Thomas Wilson Brown
Thomas Wilson Brown was born in eastern Wyoming to a modern-day cowboy, and it was his father's occupation that paved the way for Brown's first role. After re-locating to New Mexico as a pre-teen, he was cast as Augie in Lawrence Kasdan's epic 1985 Western, "Silverado," thanks in large part to his horse-riding skills. Once he was planted onto casting directors' radars, a more central role in the TV Western "Louis L'Amour's Down the Long Hills" followed in 1986. But Westerns were not to be Brown's lot. He landed his best roles and gained his greatest exposure elsewhere, most definitively in 1989, when he played Little Russell Thompson, one of the shrunken victims in Disney's immense family hit "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids," with Rick Moranis. He followed up that role in 1990 co-starring with Winona Ryder and Jeff Daniels in "Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael," a dramatic comedy about the celebrity title character's anticipated arrival. On television, Brown's most substantial part was as a high school kid whose father beat him, a role that played out over the course of a late season of the vintage prime-time soap "Knots Landing." Since then, Brown's TV appearances have been spotty, among them guest spots on everything from the team drama "Beverly Hills, 90210" in 1993 to the procedural "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" in 2003. His dwindling film roles include a return-to-roots cameo in the 1995 Jeff Bridges-starring Western "Wild Bill" and co-starring and co-producing credits on the small 2011 thriller "The Mooring."