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Talented, amiable American actor and dancer Gregory Hines began tap dancing at age four with his brother Maurice in an act called the Hines Kids; the two later studied with tap whiz Henry LeTang, renamed themselves the Hines Brothers in 1962, and in 1964, teamed up with their father in an act called Hines, Hines, and Dad. The trio appeared on The Tonight Show and opened for big-name performers at a number of top-flight clubs. Hines left the trio in 1973, then spent five years in Venice, California, living what he called a "hippie" lifestyle and working with a jazz-rock band. In 1978 he returned to New York and, helped by his brother, auditioned for new shows, ultimately landing excellent parts in three musicals (Eubie!, Comin' Uptown, and Sophisticated Ladies); he received Tony nominations for each of the three shows. He finally received a Tony for his performance as Jelly Roll Morton in the Broadway show Jelly's Last Jam. All of this led to invitations from Hollywood, and he debuted onscreen in 1981's horror film Wolfen. He went on to make a few more films before landing a breakthrough role in Robert Evans's and Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984), one of the year's biggest movies; he also served as choreographer for that film. In 1988 he released an album titled Gregory Hines.