Howd you manage that elusive transition from child star to successful, well-balanced adult actor?
I wasn’t a child star, I was a child actora very big difference. I was raised backstage, in the world of the ballet [Thomas’ parents, former dancers, ran the New York School of Ballet on the Upper West Side]. So we were a theater family. I was free of the child-actor thing of being a vicarious player for the parents. It was in that sense healthy right off the bat. They taught me a lot about how to be a professional performer, and they taught me about work. I had some good work values, which helped as I became successful. I think child stars have a huge amount of pressure on them that child actors don’t have. I worked all the time, I was always on the stage, always on television from the time it was black-and-white and live. I never stopped working from the time I was about seven years old. I had, like, eight months when I didn’t work about ten years agothat was the longest period I ever went through without a job. And on either side of those months, I was constantly busy. I never had a
