He used to sit quietly in the corner of the studio while his mother worked.
There were no babysitters in his childhood. If Patsy was choreographing, he was there — watching, listening, absorbing every movement. While other boys spent afternoons trading baseball cards, he was memorizing counts, stretching his legs, and studying the rhythm of music echoing through a dance hall in Houston.
He was born on August 18, 1952. From the beginning, there was something restless and electric about him. His father, Jesse, worked as a draftsman at a chemical plant. His mother founded the Houston Jazz Ballet Company. Between engineering precision and artistic discipline, he grew up in a house where structure and creativity coexisted.
And he wanted all of it.
“He wanted to do everything,” his mother once said. “He was a skater, a swimmer, involved in all the Little League sports, baseball, football, studied dancing every day, he played the violin, sang in the school choir, did the leads in the school plays from junior high up. I guess you could call him hyper, but he just has to be busy all the time.”
Busy wasn’t the problem.
Different was.
In Texas during the 1960s, a boy carrying ballet shoes and a violin didn’t blend in. He stood out — and not always in a good way.
His brother later recalled one painful moment to Biography: “He had his dance shoes in one hand and a violin in the other and these three boys were waiting for him. They said something to the effect of ‘Hey, twinkle your toes for us, pretty boy.’”
The teasing didn’t stop at words. There were bruises. There were fights. There were days he came home battered but silent.
His father had his own rule: “If I ever see you start a fight, I’ll kick your [expletive]. And if I ever see you not finish a fight, I’ll kick your [expletive].”
It was harsh, but it was meant to teach him resilience. His mother had her own brand of fierce loyalty. She once told him to take his ballet shoes and “beat the snuff” out of anyone who mocked him. And according to family stories, he did confront his tormentors one by one in a gym with boxing gloves — and the bullying slowed.
Strength, in his house, meant more than muscles. It meant not apologizing for who you were.
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