Richard Thomas

Richard Scott Thomas (December 3, 1925 – July 27, 2013) was an American dancer, educator, and co-founder of the New York School of Ballet along with his wife Barbara Fallis. He is known as a teacher of Eliot Feld and Twyla Tharp.

Early life Thomas was born on December 3, 1925, in Paintsville, Kentucky. His father was a coal miner and his mother a nurse. At the encouragement of his father, Thomas enrolled one semester at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, intending to pursue an engineering degree.

Dancing career 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.