American actor who played minor guest roles for 15 years on TV, stage (“Hair”) and films (“Black Fist, “Sparkle”) before hitting it big in the mid-‘80s with the smash-hit TV cop show “Miami Vice” (1984-1989). He appeared on Broadway in “No Place to be Somebody,” did a few movies and some spots on various TV series. Then came “Miami Vice” from 1984 to 1989.
Thomas was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of a Westinghouse plant foreman and his wife. He had seven half brothers and sisters. He moved with the family to Los Angeles in 1951, and soon entered school talent shows and started acting in his church’s theater group. At 15, he led the Pentecostal Delman Heights Four Square Gospel Church choir. He thought about becoming a minister and had a one-year scholarship to Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala., where his studies included religion and philosophy. After a year, he enrolled at the University of California at Riverside, saw a production of “Hair” and decided he wanted to get into show business. Without acting lessons, he auditioned, landed a role, then eventually quit school to concentrate on acting.
He so loved his period of fame and was so full of himself that a national magazine introduced him as “The ego has landed.” When Miami Vice went off the air in 1989, things changed fast for Thomas; he became an instant nobody in Hollywood. In 1997, former co-star Don Johnson invited Thomas to do a guest shot on Johnson’s hit series, “Nash Bridges.” He was so desperate for work, anything, that he said, “It took like five seconds to say yes.” Thomas did work after “Miami Vice,” but everything flopped, including two albums that he released. He did a few overseas projects (a detective series now playing in Europe) and a 1995 infomercial for the Psychic Connection. He co-produced a children’s show that aired in Costa Rica, and still owns and operates Miamiway, an experimental theater in North Miami.
He was most recently in the news in 1998 following a bank foreclosure on his Miami Beach home that he shared with a longtime girlfriend and their five children. In addition to the five kids, he has seven others from previous relationships.
Link to Wikipedia biography