North East Digital Village
VILLAGE >IN MEMORY OF
In Memory of Fayard Nicholas
Born: 1914 in Mobile, Alabama
Deceased: January 24th, 2006 at age 91
Fayard Nicholas, the older brother of the legendary tap dancing Nicholas Brothers, died on January 24, 2006 of complications from a stroke suffered on November 22, 2005. The Nicholas Brothers danced, sang and inspired us for over sixty years. Their careers began when they were children, accompanying thier father, Ulysses D. Nicholas, a drummer and their mother, Viola Harden Nicholas, a pianist . Ulysses and Viola Nicholas were college educated musicians who performed as the Nicholas Collegians or accompanied other acts or silent films at the old Standard Theater in Philadelphia.
Fayard's younger brother, Harold Nicholas, was born in 1921 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and died on July 3, 2000. In 1932, when they were 18 and 11 years old, respectively, Fayard and Harold Nicholas were hired at the Cotton Club. Already seasoned professionals, Harold and Fayard went on to inspire generations of dancers, from Fred Astaire to the Hines brothers to Savion Glover. They performed with major bands, performed in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936, Babes in Arms and Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1936 in London.
In the 1960s they were featured in Hollywood Palace television specials, in 1982 Harold performed in the national tour of Sophisticated Ladies and in 1986 on Broadway in The Tap Dance Kid. The brothers and performed for the troops in Viet Nam in 1965. In 1991, the Nicholas Brothers received Kennedy Center Honors and honorary doctorate degrees from Harvard University. As tap masters, students they taught include Debbie Allen, Janet Jackson, and Michael Jackson. In 2003 the the Nicholas bothers were inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance & Hall of Fame.
VILLAGE >IN MEMORY OF
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