Jonathan Taylor Thomas

Jonathan Taylor Thomas (born September 8, 1981) is an American actor, former child star, and teen idol. He was well known for his role of middle child Randy Taylor on the sitcom Home Improvement and as the voice of the young Simba in Disney's The Lion King.

Early life
Thomas was born Jonathan Taylor Weiss in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the son of Claudine Weiss (née Gonsalves), a personal manager and social worker, and Stephen Weiss, an industrial sales manager; the two divorced in 1989. His uncle is playwright and actor Jeff Weiss. Thomas is of Portuguese and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.

Career
In 1990, Thomas garnered the role of Kevin Brady, the son of Greg Brady, on the short-lived TV show The Bradys, a spin-off of the 1970s TV show The Brady Bunch. In 1991, at the age of 10, he won the role of Randall William "Randy" Taylor on the television show Home Improvement. He remained with Home Improvement well into his teenage years, but left the show in 1998 in order to concentrate more on his academics. During his run on Home Improvement, Thomas voiced the role of young Simba in the 1994 Disney film The Lion King.

He starred in movies I'll Be Home for Christmas, Man of the House, Tom and Huck, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Wild America, Common Ground, Walking Across Egypt, and Speedway Junky. He had a guest role on the ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter in early 2004, and appeared in the WB's Smallville in 2002 and 2004. In 2005, he had a guest role in UPN's high school detective drama Veronica Mars, and was also featured on The E! True Hollywood Story's show on Home Improvement.

After taking on a number of roles in such films as Common Ground and Speedway Junky, where Thomas portrayed gay characters, rumors began to surface that he himself was gay. These stemmed from comments made by LGBT activist Norman Jones IV and information published on website CyberSleaze. He denied these reports in 2000 in interviews with gay-lesbian magazine The Advocate and with talk-show host Jay Leno.