How I Knew Them

James Boyd (Jimmy) Parker

“Tommy,” Leath Nunn said to me one afternoon as he was heading out for Madame Danilova’s ballet class, “I asked my friend Jimmy to come tonight. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course it’s okay,” I said. “It’s YOUR birthday party.”

“He’s another Texas dancer,” he continued. “We’re everywhere! But we’ll be late. He’s performing in the Radio City Summer Spectacular and gave me a ticket to the show, so we should get here about ten.”

It was July 17th of 1978. I had only arrived in Manhattan four months before, and after a few weeks of fits and starts, had landed in a great studio apartment with a separate kitchen on the fourth floor of a fine old brownstone at 16 West 69^th Street and I even had a job. Leath, who had simply appeared a stranger on my doorstep a few weeks later, had arrived in the city with a tranche of quite good ballet dancers who had found themselves on the street when the National Ballet of Illinois of Champagne suddenly shuttered that spring, and through a series of synchronicities I invited him to share my space for a spell until he could find his own. We are still fast friends to this day.

It had been a traumatic time for Leath and his fellow dancers, all suddenly unemployed and newly arrived from Illinois (because in those days the only meaningful ballet auditions were in New York), and as his 21^st birthday was coming up, I had invited all his fellow exiles to celebrate. By then I had gathered a few sticks of furniture, painted the apartment pink, stripped the oak Victorian mantlepiece, and laid down a room-sized remnant of midnight-blue plush carpet. There were flowers on the mantle and candles in the windows. After a lifetime of anticipation, this would be my very first NYC party. The stage was set.

By the time Leath and Jimmy arrived, most of the displaced dancers and my neighbors from downstairs were well into their second or third cocktails, but it was a party for Leath, after all, so a great shout of “Happy Birthday!” went up when they finally got there. To be honest, I was so busy playing host that after some brief introductions, I was back tending bar and passing out canapes until the crowd finally thinned around 1 or 2 in the morning, when I finally had a chance to sit for a moment and chat.

I won’t bother you with details but suffice it to say that Jimmy simply stayed from that night until he moved out eighteen months later. He was my first and only other ‘domestic partner’ aside from Richard, with whom I’ve been cohabiting now for 39+ years. Looking back, it was doomed from the start – there were just too many ways we were out of sync – but my goodness, he was smitten and determined and a truly good and gentle man and we had a great deal in common, enough to give it a go.  A born dancer/singer/actor who simply beamed from the stage with personality and style, Jimmy was tall, aquiline, and uncommonly graceful for one so lanky; a sandy blonde with piercing blue eyes you could see from the back row of the theatre, even Radio City Music Hall.

Joseph Ralph Parker

I believe Joey was a freshman at North Texas State that fall, so it could have been Thanksgiving or Christmas of 1978, but a few months after Jimmy moved in, his younger brother by two years came for a visit. Joey clearly idolized his brother and was already following in his footsteps in the drama department at NTSU where he had already made inroads with Jimmy’s close and impressive group of friends. At the time, his first visit to see his New York actor brother just seemed to us all like another inevitable step in the long promising arc of Joey’s own career.

Shorter than Jimmy by an inch or two but no less handsome, Joey was a shaggy brunette with a much more casual demeanor than his brother and we had a ball taking him around the city, all wide-eyed and mostly looking up. He flew back south after a few days of great enjoyment, but sadly, as far as I can recall, once he headed back to Texas I don’t believe I ever saw Joey again. I would like to have known him better but I did get to know him through his brother, and out of all those on my unhappy list of “Gone Too Soon” profiles, only Jimmy and Joey had the heartbreaking distinction of being brothers. Their family – Father Ralph, Mother Doris, and sisters Lois and Vicki – lost them both within two years, and so very, very much before their time.

Their Stories

Childhoods and Family

Some of these profiles detail truly horrific stories of families who made no bones about completely rejecting their sons simply because they were gay, leaving them to fend for themselves from the age of 14, in the case of Peter Frazer, or 16, in Randy Robbins’s case, but then other parents, led more by love than prejudice, found ways to accept and even, in some cases, embrace the unique gifts of their sons even if they didn’t really understand what happened, how these things could be. I was truly blessed to have such parents, and Jimmy and Joey were equally blessed. They were also blessed to have two loving and lovely sisters, Lois, four years ahead of Jimmy, and Vicki, the happy surprise, who was 8 years after Joey and only 15 when Jimmy and I met. During our short 18 months together, both Joey, on his own, and later Doris and Vicki visited so they could see Jimmy on the Radio City stage.

