# Nicholas Brothers
The Nicholas Brothers were an American tap dance duo consisting of the brothers Fayard Nicholas (1914–2006) and [Harold Nicholas](https://www.edgepedia.org/harold-nicholas) (1921–2000), known for an acrobatic style that fused tap, ballet, and jazz dance, often called "flash dancing."[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nicholas-brothers) • [2](https://dance-teacher.com/the-nicholas-brothers/) Performing from childhood into the 1990s, they appeared in vaudeville, at Harlem's Cotton Club, on Broadway, in more than fifty films, and on television, and they received the [Kennedy Center Honors](https://www.edgepedia.org/kennedy-center-honors) and the National Medal of Arts late in life.[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Members | Fayard Antonio Nicholas (born Mobile, Alabama, 1914; died January 24, 2006) and Harold Lloyd Nicholas (born Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1921; died July 3, 2000)[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) |
| Signature style | A fusion of tap, ballet, and acrobatics known as "flash" dancing, marked by mid-air splits, leaps over each other's heads, and elegant arm movements[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nicholas-brothers) • [2](https://dance-teacher.com/the-nicholas-brothers/) |
| Breakthrough | Cotton Club debut in 1932, sharing the stage with Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, and Lena Horne[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) |
| Hollywood contract | Their "Down Argentina Way" number in Down Argentine Way (1940) won them a five-year contract with 20th Century-Fox[4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) |
| Most famous routine | The "Jumpin' Jive" staircase finale in Stormy Weather (1943), which Fred Astaire called the greatest dance number ever filmed[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) |
| Major honors | Kennedy Center Honors (1991), star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1994), National Medal of Arts (2004)[4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) • [3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) |
| Last film together | The Pirate (1948), featuring the "Be a Clown" number with Gene Kelly[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nicholas-brothers) |
## Origins and self-training
Fayard Antonio Nicholas was born in [Mobile, Alabama](https://www.edgepedia.org/mobile-alabama), in 1914, and Harold Lloyd Nicholas followed in 1921 in [Winston-Salem, North Carolina](https://www.edgepedia.org/winston-salem-north-carolina). Their parents, Ulysses and Viola Nicholas, were college-educated musicians who performed in the pit orchestra at the Standard Theatre in Philadelphia, and the brothers learned by watching the vaudeville acts from the wings; Fayard taught himself to perform and then taught his younger brother.[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) Apart from some acrobatics courses Harold took later, the brothers had no formal dance training.[6](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/celebrating-the-nicholas-brothers-81654367/)
The three Nicholas siblings, including sister Dorothy, debuted as "The Nicholas Kids" in Philadelphia around 1927, and the brothers' duo emerged from that act.[7](https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/fayard-nicholas-38) Their father, a drummer, and their mother, a stride pianist, rhythmically challenged the boys, and Fayard at first had to transpose rhythms for his left-handed brother.[8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/27/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries)
## The Cotton Club and Broadway
In 1932 the brothers opened at Harlem's Cotton Club, where the performers were Black and the patrons white, appearing alongside [Ethel Waters](https://www.edgepedia.org/ethel-waters), Duke Ellington, and [Cab Calloway](https://www.edgepedia.org/cab-calloway); by their mid-teens they were among the most talked-about acts in New York.[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) • [4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) Their film career began the same year with the short Pie Pie Blackbird, featuring Eubie Blake and his band.[4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/)
On Broadway they appeared in the [Ziegfeld Follies](https://www.edgepedia.org/ziegfeld-follies) of 1936 with [Bob Hope](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-hope) and [Fanny Brice](https://www.edgepedia.org/fanny-brice), and in 1937 in the Rodgers and Hart musical Babes in Arms, where the ballet choreographer George Balanchine coached them; Balanchine is credited with devising Harold's slide through the legs of a line of showgirls in a split.[4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) • [9](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1988/02/15/flash-act)
## Hollywood
The brothers never starred in a feature film. Jim Crow customs kept them from speaking parts and leading roles, and their numbers were credited as "specialty" acts, excisable from films without disturbing the plot.[10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2006/01/26/fayard-nicholas-91/26a6cad8-a4fd-4aab-af2b-56c664aecf5e/) • [11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400309.2025.2550790) Their Down Argentine Way number in 1940 nonetheless won them a five-year contract with 20th Century-Fox, and they contributed acrobatic dances to [Tin Pan Alley](https://www.edgepedia.org/tin-pan-alley), The Great American Broadcast, Sun Valley Serenade (where they performed "Chattanooga Choo Choo" with [Dorothy Dandridge](https://www.edgepedia.org/dorothy-dandridge)), Orchestra Wives, Stormy Weather, and The Pirate.[4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) • [5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html)
**Stormy Weather.** Their climactic routine in the 1943 all-Black musical has the brothers leaping off a grand piano into full splits, leaping over each other's heads in splits down a staircase, and sliding down two ramps on the final descent. [Fred Astaire](https://www.edgepedia.org/fred-astaire) described it as the greatest dance number he had ever seen, and Fayard recalled that the staircase sequence was shot in one take.[12](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/fayard-nicholas-6110595.html) • [5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) The tap dancer [Gregory Hines](https://www.edgepedia.org/gregory-hines) compared the number to Shakespeare, saying generation after generation would be amazed by it.[12](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/fayard-nicholas-6110595.html)
World War II effectively ended their film run: Fayard was drafted into the Army in 1942, while Harold, who weighed less than 100 pounds, was exempt and performed solo.[12](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/fayard-nicholas-6110595.html) After Fayard's discharge, Fox let both contracts lapse. At [Gene Kelly](https://www.edgepedia.org/gene-kelly)'s insistence the brothers reunited on screen for MGM's The Pirate (1948), dancing with Kelly in "Be a Clown"; originally they had speaking roles, but the studio cut them.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) • [6](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/celebrating-the-nicholas-brothers-81654367/)
