Nicholas Brothers

The Nicholas Brothers were an entertainment act composed of brothers Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000), who excelled in a variety of dance techniques, primarily between the 1930s and 1950s. Best known for their unique interpretation of a highly acrobatic technique known as 'flash dancing', they were also considered by many to be the greatest tap dancers of their day, if not all time. Their virtuoso performance in the musical number 'Jumpin' Jive' (with Cab Calloway and his orchestra) featured in the 1943 movie Stormy Weather has been praised as one of the greatest dance routines ever captured on film.

Early lives

The brothers were born in the South to college-educated musician parents—a pianist mother and a drummer father—and grew up in Philadelphia. From age three, Fayard sat in the front row of the theater where his parents worked, absorbing the great African-American vaudeville acts of the era, including dancers like Alice Whitman and Bill Robinson. Neither brother received formal dance training; Fayard taught himself by imitating the professionals he saw, then taught his younger siblings. Harold learned by copying his older brother’s style.

They first performed as the Nicholas Kids with their sister Dorothy, who later left the act. By 1932, when Harold was eleven and Fayard eighteen, they became the featured act at Harlem’s Cotton Club, astonishing mainly white audiences with their hybrid style of tap, ballet, and acrobatics—often called flash dancing. They were the only African-American entertainers allowed to mingle with white patrons there.

Stage Career

Their Broadway debut came in the 1936 Ziegfeld Follies, where their routines consistently stopped the show. Choreographer George Balanchine, impressed by their talent, invited them to appear in a 1937 Rodgers and Hart production, and with his training they learned new stunts. After moving to Hollywood in 1940, they divided their time between films, nightclubs, concerts, and television, performing for troops in Vietnam in 1965 and for nine U.S. presidents. Despite racial prejudice at their home studio, Twentieth Century Fox, they appeared as guest artists in six films there, with Stormy Weather remaining their personal favorite.