Richard's parents are both former principal dancers for the New York
City Ballet. They were on tour in Cuba when he was born, and the first
language he learned was Spanish. He began acting at the age of 7.
Growing up on West 96th Street, he attended McBurney High School and
Columbia University.
Although he moved to Los Angeles in 1971, Richard still considers
himself a Westsider. "I just know it like the back of my hand," he says.
"I'm not sure I could live without LA anymore, but whenever I'm here,
I feel completely at home. There's a kind of underground chic on the
Upper West Side that I kind of respond to. I'm very comfortable around
Spanish-speaking people. I speak Spanish, and my wife is part Mexican.
I like the Latin flavor."
He and his wife Alma have been married since 1975; they have a 2-year old son, also named Richard Thomas. "He talks a blue streak," comments the proud father. "Sometimes he gets very blue. You have to watch what you say around him."
In 1994 the young actor published his first book of poetry. Titled simply Poems by Richard Thomas, it won the California Robert Frost Award the following year. His second volume of poetry, In The Moment, is scheduled for publication by Avon early in 1979.
Another of his prime interests is music. "I'm a big operagoer," he says. "I'm really partial to Verdi and Wagner, if you have to get it down to two." He also plays the dulcimer. "When I go to Kentucky this week, I'm going to call on a man who's one of the great dulcimer makers in the United States."
The three-stringed mountain instrument, an important component in the folk music of Appalachia, caught Richard's fancy long ago, during a visit to his grandfather's Kentucky farm, where he spent many summers as a boy. Both of his grandparents on his father's side are still living. Like an episode from The Waltons, the family often gathers at the farm on Thanksgiving Day.
The original Roots was seen by more people than any other program in the history of television, but Richard does not dwell on his important role in Roots II. He prefers to talk about the fulfillment he has found in marriage.
"I can't imagine not being married at this point," he says, the thick gold band gleaming on his finger. "If my marriage weren't happy, I couldn't make the right kind of career decisions. One supports the other. They're part of the same package." Does he expect to have more children? Richard smiles broadly and replies: "That's really my wife's department."
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EASTSIDER ANDY WARHOL
Pop artist and publisher of Interview magazine