The Tragic Story of ’90s Child Actor Jonathan Brandis, Who Died at Age 27

NEED TO KNOW

• Jonathan Brandis was one of the most recognizable teen heartthrobs of the 1990s

• Fans of 1990s films and television will recognize him as Bastian Bux in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter and as Lucas Wolenczak on the NBC series seaQuest DSV

• Brandis died at age 27

Jonathan Brandis was one of the most recognizable teen heartthrobs of the 1990s. But amid a career highlighted by guest appearances in a slew of iconic television shows and starring roles in cult classic films, Brandis died at age 27.

Brandis was born in Connecticut to a firefighter father and a mom who was a teacher. He began modeling as a toddler and made his acting debut at age 6 in 1982 as Kevin Buchanan on the soap opera One Life to Live. By 1990, he landed a role that catapulted him to stardom: that of Bastian Bux in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter.

At age 17, in 1993, he was cast as Lucas Wolenczak on the NBC series seaQuest DSV — a role that ultimately cemented his heartthrob status and saw him make periodic appearances in teen magazines.

Per a 1994 report by PEOPLE, Brandis was — at the height of his popularity — receiving some 4,000 pieces of fan mail per week and required “three studio security guards to steer him through the hordes of female admirers at Orlando’s Universal Studios,” where the series was shot.

“The way I look at it is, I didn’t expect any of this,” he told PEOPLE at the time. ”I didn’t think at 14 I’d be working. After It, I thought that was the last big thing I’d do. So right now I’m saying I’m probably not going to be working as an actor in my early 20s. I might be. I don’t know.”

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There were other roles, too, including guest appearances on shows like Full House, L.A. Law, Who’s the Boss? and Blossom — and another starring role in the 1992 Rodney Dangerfield-helmed film, Ladybugs.

In a 1994 interview, Brandis said, “I never perceived myself like this — a teen magazine kid. As an actor, you just hope to continue working. Then you start getting mail! I sure never knew it was coming. It’s not something you prepare for.”

Brandis’ love life was also the subject of reporting, including in PEOPLE which in 1996 published a now-archived story about his romance with actress and singer Tatyana Ali (who played Ashley Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), whom he dated from 1995 to 2001. “I love her tremendously,” Brandis said of Ali at the time.

But just years later, Brandis would find himself struggling with a career lull which culminated when a role he hoped would be his comeback (as a prisoner of war in 2002’s Hart’s War) ended up on the cutting-room floor. Soon after, friends later told PEOPLE, the actor began drinking heavily and speaking openly about suicide.

At 11:40 p.m. on Nov. 11, 2003, friends called 911 after finding Brandis, then 27, in the hallway of his L.A. apartment. He died the next day as a result of the suicide.

Speaking to PEOPLE in a 2021 interview, his father Greg Brandis said, “Jonathan was very smart and he was very polite and always easygoing. [His death] wasn’t due to the entertainment industry. I look back now, and in his 20s, he showed signs of manic depression. I hope that anyone suffering can go get help.”

Brandis’ dad added that, despite his son’s death, he’s always near.

“I talk to him and it makes me smile,” he said. “I get the feeling he’s looking down at me.”

Some of Brandis’ friends and fellow child actors have reflected on his death, including Jaleel White, who opened up about Brandis’ suicide in his book, Growing Up Urkel.

At the time of Brandis’ death, he and White had recently learned that the show they shot a pilot for, called 111 Gramercy Park, was not picked up.

The tragedy led White, now 48, to question his own experiences in the acting world.

“I stared at my computer screen, tears rolling down my face,” he wrote in the book. “I could only speculate what Jonathan was going through at that time. Just like me, he had dedicated his entire life to achieving what Leonardo DiCaprio and the rest of his peer group had seemingly accomplished with ease. In my own way, I was the more well-adjusted success story. I grew up in an industry that always told me I couldn’t match Leo’s or Tobey Maguire’s level of success and still I’d made a tremendous living for myself.”

Speaking to PEOPLE in 2021, Soleil Moon Frye also opened up about Brandis, saying she had come across memories of the actor while combing through her belongings for the making of her documentary, Kid90.

“I found so many voicemails Jonathan left me when we were kids,” the actress said. “Some of them were 10 minutes long, his innermost thoughts. It just made me cry listening to them. He was a real friend.”

For Frye, reflecting on Brandis’ death, as well as the losses of other friends to drugs and suicide, revealed an important lesson.

“I had some elements of guilt not seeing [the pain],” she said. “How often do we really look at each other and go, ‘How are you?’ and actually hear what someone is saying? I learned that I just wasn’t listening in the way I do now.”

Read the original article on People