Actor Richard Thomas was the actor who brought to life probably everybody’s favorite older brother on The Waltons, the swooped hair, John-Boy Walton, based on the true story of the life of Earl Hamner, Jr.
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Richard Earl Thomas, born in 1951, had a successful career in the ’70s through the 90s. He made his debut on Broadway in Sunrise at Campobello. In 1959 he appeared in a presentation of A Doll’s House. From there, he began acting on TV, including Bonanza, Red Sky at Morning, Last Summer. He was acting sporadically and in college at Columbia College when he was offered the leading role of John-boy Walton, where he ended up appearing in 122 episodes. This includes specials like The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.
One of his first roles was on the tv show The Edge of Night. His first recurring role was in another called, A Flame in the Wind. When offered the Waltons gig, He left school to pursue the role full-time. His work paid off; his portrayal earned him an Emmy award, two Golden Globe nominees, and two additional Emmy Award nominations.
After The Waltons, Thomas continued acting in multiple TV shows and films, including Promised Land, The Adventures of Swiss Family Robinson, Roots: The next generation, The Blacklist, Just Cause, You’ll Like My Mother, CBS’s All Quiet on the Western Front as Paul Baumer, TV film The Master of Ballantrae, and Bill Denbrough in a miniseries of Stephen King’s It in 1990. He returned to Broadway for the first time in over a decade to produce the Fifth of July. He was also in Battle Beyond the Stars. He’s recently acted in As You Like It, Michael Frayn’s Democracy on broadway, and an off-Broadway production of The Stendhal Syndrome. On FX, Thomas was Frank Gaad in The Americans, an fx spy thriller show set during the cold war. Returning to broadway again in 2017, Thomas was in The Little Foxes and received a Tony Award nominee.
In his personal life, Richard Thomas is a settled man. He is married to a Santa Fe art dealer, Georgiana Bischoff. The two had one son in 1996; they named him Montana. Currently, they live in Manhattan, New York.