Jason Raize

Jason Raize was an American actor, voice actor, singer, and a former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme. For Disney, he voiced Denahi in the 2003 Disney animated feature film Brother Bear and played Simba in the original Broadway cast of the musical The Lion King. He also performed the song "It Was You" from the Disney Channel Original Movie Stepsister from Planet Weird.
Born in Oneonta, New York, he grew up in the Catskills in upstate New York and started acting as a teenager. Raize performed in high school plays and with Oneonta's Orpheus Theatre and later moved to New York City, where he briefly attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy.
He performed in regional theater productions, like Oklahoma!, The King and I, Phantom, The Rocky Horror Show, Gypsy: A Musical Fable, The Sound of Music, and West Side Story before joining a national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, starring Ted Neely and Carl Anderson. Next, he toured with Miss Saigon before auditioning for the stage adaptation of Disney's The Lion King in 1997, winning the role of "Simba". He continued the role for three years.
Continuing he music career, Raize appeared on the collaboration album, Broadway Sings the Best of Paul Simon and signed a deal with Universal Records and released two singles ("Taste the Tears" and "You Win Again"). In mid-2000, Raize and Jessica Simpson starred in a Disney Channel special called Jessica Simpson and Jason Raize in Concert where he sang songs from his debut album NYC; "I Can Make it Without You", "You Win Again", "Lovin' You Lovin' Me", "Run Away Girl", and "NYC". The album has never been officially released.
Raize returned to the New York theater scene in January 2001 for a concert performance of Carmen Jones and later starred in Keeping it Wild with Jason Raize, a nationally syndicated program in which he visited exotic locations, such as Africa, Costa Rica, and Australia to learn about animals in their natural habitats.
In 2003, Raize returned to Australia without his family's knowledge to rethink his career path. Sarah MacArthur, his mother, said "[Jason] needed to step back and catch his breath. I don't think he had figured it out yet [what to do next]". Raize was reported missing on February 3 before his body was found four days later in a shed on the farm property he worked at. A public memorial service for Raize was held on April 8, 2004, at Broadway's New Amsterdam Theatre, where he played Simba in The Lion King. The Orpheus Theatre in Oneonta issued two annual Jason Rothenberg Raize Scholarships which underwrite tuition to the theater's summer music theater workshops for youths with financial need.
==Roles==
Ent_raize1502.jpeg|Simba(The Lion King; Broadway, Nov. 13, 1997-Aug. 20, 2000)
Brother-bear-disneyscreencaps.com-1056.jpg|Denahi(Brother Bear)
==Gallery==
Jason Raize behind the scenes Bro Bear.jpg|Jason Raize behind the scenes of Brother Bear.
cool jason raize.jpg
Category:Actors
Category:Males
Category:Voice actors
Category:1970s births
Category:Brother Bear
Category:The Lion King
Category:Deceased
Category:People from New York
Category:2000s deaths
Category:Singers
Category:American people
Category:Disney Channel Actors and Actresses