-titled debut album was a huge success, with the lead single "Misdemeanor" reaching No. 7 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Later on, Foster joined The Sylvers (which were previously known as Little Angels) along with his brothers and sisters. Overall, there were ten siblings in the family. Nine of them performed in the band at different periods, with only the youngest in the family never performing.
The group disbanded in 1985. This was the same year that the youngest brother, Christopher, died at the age of 18. Their other sibling, Edmund, died in 2004 of lung cancer.
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After news of Foster's passing broke, his daughter, Erin, posted to her social media to say, "You fought a good fight and ran your race the best you could. I'm happy you're no longer suffering."
Holly Robinson Peete also posted about the news, admitting that he was her childhood crush. She said, "When I was 13 years old, I got the assignment of a lifetime: interviewing Foster and his siblings from the Sylvers for a show called Kidsworld. They were performing at Magic Mountain in LA and I showed up with a camera crew ready to be a professional journalist. The problem? I was so hopelessly in love with Foster that I completely tanked the interview. I mean, that face was just so ridiculously cute. I couldn't focus, couldn't get my questions out, and spent most of the time just staring at him. I was so bad, I ended up getting fired from the assignment. Years later, I had the chance to tell Foster that story, and we laughed about it together. He was gracious, kind, and every bit as charming as my 13-year-old self remembered him to be."
Despite his success, Foster faced legal troubles after leaving the group. According to Page Six, "Sylvers was convicted of a sex offense in 1994 for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, and had to register as a sex offender in the state of California."
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This story was originally published June 1, 2026 at 12:35 PM.