And it is this acceptance and support of their family that has also made possible the unusually large number of images I am able to use to bring the brothers to life on these pages, as many of them were sent to me by Vicki. Indeed, unlike my previous three profiles, this one is almost as much a photo essay as it is a piece of writing. There are also images from friends, and the library of North Texas State University, but I’m getting ahead of the story.

Both Jimmy and Joey had successful careers at Trinity High School in Euless, TX, a large and remarkably well-equipped public high school with a theatre program that was so replete there were two levels of thespian students, the Troubadours, or younger students, who might be selected in later years to be members of the Thespians. Not surprisingly, Jimmy excelled in this program while also serving on the tennis team and as a member of the A Capella Choir where, well, to quote his yearbook: “Another first this year was the presentation of the National School Choral Award to an outstanding  choir member voted on by the members of the A Capella Choir based upon musicianship and contribution to the choir. The first recipient of this award is Jimmy Parker.”

And, in his senior year, he also served as President of the Trinity High Thespians. It seems clear that even then he had a good grasp on his hopes for the future and was wasting no time growing into his dream: to be a “Dancer/Singer/Actor” on Broadway.

I know less about Joey’s high school years, but he was also a member of the Troubadours and I presume the Thespians. He also was a frequent visitor to see his big brother in Denton during his high school senior year where he was embraced by the extraordinary group of North Texas State theater majors that had become Jimmy’s chosen family of friends.

If you’ve ever had the privilege to work creatively with a close-knit and well-oiled group of likeminded people, you will understand Jimmy’s friends, a group that was so completely cemented  during those college years that even today they remain a tight circle and I have no doubt that had Jimmy lived, he would still be among them gathering, visiting and toasting each other’s successes. It is so very clear just how greatly they miss him still.

Now, as an aside, in researching these profiles I rely heavily on yearbooks whenever possible – high school and college – but much to my dismay, the administration of North Texas State foolishly and shortsightedly withdrew yearbook funding for Jimmy’s junior and senior years, exactly those years when he would have blossomed there as an actor, and after exploring every option I could find, I finally reached out to A.I. for help. I explained the lack of a yearbook documenting his time at NTSU and asked if there were other sources I could explore. The answer I got back was so surprisingly affirmative that I’m cutting and pasting it here:

“While a lot of localized university data from 1974 to 1976 isn’t fully indexed in broad internet searches, some incredibly poignant historical breadcrumbs confirm exactly why James Boyd “Jimmy” Parker was considered a leading theatre student at North Texas State University (NTSU) during that exact window. Local archives and biographical records from his contemporary theater circles reveal a fascinating look into his college years and what came next:

“The NTSU Circle and ‘The Missing Years’

“During the exact early-1970s gap left by the defunct NTSU yearbooks, Jimmy was deeply embedded in the university’s theatre elite. His closest friend and NTSU classmate was Paul Walker, an aspiring playwright. The two of them formed a tightly knit artistic partnership during their time in Denton, acting in university productions together and sharpening each other’s theatrical chops. This group of North Texas students was highly ambitious, treating the NTSU stage as a direct launching pad for professional theater.

“The Leap to Broadway

“The training Jimmy received during those unrecorded junior and senior years at North Texas paid off almost immediately. He bypassed the traditional slow crawl of regional theater and headed straight to New York City.”

Indeed, Jimmy and his friend Paul Walker joined forces and took the leap together, absolutely certain that their stars were on the ascendant.

After Leaving Home

Jimmy and Paul found a small walk-up apartment in Soho at a time when it was still mostly tenements and commercial lofts. Originally designed to house new immigrants from Italy or Eastern Europe, it was so devoid of amenities that the bathtub was actually in the kitchen under a hinged top that served as the table (once common on the Lower East Side), but it was theirs(!) and it was in Manhattan(!) and the future was theirs to command.

Jimmy knew exactly what to do, and started right away. He enrolled in Gus Giordano’s jazz classes, took Danilova’s challenging class for ballet, and lined up acting lessons. He found a photographer to do his head shots, and soon his resume – mostly college credits at first, with “Dancer/Singer/Actor” printed across the top – was stapled by the dozen to the reverse of his 8” x 10” black and white glossy headshots featuring his sharp, bright eyes, chiseled features and dazzling smile.

