Richard Earl Thomas (born June 13, 1951) is an American actor. He is best known for his leading role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama series The Waltons for which he won an Emmy Award.[2] He also received another Emmy nomination and two Golden Globe Award nominations for that role.[3]
Thomas has a birthmark on his left cheek. He has stated that this led to his being turned down for a role in a television commercial in his youth.[5]
Thomas was educated at two private day schools for boys, first at Allen-Stevenson School,[1] and then at the now-defunct McBurney School, both in his home district of Manhattan, New York City.
He was a student at Columbia College, the undergraduate college of Columbia University, where he majored in Chinese before switching to the English department.[6] After he landed the role in The Waltons, he left Columbia during his junior year because he had to commit to the role full-time in Los Angeles.[7][8]
Beginning in 1972, Thomas became recognized worldwide for his portrayal of John-Boy Walton in the TV series The Waltons, based on the life story of writer Earl Hamner, Jr. He appeared in the original CBS television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story in 1971,[13] which inspired the commissioning of the otherwise largely recast series, The Waltons, and then played the role of John-Boy Walton continuously in 122 episodes. In March 1977, Thomas left the series and his role was taken over by Robert Wightman. However, Thomas returned to the role in three Waltons TV movies in the 1990s, including A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion in 1993.[14] Thomas won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1973.[15]
In 1980, Thomas made his first Broadway appearance in more than 12 years when he was a replacement in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July.[25] In the same year, he appeared as Shad (the young farmer entrusted to employ mercenaries to save his planet from Sador and his invading forces) in Battle Beyond the Stars.[26]
In 1987, he appeared on stage in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., in the one-man tour-de-force Citizen Tom Paine (playing Paine "like a star-spangled tiger, ferocious about freedom and ready to savage anyone who stands in his way," in a staging of Howard Fast's play set in the bicentennial year of the United States Constitution).[27] In 1990, he joined with Nathan Lane at the Mark Taper Forum[28] in Los Angeles for Terrence McNally's The Lisbon Traviata in the role of Stephan. In 1993, he played the title role in a Shakespeare Theater stage production of Richard II in Washington, D.C.[29]
As of January 2023, Thomas has been credited on Audible for narrating over 340 books.
Personal life
Thomas married Alma Gonzales in 1975.[44] In 1976, they had a son. Triplet daughters were born in 1981.[45] Thomas and Gonzales divorced in 1993.[46]
Thomas married Santa Fe art dealer Georgiana Bischoff on November 20, 1994[45][47] and their son was born in 1996. Richard adopted Bischoff's two daughters who were from previous marriages.[45] Thomas and Bischoff currently reside in New York.[48]
George Gaynes was a Dutch-American singer, actor, and voice artist. Born to Dutch and Russian-Finnish parents in the Grand Duchy of Finland of the Russian Empire, he served in the Royal Netherlands Navy during World War II, and subsequently emigrated to the United States, where he became a citizen and began his acting career on Broadway.
Marilyn Chris is an American actress. She is known for playing the role of Wanda Webb Wolek on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live. She starred Off-Broadway in Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish (1972), winning an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Variety Critics Poll, and a Drama Desk Award for her performance. In the 1980s, she appeared on Broadway in Brighton Beach Memoirs.
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Jack Weston was an American actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1976 and a Tony Award in 1981.
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↑ Louise Sweeney (1987). "On stage: reliving historic turning points. Howard Fast's 'Citizen Tom Paine'." The Christian Science Monitor. March 12, 1987)
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