Jonathan Taylor Weiss, later Thomas, was born on September 8th, 1981 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. When he was very young, people would often stop his parents in the street and tell them that their son should go into show business. Little did they know that this would come true.

Moving to Sacramento at the age of five, Jonathan began his career in show business in a Burger King ad. More ads followed, as well as the part of Tiny Tim in the play A Christmas Carol. At the age of eight, he landed his first role in a TV sitcom, The Bradys, in which he played Kevin, the son of Greg. This spin-off of The Brady Bunch never caught on with the audiences and was cancelled after seven episodes.

Adopting the stage-name Jonathan Taylor Thomas (Thomas is his brothers middle name), he auditioned for the show Home Improvement. Due to his resemblance to the show's star, Tim Allen, he was given the role of Randy, the middle son. When the show became a hit, he became a teen idol. His status as the pre-eminent teen idol was confirmed when he appeared on In Living Color parodying Macaulay Culkin's character from the Home Alone Series. The changing of the guard had occurred.

In 1994, Thomas, or JTT as his fans call him, performed in his first big-screen movie, The Lion King, as the voice of Young Simba. The movie was a huge success, becoming the most popular animated movie of all-time.

Thomas made his live-action debut the following year in Man of the House. Also starring Chevy Chase and Farrah Fawcett, this family comedy was a commercial, although not critical, success, raking in $40 million in sales. The movie that followed, Tom and Huck, starred Thomas as Tom Sawyer in an adaptation of a Mark Twain novel. The critics and the audiences both panned this movie, believing that Disney shouldn't be watering down classic literature. The film drew less than $25 million in box office receipts.

The next year, 1996, Thomas returned to doing voices for animation with The Oz Kids TV series and videos. For these shows he did the voice of Scarecrow Jr., the brainy son of the original Scarecrow. The characters belief in his own intelligence often led to conflicts with the other characters when they happened to disagree with him.

That same year, he acted in the movie Adventures of Pinocchio. Doing the voice of the computer-animated title character, Thomas also appeared onscreen as Pinocchio after he is turned into a real boy. Filmed in Prague, the movie was met by mixed reviews and was mostly ignored at the theatres. This did not stop Thomas from receiving the 1996 National Association of Theatre Owners/ShoWest Young Star of the Year Award.

Wild America (1997) and I'll Be Home For Christmas (1998) both met similar fates. Critics cut apart these movies for their scripts, the holes in the plots (Wild America features one scene in which bears are hibernating in the middle of summer), and Thomas' smug performances. Moviegoers agreed, and both of the movies suffered a quick commercial death.

At this point, Thomas had reached a crossroads in his career. He had reached the age at which he had to begin thinking about college. He decided to leave Home Improvement, now in its eighth season, in order to concentrate on his education. His role models had become Jody Foster and Ron Howard. These two child stars had taken a break from acting in order to go to college, and then returned as directors, as well as successful actors. Thomas often said in interviews that his ultimate goal was to work behind the cameras.

This new focus on education did not prevent him from making more movies. In Speedway Junkie, which will be released on February 11th, 1999, he played a street-wise drug dealer, originally slated for Balthazar Getty (Lord of the Flies, Judge Dredd, Lost Highway). This was a drastic move away from the family-oriented fare of his previous movies. It is not yet known how his fans, who are mostly junior high school girls, will react to this new side of the actor.

Thomas' future is up in the air at this point. His goal is to be like Ron Howard and Jodie Foster. Unfortunately, most child stars end up like Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone), Gary Coleman (Different Strokes) or Jerry Mathers (Leave it to Beaver), who's careers all ended as soon as they grew out of their cute phases. And while Thomas has avoided the traps these actors fell into off-screen (the excessive lifestyles), he has fallen into many of the same traps on-screen (lack-lustre movies that emphasise the cuteness of the actor over any actual talent, plot, etc.). Thomas’ success depends very much on the next few years in which he’ll either display great talent as an actor or fade out of the movie business all together.