As a performer Following his first exposure to a performance by the
Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo – while visiting relatives in Seattle, Washington – he entered the tutelage of Russian ballet dancer and choreographer
Bronislava Nijinska in Los Angeles, and
Vincenzo Celli and in New York. Thomas subsequently appeared on Broadway in
Kiss Me Kate and
Billion Dollar Baby. During his early career with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and Ballet Theatre, Thomas met fellow dancer Barbara Fallis, whom he married in Cuba in 1950 while both were on tour with the Company Alicia Alonso (later the
National Ballet of Cuba). Their son – future Emmy-winning actor and
The Waltons star
Richard Thomas – was born a year later. Thomas's first teaching experience also occurred there, when
Fernando Alonso attempted to develop a school by selecting pupils from a local orphanage and asked Thomas to assist. Thomas left the New York City Ballet in 1958 to join the circus but soon returned to the city to indulge his overriding desire to teach.
As a teacher Thomas, who was known by his friends and pupils as "Dick" or "Dicky," first joined Harry Asmus at a school on Broadway and 54th Street, chiefly working with students from the High School of the Performing Arts. He later was employed at the schools of
June Taylor and
Robert Joffrey, whose company he escorted to Russia. In 1963 he abandoned a position at
American Ballet Theatre to open what would become the New York School of Ballet on West 56th Street, with his wife. Thomas and Fallis alternated shifts at the Pennsylvania Ballet in Philadelphia to fund their fledgling school, out of which
Eliot Feld founded the American Ballet Company. ==References==