Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Another piece of my childhood...

Does the name Jonathan Brandis sound familiar to anyone?

I just recently bought The Neverending Story II. I was 9 when it came out in theatres, and I remembered that I liked it. So I bought it kind of for nostalgia's sake. It is not as good as some of those other fabulous films of my childhood such as Willow or Labyrinth (my sister, my cousin and I were obsessed with the latter... except we always thought that David Bowie's pants were too tight).

Still, The Neverending Story II was pretty good, probably made better because every once in awhile I would see something and remember how it felt to see it as a nine-year-old. And I remembered the actor most of all. I was curious as to who it was, so I checked out the credits: Jonathan Brandis.

Hmmmmm. That name totally sounded familiar. So I checked him out online. Ah, yes. The Jonathan Brandis of Seaquest DSV fame, with those blue, blue eyes... blue enough to rival Jared Leto. I was thirteen when Seaquest debuted, and although I never watched it, I did buy all those Teen Magazines that gushed about all the cute stars of the day. So that's how I know Jonathan Brandis. His face was plastered all over the covers of the magazines I was reading. So whatever happened to our blue-eyed boy?

He's dead. Killed himself in 2003. 27 years old.

This may not come as a shock to anybody. Maybe I'm the only person in the whole world who did not know that Jonathan Brandis was dead. (Maybe I'm the only one who cares?) But it totally shocked me. And I feel a little bit like a part of my childhood is dead. I'll never watch The Neverending Story again without thinking about it.

                       "and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death"

3 comments:

Library Lady said...

1) David Bowie's pants can never be too tight.

2) I'll always remember Johnathan Brandis as "Michael," DJ Tanner's love interest in Full House, who ditched her for Cindy Mancini because, "you're really nice and smart, DJ, but Cindy Mancini is really pretty."

LilyMab said...

Um, I did not need to think about David Bowie's pants. At all.

I had a huge crush on Jonathan Brandis - I watched Seaquest religiously for the first two seasons (after that it was crap) and rented practically all of his movies. This was when I was about 16 or so. I read about his death when it happened and was saddened to hear he'd killed himself. It was also kind of disconcerting to learn that even my celebrity crushes are manic-depressive.

Anyway, I share your pain, Violette. It's depressing to learn that even people who seem perfect have crappy lives too.

Anonymous said...

What!!!!!??? This is your cousin creeping and I was entirely UNAWARE J.B died, much less killed himself.

I am shocked and dismayed.

Especially given that I recently spent aprox 1 week of my life downloading and watching all of the Never-ending Story Movies.

Shocked and dismayed.