Nicholas Brothers

The Nicholas Brothers in Stormy Weather

The Nicholas Brothers were a famous African American team of dancing brothers, Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000). With their highly acrobatic technique ("flash dancing"), high level of artistry and daring innovations, they were considered by many the greatest tap dancers of their day. Growing up surrounded by Vaudeville acts as children, they became stars of the jazz circuit during the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance and went on to have successful careers performing on stage, film, and television well into the 1990s.

Biographies

Fayard Antonio Nicholas was born October 20, 1914 in Mobile, Alabama.^[1] Harold Lloyd Nicholas was born March 17, 1921 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.^[1]

The Nicholas Brothers grew up in Philadelphia, the sons of musicians who played in their own band at the old Standard Theater, their mother at the piano and father on drums. At the age of three, Fayard was always seated in the front row while his parents worked, and by the time he was ten, he had seen most of the great African American Vaudeville acts, particularly the dancers, including such notables of the time as Alice Whitman, Willie Bryant and Bill Robinson.^[2] Neither Fayard nor Harold had any formal dance training.^[3]

They became the featured act at Harlem's Cotton Club in 1932, when Harold was 11 and Fayard was 18. They were the only entertainers in the African American cast allowed to mingle with white patrons.^[3][4]

In that exhilarating hybrid of tap dance, ballet and acrobatics, sometimes called acrobatic dancing or "flash dancing," no individual or group surpassed the effect that the Nicholas Brothers had on audiences and on other dancers.^[1]

The brothers made their Broadway debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and also appeared in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's legendary musical Babes in Arms in 1937.

By 1940, they were in Hollywood and for several decades alternated between movies, nightclubs, concerts, Broadway, television, and extensive tours of Latin America, Africa, and Europe.^[1]

The Nicholas Brothers taught master classes in tap dance as teachers-in-residence at Harvard University and Radcliffe as Ruth Page Visiting Artists. Among their known students are Debbie Allen, Janet Jackson, and Michael Jackson.^[2] Several of today's master tap dancers have performed with or been taught by the brothers: Dianne Walker, Sam Weber, Lane Alexander, Mark Mendonca, Terry Brock,^[5] Colburn Kids Tap/L.A, Channing Cook Holmes,^[6] Chris Baker, Artis Brienzo, Chester Whitmore, Tobius Tak,^[7] Carol Zee and Steve Zee.^[8]

Harold died July 3, 2000 of a heart attack following minor surgery.^[9][10] Fayard died January 24, 2006 of pneumonia after having a stroke.^[3]

Personal lives

Fayard

Fayard married three times:

• Geraldine Pate (1934 – 1942);^[11] two children, Tony and Paul Nicholas^[12]
• Barbara January (1967–1998) (until her death);
• Katherine Hopkins (2000 – 24 January 2006) (until his death)

Fayard was a member of the Bahá'í Faith since 1967.^[13]

Upon his death his memorial service was standing room only. Presided over by Mary Jean Valente of A Ceremony of the Heart, the service was a moving collection of personal tributes, music and dance and as appropriate, one last standing ovation.^[14]

Two of Fayard's granddaughters dance as the Nicholas Sisters and have achieved awards for their performances.^[4][15]

Harold

Harold was also married three times.^[12] He was first married to singer and actress Dorothy Dandridge from 1942 to 1951. The couple had one child, Harolyn Nicholas, who was born severely mentally handicapped. Harold lived on New York's Upper West Side for approximately twenty years (until his death) with his third wife, Swedish-born, Rigmor Alfredsson Newman, a producer and former Miss Sweden.

Style and moves

One of their signature moves was to dance down a huge flight of broad stairs, leapfrogging over each other and landing in a complete split on each step. This move was performed in the finale of their most famous performance, the movie Stormy Weather (see photo above).^[3] Fred Astaire once told the brothers that the "Jumpin' Jive" dance number in Stormy Weather was the greatest movie musical sequence he had ever seen.^[3] In that famous routine, the Nicholas Brothers fearlessly and exuberantly leap across the music stands of the orchestra and dance on the top of a grand piano in a call and response act with the pianist.^[3]

One of their signature moves was a "no-hands" splits, where they went into the splits and returned to their feet without using their hands.^[3] Gregory Hines declared that if their biography was ever filmed, their dance numbers would have to be computer generated because no one could duplicate them.^[3] Ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov once called them the most amazing dancers he had ever seen in his life.

