Where Is Omri Katz Now?
The Discovery: J.R.'s Son on Dallas
Omri Haim Katz was born on May 30, 1976, in Los Angeles, California, to Israeli Jewish immigrants Yoram and Rina Katz. He grew up with an older brother, Michael, and an older sister, Lali, and spent a year of his childhood living in Israel. Acting found him almost absurdly young. In 1983, at the age of seven, Katz was cast as John Ross Ewing III on Dallas, the prime-time CBS soap opera that was then one of the biggest television shows in the world. He was the son of J.R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman, and Sue Ellen Ewing, played by Linda Gray, which meant that before he had lost his baby teeth he was playing the heir to the most famous villain on television.
Katz held the role of young John Ross through 1991, appearing in roughly 149 episodes across eight years. It was a remarkable run for any child actor: he grew up on one of television's most-watched shows, absorbing the rhythms of a massive production while his classmates were learning multiplication tables. He even reprised the part once more for the 1996 reunion movie Dallas: J.R. Returns. By the time the series ended, Katz had more screen experience than most working adult actors, and he was barely fifteen years old.
Eerie, Indiana: The Cult Classic Years
After Dallas ended, Katz moved easily into the lead of one of the strangest children's shows ever made. Eerie, Indiana, which ran on NBC from 1991 to 1992, cast him as Marshall Teller, a teenager convinced that his seemingly normal hometown was crawling with Bigfoot sightings, possessed dogs, and other suburban horrors. The show was, in essence, The X-Files for kids, predating Chris Carter's hit by two years, and Katz carried all 19 episodes with a deadpan teenage skepticism that made the weirdness feel grounded.
The series was cancelled before its full run had even aired, but Eerie, Indiana refused to die. When it hit syndication on the Disney Channel, it found a second life and a fiercely loyal cult following that persists to this day. Fans still rank it among the most beloved one-season wonders of the 1990s, and Katz's Marshall Teller is the character they remember most. He also logged smaller credits around the same era: Timmy in the 1991 television film Adventures in Dinosaur City, a guest spot on Zorro, and an appearance on The Torkelsons in 1992.
Hocus Pocus: Playing Max Dennison
In 1993, at seventeen, Katz landed the role that would define his public identity forever. As Max Dennison in Kenny Ortega's Hocus Pocus, he played the skeptical new kid in Salem who accidentally resurrects the Sanderson sisters with his younger sister Dani, played by Thora Birch, and their friend Allison, played by Vinessa Shaw. Katz has noted that a young Leonardo DiCaprio was also in the running for the part, a bit of trivia he has happily claimed as bragging rights ever since.
The film was a box-office disappointment on release, but it refused to fade. Annual Halloween broadcasts on the Disney Channel and Freeform turned Hocus Pocus into one of the great cult resurrections in movie history, and Max Dennison became a beloved teen icon of the 1990s. Katz has been remarkably honest about the production in later years. In a 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly, he admitted that he was stoned during parts of the shoot, recalling misperforming and missing his marks until Ortega asked him, point blank, if he was high. It was a candid confession from someone who had nothing left to protect in Hollywood.
Matinee and the Final Roles
Hocus Pocus was not Katz's only 1993 credit. That same year he played Stan in Joe Dante's Matinee, the loving period comedy starring John Goodman as a 1960s schlock-movie producer, a film critics adored even as audiences stayed away. He followed it with a recurring role as Tony Hemingway on The John Larroquette Show from 1993 to 1995, appearing in six episodes of the NBC sitcom. After the 1996 Dallas reunion movie, his screen work thinned dramatically: a 1999 episode of Freaks and Geeks as Brad, a 2000 appearance on General Hospital as a tattoo artist, and then silence.
His final acting credit came in 2002, in the short film Journey Into Night, where he played a character named Sean. He was 26 years old. Fourteen years of professional acting, bookended by one of television's biggest soaps and one of film's most enduring Halloween classics, and then Katz simply walked away from the business that had raised him.
Why He Walked Away at 26
Katz has explained his exit with unusual clarity. Speaking with his former Eerie, Indiana co-star Justin Shenkarow on the Bronx Buds YouTube channel, and later on the Est. In The 90s podcast in September 2025, he said he had grown up in the industry and barely knew anything else. He wanted soul-searching, a human experience, a chance to see the world and be normal, none of which a childhood spent on soundstages had given him.