## Later career
In 1948 the brothers gave a royal command performance at the [London Palladium](https://www.edgepedia.org/london-palladium), and over their careers they danced for nine U.S. presidents.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) In the 1950s, facing limited opportunities for African American performers in American film, they worked largely in Europe; when Fayard returned to the United States in 1958, Harold stayed in France and built a solo career, and the duo did not perform together for seven years.[4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) • [8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/27/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries) They reunited on American television in 1964 on The Hollywood Palace.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html)
A 2025 study of their television work argues that from 1951 to 1977 the brothers toured the world and appeared on variety programs, developing a looser, more overtly sensual style than their 1940s Hollywood persona allowed; their performance on The Jacksons was likely their final screen appearance of the 1970s.[11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400309.2025.2550790) Both brothers later took solo work in dance and dramatic roles, including Fayard in The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970) and Harold in Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Tap (1989).[1](https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nicholas-brothers) • [4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/)
## Style
The brothers described their own approach as "classical tap": "We were tap dancers, but we put more style into it, more bodywork, instead of just footwork," Harold said in a 1987 interview.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) The dance scholar Constance Valis Hill, author of *Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers* (2000), analyzes their "classical jazz tap" as a synthesis of adagio ballroom synchronization, Africanist-inflected stage and social dance of the teens and twenties, the flash acrobatics of turn-of-the-century Black comedy dance, the elegance of the class act, and the rhythmic drive of the challenge dance.[13](https://academic.oup.com/book/39127/chapter-abstract/338545123) Their film numbers often used a challenge structure in which one brother "showed off" and the other answered with a more complex combination.[11](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400309.2025.2550790)
## Influence and honors
Their influence runs through later generations of dancers: Bob Fosse modeled his first dance act on them, Joseph Jackson hired Fayard to help train the Jackson 5, and Michael and Janet Jackson later studied with the brothers.[6](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/celebrating-the-nicholas-brothers-81654367/) Mikhail Baryshnikov called them "the most amazing dancers I have ever seen in my life," and their admirers also included Gene Kelly and George Balanchine.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) • [6](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/celebrating-the-nicholas-brothers-81654367/)
Recognition came late. Fayard won a Tony Award in 1989 for co-choreographing the Broadway revue Black and Blue, the brothers received Kennedy Center Honors in 1991, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994, and the National Medal of Arts in 2004, presented at the White House.[5](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html) • [4](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/) • [3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) Harold Nicholas died on July 3, 2000, and Fayard Nicholas died on January 24, 2006, at his home in Toluca Lake, California, after a stroke.[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) • [10](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2006/01/26/fayard-nicholas-91/26a6cad8-a4fd-4aab-af2b-56c664aecf5e/)
One detail of the record remains unsettled: most sources, including the family estate and CMG Worldwide, give Fayard's birth date as October 28, 1914, while The Guardian and The HistoryMakers give October 20, 1914.[3](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/) • [8](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/27/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries)
## References
1. [Nicholas Brothers, The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., via Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nicholas-brothers)
2. [The Nicholas Brothers: Tap Dancing With Flash and Class, Dance Teacher](https://dance-teacher.com/the-nicholas-brothers/)
3. [The Nicholas Brothers, Official Estate](https://thenicholasbrothers.com/)
4. [The Nicholas Brothers, CMG Worldwide](https://www.cmgww.com/stars/the-nicholas-brothers/)
5. [Fayard Nicholas, 91; He Was Elder Half of Tap-Dancing Nicholas Brothers, Los Angeles Times (2006)](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-26-me-nicholas26-story.html)
6. [Celebrating the Nicholas Brothers, Smithsonian Magazine (2011)](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/celebrating-the-nicholas-brothers-81654367/)
7. [Fayard Nicholas Biography, The HistoryMakers](https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/fayard-nicholas-38)
8. [Fayard Nicholas obituary, The Guardian (2006)](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/27/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries)
9. [Flash Act, The New Yorker (1988)](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1988/02/15/flash-act)
10. [Fayard Nicholas, 91; Astonishing Dancer, The Washington Post (2006)](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2006/01/26/fayard-nicholas-91/26a6cad8-a4fd-4aab-af2b-56c664aecf5e/)
11. ["World-famous": the Nicholas Brothers' Black stardom on television, 1951–1977, New Review of Film and Television Studies (2025)](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17400309.2025.2550790)
12. [Fayard Nicholas obituary, The Independent (2006)](https://www.the-independent.com/news/obituaries/fayard-nicholas-6110595.html)
13. [Converging Styles: 1942–1945, Brotherhood in Rhythm, Oxford University Press (2021)](https://academic.oup.com/book/39127/chapter-abstract/338545123)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Theater and dance › Dance and ballet › Dance forms beyond ballet › Vernacular, tap, and jazz stage dance*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license