Early Life and Career
Brandis was born in Danbury, Connecticut. He was the only child of Mary, a teacher and personal manager, and Gregory Brandis, a food distributor and firefighter. He began his career as a child model and began acting in television commercials. Brandis landed a recurring role on One Life to Live when he was six years old. He moved to Los Angeles with his family at age nine, and made guest appearances on shows such as L.A. Law, Who's the Boss?, Murder, She Wrote, The Wonder Years, Full House and Kate & Allie.
At the age of fourteen, he received his first starring role in The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter as Bastian Bux, a young boy who returns to a world of wonder on the wings of his imagination. That same year, Brandis played the young "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough, the main character in the 1990 film Stephen King's It, based on the epic horror novel by Stephen King. Following this, Brandis appeared in Sidekicks co-starring Chuck Norris and Ladybugs with actor/comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Around the age of seventeen, Brandis landed one of his best known roles as scientific prodigy Lucas Wolenczak in Steven Spielberg's futuristic science fiction series seaQuest DSV. The role propelled him into teen idol status. At the height of his popularity, Brandis received approximately 4,000 fan letters a week and had to be escorted by three studio security guards onto the set of seaQuest DSV due to the amount of female fans present.
During the run of seaQuest DSV, he also voiced Mozenrath, a young evil sorcerer and necromancer in Disney's animated series Aladdin.
In addition to acting, Brandis also directed several independent films and authored screenplays. During his stint on seaQuest DSV, he co-wrote an episode of the series entitled "The Siamese Dream". He also produced and directed the short film The Slainville Boys, shortly before his death.
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