Fayard Antonio Nicholas was an American choreographer, dancer, and actor. He and his younger brother Harold Nicholas made up the Nicholas Brothers tap-dance duo, who starred in the MGM musicals An All-Colored Vaudeville Show (1935).

Nicholas was born in Alabama but grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He learned to dance by watching vaudeville shows with along with his brother while their musician parents played in the orchestra. His father, Ulysses D. Nicholas, was a drummer and his mother, Viola Harden Nicholas, was a pianist.

In 1932, when he was 18 and his brother was only 11, they became the featured act at Cotton Club in New York City. The brothers earned fame with a unique style of rhythm tap that blended “masterful jazz steps with daredevil athletic moves and an elegance of motion worthy of ballet”.

His career was interrupted from 1943 to 1944 when he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Nicholas achieved the rank of Technician fifth grade while in WWII.

Fayard Nicholas was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 2001. Nicholas died in 2006 at the age of 91.

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http://www.nndb.com/people/899/000111566/

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source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayard_Nicholas