Nombres alternos: Jonathan Brandis
Fecha de nacimiento: 13.04.1976
Fecha de la muerte: 12.11.2003
Jonathan Brandis – A Short Life-story with most films not mentioned:
Jonathan Gregory Brandis was born to Mary and Greg Brandis, in Danbury, Connecticut, on 13 April 1976. He was discovered by a next-door ad agent and began acting on TV adverts at an early age. Some small parts in motion pictures led to his first important role in the fantastic children’s film, The Never-ending Story in 1991. Then, he starred in different films ranging from accompanying Chuck Norris in Sidekicks to playing a girl -a thing no teen star seems to escape these decades- in The Ladybugs. Although his films were not groundbreaking in terms of income they produced, Jon managed to find a niche in the US teen magazine market and became the teen actor whose picture was printed in the greatest number of teeny-bop magazine covers. He became a national star for the US teenagers in the 1990s and even had his personal advice column in the BOP magazine. Jon was good-looking, kind-hearted, charitable, and a star people could relate to.
This popularity, as well as his remarkably refined acting talents and dashing good-looks made him a part of the Steven Spielberg produced TV science-fiction series SeaQuest DSV and although it came nowhere people expected it would come to, the series survived for 3 seasons, and from the beginning of the second season, Jonathan Brandis was the leading force of this S-F series. NBC was to cancel the show but Jon’s fan-base saved the series twice from the axe. Yet, it came to an end when everything seemed to be improving with a new cast and a new combination of scripts and even a new name for the show, SeaQuest 2032. An episode in the second series is written by Jon Brandis and he was about to direct an episode when the show was axed.
Jon seemed either not interested in acting in big-budget films, or he was considered too familiar a face due to his early exposure on BOP!, Big Bopper, 16, and other teenage magazines, that he never quite made the great transition from successful and famous teen-star to the well-respected young actor, something people with far less talent and popularity than he has successfully managed to do before and since. Ever since SeaQuest, he is either in low-budget and mostly made-for-TV film or has small parts in big productions as Ride With the Devil or the more recent Hart’s War.
Jonathan Brandis had recently been involved in a series of TV and cinema projects when, all of a sudden, without apparent reason, he collapsed at his Los Angeles flat where He lived alone, and passed away on the 12th of November 2003. His mates phoned to the paramedics reporting a possible suicide attempt on the night of the 11th of November 2003 near midnight. He was taken to the Cedar-Sinai hospital where He passed away on the 12th of November 2003.
Jon lived in California, wrote scripts, directed home-made films and was willing to leave acting to pursue a career as a writer/director. He was 5`10