Filmography

• "Pie, Pie Blackbird" (1932) (short subject)
• The Emperor Jones (1933) (Harold Nicholas)
• "Syncopancy" (1933) (short subject) (Harold Nicholas)
• Kid Millions (1934)
• "An All-Colored Vaudeville Show" (1935) (short subject)
• The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935)
• Coronado (1936)
• "The Black Network" (1936) (short subject)
• My American Wife (1936)
• Babes in Arms (1937)
• Calling All Stars (1937)
• My Son Is Guilty (1939)
• Down Argentine Way (1940)
• Tin Pan Alley (1940)
• The Great American Broadcast (1941)
• Sun Valley Serenade (1941)
• Orchestra Wives (1942)
• Stormy Weather (1943)
• Take It or Leave It (1944)
• The Reckless Age (1944) (Harold Nicholas)
• Carolina Blues (1944) (Harold Nicholas)
• "Dixieland Jamboree" (1946) (short subject)
• The Pirate (1948)
• Pathe News Reel (1948)
• Botta e Riposta (1951)
• El Misterio del carro express (1953)
• El Mensaje de la muerte (1953)
• Musik im Blut (1955)
• Bonjour Kathrin (1956)
• L'Empire de la nuit (1963) (Harold Nicholas)
• The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970) (Fayard Nicholas)
• Uptown Saturday Night (1974) (Harold Nicholas)
• That's Entertainment! (1974) (archive footage)
• Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (1975) (archive footage)
• Disco 9000 (1976) (Harold Nicholas)
• That's Dancing! (1985) (archive footage)
• Tap (1989) (Harold Nicholas)
• That's Black Entertainment (1990) (archive footage)
• The Five Heartbeats (1990) (Harold Nicholas)
• "Alright" (Janet Jackson song) and video (1992)
• The Nicholas Brothers: We Sing and We Dance (1992)
• Funny Bones (1995) (Harold Nicholas)
• I Used to Be in Pictures (2000)
• Night at the Golden Eagle (2002) (Fayard Nicholas)
• Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003)
• Hard Four (2005)

Awards

• Harold has received the Dea Award from the Dance Educators of America^[16]
• Harold received the Bay Area Critics Circle Award (Best Principal Performance, Stompin' at the Savoy)^[16]
• Harold received the Harbor Performing Arts Center Lifetime Achievement Award^[16]
• honorary doctorate from Harvard University for both brothers^[2]
• Black Film makers Hall of Fame (1978)^[16]
• A retrospective of their work in films on the Academy Awards television special (1981)^[16]
• Ellie Award (1984), National Film Society for both brothers^[16]
• Apollo Theater's Hall of Fame (1986), First Class Inductees for both brothers^[16]
• Ebony Lifetime Achievement Award (1987) for both brothers^[16]
• Fayard received Broadway's 1989 Tony Award as Best Choreographer for "Black and Blue" along with his collaborators Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang and Frankie Manning.^[4]
• Scripps American Dance Festival Award^[17]
• Kennedy Center Honors in 1991 for both brothers who were in attendance^[1][16]
• The National Black Media Coalition Lifetime Achievement Award (1992)^[16]
• Flo-Bert Award (1992)^[16]
• New York's Tap Dance Committee, Gypsy Award (1994)^[16]
• A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7083 Hollywood Blvd (1994)^[16]
• Professional Dancer's Society, Dance Magazine Award of (1995)^[16]
• Carnegie Hall sold out for a tribute to the brothers in 1998^[18]
• National Museum of Dance Inductees (2001)^[19]
• The brothers' home movies were selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry in 2011.^[20]

Further reading

• Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers by Constance Valis Hill, ISBN 0-19-513166-5

References

See also

• Kalamazoo,Michigan

External links

• Five-minute sequence from Stormy Weather from Google Video. Fred Astaire said this sequence, by the Nicholas brothers, was the finest piece of tap dancing ever filmed.
• Jitterbuzz Lindy Week Review interview with Fayard Nicholas
• Performing Arts Gliding Off the Dance Floor: Fayard Nicholas by Terry Gross
• Remembrances Dancer-Choreographer Fayard Nicholas
• Remembrances Inspiration to Astaire, Dancer Fayard Nicholas by Joel Rose
• Harold Nicholas obituary

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