He was the Disney child star who had the world at his feet and a life destined to be filled with fame and fortune.
But 30 years later, one-time teen heart-throb Jonathan Taylor Thomas has all but quit acting, vanished from the public eye and looks totally different in his new life out of the limelight.
As he turns 41 today (September 8), life could not be more different for the boy who shot to fame in a hit sitcom but then turned his back on Hollywood.
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Jonathan, who became affectionately known as JTT by his adoring fans, was one of the biggest ‘tween’ stars of the 1990s.
(Image: FilmMagic, Inc)
Posters of him adorned many a bedroom wall in the US and on these shores, and he was mobbed by his fans whenever he went out in public, appeared on TV or gave an interview.
His role in TV sitcom Home Improvement had made him a household name.
But how times have changed. These days sightings of him in public are few and far between and he hasn’t walked a red carpet for more than 20 years.
Not that his decision to shun the limelight should come as a surprise – after all, the clues were there.
As a young and rising star, he spoke intelligently and articulately of being uncomfortable with the scrutiny that came with the fame he’d known from an early age.
(Image: Getty Images)
Born Jonathan Taylor Weiss in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and raised in Sacramento, California, he moved with his mum and brother to Los Angeles as a young boy when his parents split.
When he started landing acting and modelling gigs at around age eight he decided to change his last name to Thomas – his brother’s middle name.
His first big role came in 1989 when he was cast in a Brady Bunch spin-off, but he was catapulted to a new level of fame two years later when he bagged the part of Randy Taylor in sitcom Home Improvement.
The show was an instant hit, pulling in huge audiences, and it wasn’t long before Hollywood called.
(Image: Getty Images)
Alongside his TV work in the 1990s, Jonathan also starred in a string of movies. His most notable performance was voicing Simba in Disney’s The Lion King in 1994.
He also appeared in films such as Man of the House, Tom and Huck, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Wild America and I’ll be Home for Christmas.
But, as Premiere magazine noted, the chances of him becoming the next Macaulay Culkin were slim. They tipped him for a future in the director’s chair, saying he’d prefer to be “the next Ron Howard”.
(Image: WireImage)
Aged just 14, he told the industry bible, He said: “How serious do you take this stuff? I mean, you should be focused on doing a good job, but… every job has an end.
“I think most [fallen child stars] weren’t prepared for the end – it’s not the end of your life! You can’t base your life around one thing.”
He also reportedly hated the magazine cover shoots as well as his “JTT” nickname. He told talk show host Conan O’Brien in 1998: “I’m over that. I’ve always been over that.”
Around the same time, he faced scrutiny over his sexuality, largely because he had never been in a public relationship.
When he was just 17, talk show host Jay Leno asked him if rumours that he was gay drove him “nuts”.
He replied: “Pretty much in Hollywood you’re not anyone until it’s rumoured that you’re gay, so I wasn’t that upset about it.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but they’re rumours and you should always be kind of careful with that internet stuff.”
(Image: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
When Leno took it up a notch, asking him directly if he was gay, he added: “No, no, no, no, I’m not. I’m not.”
In 1999, he left Home Improvement at the beginning of the eighth and final season so he could look around prospective colleges ahead of undertaking a degree.
His decision to snub a return for the finale appeared to anger his Home Improvement co-star Tim Allen.
The comedian told TV Guide: “He said it was about going to school, but then he did some films. Did he want to do films? Did he want to go to school? I mentioned that I was confused. I don’t think he liked that.”
Richard Karn, who played Al Borland, suggested Jonathan’s mum, Claudine Gonsalves, with whom he was very close, was influential. He believed Jonathan would have preferred to do the episode.
(Image: WireImage)
In the subsequent months, he starred in edgier films such as Speedway Junky and Common Ground. People magazine called him a ‘smart-throb’ who wasn’t wholly comfortable with fame.
Then in 2000, aged just 19, it appears Thomas ‘retired’ from acting and enrolled for two years at Harvard University to study philosophy and history.
He got the academic bug so badly he went on to St Andrews University in Scotland, where his arrival prompted the local paper to joke that his fellow student Prince William’s “undisputed heart-throb status was at risk”.
After Harvard and St Andrews, using the name Jonathan Weiss, Thomas stayed in academia and graduated from Columbia University’s School of General Studies in 2010.
(Image: FilmMagic)
“I’d been going nonstop since I was eight years old. I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break,” he told US Weekly. “To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool. It was a novel experience for me.”
In 2011 he reunited with his Home Improvement co-stars for an Entertainment Weekly photoshoot for the first time in more than a decade.
Since then there have been reported sightings in dive bars in LA and on the streets of Vancouver, Canada, where he may or may not have a home.
And he and Tim Allen appeared on good terms again when in 2016 he guest starred in four episodes of the sitcom Last Man Standing alongside his old screen dad.
(Image: Coleman-Rayner)
The last picture of him was in July 2021 when he was photographed walking his dogs in Hollywood – the first time he’d been snapped in nearly eight years.
Wearing jeans, a navy zip-up sweatshirt, trainers and a baseball cap and smoking a vape, it was a world away from his on-screen glory days.
As well as disappearing from showbiz, Jonathan has also managed to keep his personal life private, with nothing known about his personal relationships.
The only thing that gives a clue as to what he’s up to these days came when in 2017 he was elected onto the board of the Screen Actors Guild – the trade union for showbiz folk.
It seems he now has his sights set on being behind the camera as he is rumoured to be going down the path of directing.
Zachary Ty Bryan who played his brother Brad in Home Improvement, has said they’re working on a project together with the ultimate 90s child star, Macaulay Culkin.
Watch this space….
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
