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<\/p>\nJonathan Taylor Thomas was at the height of his career when he stepped away from Hollywood, leaving young girls yearning for the teen heartthrob, then known as JTT.<\/p>\n
The Home Improvement star \u2013 who turned 43 on September 8 \u2013 was last spotted in 2023 and fans who spent their younger years crushing on him, were shocked over his appearance.<\/p>\n
After appearing as Greg Brady\u2019s son on the short-lived 1990 TV series The Bradys, a spinoff of The Brady Bunch, Jonathan Taylor Thomas earned the role on Home Improvement, which starred comedian Tim Allen.<\/p>\n
Only 10 when the show premiered in 1991, Thomas, who played the middle child, spent the next eight years grew up in front of an international audience, reaching a stratospheric level of fame as a teen heartthrob to millions of adoring young girls.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are a part of their life, and there is a lot that is owed them,\u201d he told the New York Times of his rabid popularity. \u201cBut it\u2019s difficult because you want to make everyone happy, but if you try to do that, you\u2019re setting yourself up for failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1994, the Pennsylvania-born Thomas, 12, voiced Simba in the hugely successful Disney animated film The Lion King, a film that made fans laugh, cry and sing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimba\u2019s like me,\u201d says Thomas, who used his regular voice to play the little lion in the smash hit. \u201cI just put my natural energy into it. Real curious, fun-loving, always getting into mischief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Switching his time between The Lion King and Randy Taylor on Home Improvement, Thomas shares that it was two years of being shuttled back on forth from one set to the next.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to kind of go, \u2018Oops! Time to be Randy\u2019\u2026\u2019Oops! Time to be Simba,\u2019\u201d Thomas told People in 1994. \u201cYou have to prepare yourself to become this totally different person. I mean, we\u2019re not lions, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jonathan Taylor Thomas during 1996 Nickelodeon Big Help at Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, California, United States. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic, Inc)<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many shows I\u2019ve done with full-blown migraine headaches,\u201d he says of his exhaustion. \u201cI\u2019d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old\u2026I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the next few years, he had guest appearances on several shows, including, Ally McBeal, Smallville and 8 Simple Rules and loaned his voice to animated characters on The Wild Thornberrys and The Simpsons.<\/p>\n
Before stepping away, he challenged himself with some edgier roles as a bisexual hustler in the indie film Speedway Junky (1999) and as a persecuted gay teen in Showtime\u2019s Common Ground (2000).<\/p>\n
Those roles, combined with maintaining his privacy, sparked rumors about his sexuality, which he gently denied while speaking with Jay Leno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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