90s teen icon of supernatural genre surfaces with pumpkins ahead of Halloween… can you guess who?
An actor who spent his childhood onscreen before vanishing from Hollywood as a young adult surfaced in Los Angeles this week.
Born in 1976, he began his career aged three in commercials before landing a plum role on the smash hit soap opera Dallas in 1983.
In the 1990s he held a principal part in a movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker that has become a staple of the supernatural comedy genre.
He was also part of the main cast of the short-lived horror science fiction show that earned a cult fanbase on the Disney Channel and the Fox Kids Network.
By the early 2000s he quit Hollywood to explore other pursuits, including following the Grateful Dead around on tour and later launching a cannabis business.
Now aged 50, he cut a distinguished figure with a salt and pepper beard when he was seen Tuesday picking up a couple of pumpkins ahead of Halloween.
Can you guess who he is?
An actor who spent his childhood onscreen before vanishing from Hollywood as a young adult surfaced in Los Angeles this week
Now aged 50, he cut a distinguished figure with a salt and pepper beard when he was seen Tuesday picking up a couple of pumpkins ahead of Halloween
Born in 1976, he began his career aged three in commercials before landing a plum role on the smash hit soap opera Dallas in 1983
He is none other than Omri Katz, best known as the teenage boy who resurrects three hanged witches in Salem, Massachusetts in the beloved 1993 comedy Hocus Pocus.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy led the film as the Sanderson sisters, the sorceresses Katz’s character Max brings back to life.
The Daily Mail has contacted a representative for Katz for comment.
Born in Los Angeles to Israeli immigrants, Katz landed his big break aged seven in the shape of a long run on the top 1980s soap opera Dallas.
Katz featured as John Ross Ewing III, the son of the show’s leading characters JR and Sue Ellen Ewing, played respectively by Larry Hagman and Linda Gray.
Decades later, he said Gray and Hagman ‘really took me under their wing and treated me as if I was their own son, which made it really heartwarming,’ via Dallas Fanzine.
He painted a portrait of a ‘good family vibe’ and a ‘tight-knit community’ on the set, noting that he ‘never’ observed Hagman and Gray in a ‘heated moment.’
Upon leaving Dallas in 1991, he became the lead of the horror science fiction anthology series Eerie, Indiana, which was inspired by The Twilight Zone and had Gremlins director Joe Dante as its creative consultant.
Although Eerie, Indiana was canceled after one season on NBC, it acquired a cult following in syndication on The Disney Channel and the Fox Kids Network.
He is none other than Omri Katz, best known as the teenage boy who resurrects three witches in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1993 comedy Hocus Pocus, in which he is pictured (right)
(from left) Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker led the film as the Sanderson sisters, the sorceresses Katz’s character Max brings back to life
‘I was already a big Joe Dante fan, so when I got blessed to work on that show, to me it was really one of the highlights of my acting career,’ Katz told Bloody Disgusting.
His ‘kid in a candy store’ experience of working with Dante and ‘seeing his imagination’ was ‘very inspiring,’ Katz effervesced. ‘He’s like the biggest kid, and that’s another thing I think I was drawn to. He’s just a lot of fun.’
It was in 1993, the year Eerie, Indiana was canceled, that Katz landed his career-defining role as Max in Kenny Ortega’s classic Hocus Pocus.
During the shoot of the film, he and his co-star Vinessa Shaw, who played his character’s love interest, were struck by Midler’s formidable work ethic.
Whenever her attention was not on her Hocus Pocus role of Winifred Sanderson, she was ‘already focusing on her next project,’ Katz said on Taboo’s Comics Kicks.
He recalled Midler singing and running lines in her trailer to prepare for her TV movie adaptation of the classic 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy.
‘And I think that truly, even though I was a dumb 16-year-old, I think even now my work ethic and my discipline – that had a lot of influence into who I’ve become today.’
Although Hocus Pocus initially flopped at the box office, its annual showings on the Disney Channel around Halloween earned it a devoted millennial fanbase.
Katz featured on Dallas as John Ross Ewing III, the son of the show’s leading characters JR and Sue Ellen Ewing, played respectively by Larry Hagman and Linda Gray
Also in 1993, Katz acted in Joe Dante’s film Matinee, a comedy starring John Goodman as a movie producer releasing a new project amid the Cuban Missile Crisis.
‘I’d say John Goodman is one of the most professional actors that I’ve witnessed working,’ Katz recalled years later of making Matinee. ‘He was very critical of his performances. He always wanted to do better.’
Despite a shower of critical praise, Matinee bombed financially, and in his early adulthood Katz quit acting, having become ‘fed up with all the BS that comes with having to work in this industry,’ he remarked on the podcast Est in the 90s.
In another interview, he explained that by the time he left Hollywood he had begun ‘soul searching and wanted more of a human experience; just see what else is out there, see the world, and be normal. I didn’t really have that growing up.’
An ardent Deadhead, he spent some of his initial months of free time trailing the band around on tour and then used the money he had earned in his entertainment career to surf, snowboard and go traveling.
Upon leaving Dallas in 1991, he became the lead of the horror science fiction anthology series Eerie, Indiana, which was inspired by The Twilight Zone
Eventually he elected to ‘get back into acting for all the wrong reasons — to make money so I could escape again — and that didn’t work out too well.’
His brief return to the screen saw him job around on shows like Freaks and Geeks and General Hospital, but was attended by a newfound affliction with stage fright.
‘I just could not perform. I had some weird psychological block that I couldn’t do it,’ Katz remembered. ‘I was nervous. I was flubbing lines.’
Despite initially trying to recover his old skills with the help of acting classes, he arrived at the conclusion that life as an entertainer was ‘not me anymore.’
Katz worked for a time as a hairdresser and also went into the cannabis business in 2002, initially in a ‘discreet’ way ‘under the radar,’ he noted.
‘I have my own brand called The Mary Danksters. We’re doing everything the legal way, and I’m really excited to see where this industry takes me,’ he said in 2022.