A blonde by birth with blonde eye lashes that were long and thick but almost invisible, his one concession to vanity was his monthly appointment with a cosmetician to have them died darkest brown, and as it all came together – the training, the preparation, the outreach and networking (for he was as charming as he was handsome; a Texas gentleman for sure) – it started working, and the next thing you know he was dancing on a Broadway stage in the chorus of Radio City Music Hall’s “A New York Summer! A Magical Musical Celebration” (an attempt by Radio City to both celebrate its recent rescue from the wrecker’s ball that had nearly destroyed it only a few months earlier, as well as create a summertime counterpart to the hugely successful (and still running in 2026) “Christmas Spectacular.”) Both shows starred the Rockettes, and in those days every Radio City ticket also included a movie. It was always intended to be, first and foremost, a movie house.

Even with the job he was religious about taking those dance classes and it was in early July of 1978 when Jimmy ran into Leath, whom he knew from his Dallas ballet classes, and when he discovered Leath’s birthday was coming up, he gave him the gift of a ticket to see  him at Radio City. Of course, naturally, Leath then invited him to join his birthday party after the show at my apartment and, for the next year and a half, it would be his apartment, too.

Jimmy loved dancing and singing for Radio City. He was hugely popular with his fellow performers, and was soon best friends with Katy Braff, one of the Rockettes’ dance captains, who took him under her wing and showed him the ropes from the inside out. And he must have done well, because he was rehired for the Christmas Spectacular even before the summer show was ended and, again, the next summer, each time getting increased stage time and more fulfilling parts.

He might have continued his Radio City career again the next Christmas, but then the stars aligned and after paying his dues at Radio City for three long seasonal runs, he was hired for his first true Broadway show, a production of  “My Fair Lady” starring Rex Harrison, Milo O’Shea, Elizabeth Nesbitt and others now less well-remembered. But unlike the usual Broadway show that plays New York and then follows up with a national tour, this revival took an unusual approach. Calculating that Rex Harrison’s star appeal in the hinterlands would be a greater draw than it would be in a jaded New York where he had played the same part the first time around (and in the movie), they reversed the usual arrangement and the national tour ran for nearly a year around the country before finally opening in the Uris Theatre (today the Gershwin) on Broadway as a final stop for 119 New York performances.

Being cast in “My Fair Lady” was a huge coup for such a novice musical actor, but Jimmy had trained himself with diligence and dedication to his purpose, and he was ready. He had a ball on tour, as I can attest because when the show opened in New Orleans, I was there, and as the tour continued to San Francisco, we celebrated Thanksgiving together in a fabulous house on Russian Hill that was loaned to us by one of my public relations clients (the photographer Ruffin Cooper, who will sadly also be the subject of one of these profiles in the coming weeks).

And, again, when the show landed at the Pantages Theatre to play Los Angeles over Christmas, I once again made the cross-country trip to join him for the holiday, but sadly, though we both did our best to sustain the magic, his life on tour and new ‘family’ of cast members had taken center stage in his life, and after a week of unhappy discussions, we decided to go our separate ways once I returned to New York.

But Jimmy continued to illuminate stages across the country with his brilliant smile as the tour went on to Denver, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Boston before wrapping up in July of 1981 to be ready to open on Broadway the next month.

When the show returned to New York, Jimmy returned to living with his college buddy, Paul Walker, where he would remain for the duration of his New York residency. And in his usual fashion, he hit the ground running upon his return and, by the time My Fair Lady closed, he had already been cast as a swing for a new Broadway musical, a show scheduled to open only a month later, on December 31^st, “The Little Prince and the Aviator”. It must have seemed like a surefire success with box office draw Michael York playing the pilot and an astonishing set that featured a full-sized airplane and tiny planet on the stage. Jimmy had every reason to believe he was in for another good run.

But the theatre is a fickle master, and though “The Little Prince” looked great on paper, the reality just didn’t work and it became another legendary tale of “the show that closed the night before it opened.”  (It is worth noting that in addition to Michael York, the show also starred a 10-year-old Anthony Rapp in the title role – his only role as a child – who, 14 years later, would return to star in the original cast of “Rent” both off-Broadway, on Broadway and in the movie.) There were only 14 previews of “Prince” and I was thrilled to see two of them as Jimmy’s guest.

It was also about this time that I took on a second job in addition to my public relations work when I was named Administrator of the Harkness Ballet School, at the time one of the city’s top three schools, and it rather took over my life to the degree that in those days I hardly saw Jimmy at all. I did go to dinner at his and Paul’s apartment in Soho a couple of times and we remained friends. And then, only a year or so later, I learned that Jimmy had been diagnosed and decided to return to Dallas to be with his family. After all, in those days without any effective treatment, AIDS was still a death sentence, so everyone knew it was just a question of time.

I do not know when Joey also was diagnosed. I know that he did spend time in New York with Jimmy and Paul for a spell before he, too, returned to Dallas, where they eventually both took up residence in “A Place for Us,” the first Dallas residential facility for those living with HIV/AIDS.

Trajectories

As any Broadway “Dancer/Singer/Actor” will note, Jimmy’s very quick assimilation into the NYC theatre world with good solid gigs appearing almost as soon as he arrived, and continuing with very few breaks until he was stopped in his tracks by the disease, was most unusual. I would attribute it to the excellent training he had sought out and hard work he had done in Euless, Denton and Dallas even before he lit out for the Big Apple. It is impossible to say, of course, how his career would have progressed had he not succumbed to the plague, but I would not be at all surprised by now to find a shelf full of awards – Tonys, for sure, and perhaps an Oscar, or two. He certainly had the looks, the talent, the ambition, drive and self-confidence he needed to get him there, but the rug was well and truly pulled out from under him by an uncaring disease.

And Joey? That is even harder to say, for he was also talented, handsome, and charming, and with his big brother leading the way, I’m as confident as one can be about such things that we would have seen his name in lights by now, as well. The Parker Brothers, on another world, might have become, by now, as respected as the Gyllenhaals, Bridges, Baldwins or Coens, but we can only ponder, and mourn, as we wonder what might have been.

Post Script

I have observed in studying the lives of my friends who died of AIDS that they all approached certain death differently. Some of them pulled up stakes and went away to find a place where they could die without fuss, some of them kept on working until they just couldn’t do it anymore, some underwent profound and utterly unexpected motivation to Act Up and fight for their lives, and some, like Jimmy, simply refused to stop smiling, or singing and dancing; refused to let it change their outlook or determination to make the most of their gifts for as long as they possibly could.

Thanks to the diligent and creative efforts of Douglas Campbell of the University of North Texas Library who went to work for me and soon filled my inbox with notices and newspaper clippings detailing Jimmy’s activities after he returned to Texas in the mid-80s, I’ve been able to fill in some of the blanks. Jimmy joined and became a valued member of the Dallas Metropolitan Community Church where, at one point during a 50-hour prayer vigil for AIDS sufferers, Jimmy was featured with an interpretive dance of his own choreography entitled “Mastering Life”, a subject he was surely qualified to present. He also joined the Turtle Creek Chorale – Dallas’s very fine men’s chorus – where he became a well-regarded bass and along with many others in the choir, was memorialized after his death with touching tributes.

It is very poignant and telling that in surveying many monthly issues of the Dallas Voice (Dallas’s newspaper serving the LGBT+ community in those days) which listed in each issue a growing tally of those lost to the plague during those excruciating years, Jimmy is listed in almost every issue as contributing to the Dallas AIDS Resource Centre in memory of one or another of his Dallas friends, and even after he died, on August 27 of 1989 – given the time-lag inherent in such listings – his gifts honoring his fallen friends continued to be listed even as his own name was added to that memorial list. Those listed as giving in his memory included friends, relatives, and, most touchingly to me, the mother of his friend and roommate, Paul Walker, who would remain in his Soho apartment until he, too, succumbed to AIDS in 1996.

Following Jimmy’s death, Joey continued to live on in Dallas in the same AIDS residence that he had moved into with Jimmy until he, too, died in November of 1991. They both died at age 35.

Acknowledgements

In addition to Douglas Campbell in Denton, I am greatly indebted to several of Jimmy’s friends and family members whose contributions of photographs, stories and documents have helped me to – at least to a small degree – reanimate my stately, talented, happy friend as best I can. These include his sister Vicki Parker Cody and his friends from North Texas State: Gary Paul Wright, Mary Lou Kralicke, and Claire O’Berry. Thank you all so very much!

© 2026 by George Thomas WilsonNew York City, July 17, 2026 (48 years to the day from the day we met.)

NOTE: The other profiles in this series can be found here:

TBT:GTS#1: Randall Robbins, Actor, Teacher, Leader, Friend

TBT/GTS#2: George “Bud” Falkenberry, Born to Act

TBT/GTS#3: Peter Frazer, MD – A Life Redeemed