He did attempt a comeback, and it fell apart quickly. In that 2025 podcast interview, Katz recalled taking episodic roles on Freaks and Geeks and General Hospital and finding he could no longer perform the way he once had. He described flubbing lines and freezing up, a strange psychological block he could not push through. He also admitted he had wanted to return for the wrong reasons, to make money so he could escape again. When that did not work, he got a real job, the first one of his life, and never looked back.
The Wilderness Years: Grateful Dead, Snowboarding, Hairdressing
What followed was one of the more unconventional post-fame chapters of any former child star. Katz spent roughly five years following the Grateful Dead on tour, living the full nomadic life of a Deadhead. He then spent five seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, working as a snowboarder, and later waited tables to get by. None of it paid much, but it gave him exactly what Hollywood had denied him: an ordinary life lived at his own pace.
Eventually he trained as a hairdresser and worked for about eight years at a high-end Los Angeles salon. It was steady, honest work, and it suited him. Colleagues and clients at the salon reportedly had little idea that the man cutting their hair had once headlined a Disney Halloween classic. For Katz, that anonymity was not a loss. It was the point.
The Mary Danksters: A Cannabis Brand
Around 2020, Katz channeled his long-standing cannabis enthusiasm into a business. He launched The Mary Danksters, a cannabis-themed merchandise and lifestyle brand selling T-shirts, hoodies, hats, and apparel built around the slogan "positivity, herb and unity." Announcing the launch, he described himself as a member of the cannabis community for nearly twenty years and called the brand something he was proud to build from scratch.
The venture made perfect sense for him: a small, independent, personality-driven business with no studio executives, no auditions, and no nostalgia required. He runs the brand alongside his hairdressing work, and the two together form the backbone of his adult working life. It is a long way from the soundstages of Dallas, and he has never suggested he misses them.
Not in Hocus Pocus 2
When Disney announced Hocus Pocus 2, fans immediately asked whether the original kids would return. The answer, for Katz, was no. In 2021 he told TMZ that he had not been asked back, adding that he would have loved to be involved for the fans. Director Anne Fletcher later explained to Entertainment Weekly that the filmmakers had discussed including the originals at length but could not find a way to make it work without reducing beloved leads to background cameos.
Katz took the exclusion gracefully. He publicly supported the sequel, which arrived in 2022, and he has continued to show up for the franchise in person even without appearing in its new chapters. He briefly reprised Max for a Bette Midler fundraising video in 2020, and he joined the Freeform Hocus Pocus 25th Anniversary Halloween Bash in 2018. The Sanderson sisters may have moved on without him on screen, but the fans never did.
Life on the Convention Circuit in 2026
If Katz has a public life at all these days, it lives on the convention circuit. He appeared at 90s Con in Hartford in March 2023, drew crowds at Nightmare Weekend Richmond that same year, and in August 2026 joined the "Hocus Pocus Returns" panel at FanExpo Chicago. He is slated for 90s Con 2026 in October, alongside his original co-stars, and he continues to book Cameo videos for fans who never stopped loving Max Dennison.
The most magical moment of 2026 came in early October, when Katz reunited with Vinessa Shaw, Larry Bagby, and Tobias Jelinek in Salem, Massachusetts, for the town's 400th-anniversary Halloween celebrations. On October 2, Katz, Bagby, and Jelinek returned to Old Burial Hill to recreate the cemetery scene where Max first runs into the local bullies, performing the dialogue for cheering fans gathered at the exact spot. Shaw joined the group for their Buncha Halloween fan event, which ran through October 4. Thirty-three years after the original film, the kids of Hocus Pocus were back where it all started, and the crowd loved every minute of it. With Hocus Pocus 3 in early development at Disney, the reunions are likely to keep coming.
His Legacy
Omri Katz belongs to a rare category in Hollywood: the child star who got out clean and stayed out. He gave audiences John Ross Ewing III, Marshall Teller, and Max Dennison, three characters from three completely different genres, and then he traded the whole machine for tour buses, ski slopes, and a salon chair. There was no scandal, no flameout, no desperate comeback. He simply decided that acting was not his life, and he built a different one.
That decision looks better with every passing year. While other former child stars wrestle publicly with the industry that raised them, Katz seems genuinely content, signing autographs at conventions, running his small brand, and showing up for the fans who still dress as Max every Halloween. He did not become a bigger star. He became a person, and for Omri Katz, that was always the point.
Frequently asked questions
Where is Omri Katz now?
Omri Katz lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a hairdresser, a career he has practiced for years after retiring from acting in 2002. He also runs The Mary Danksters, a cannabis-themed merchandise and lifestyle brand he launched around 2020. He is a regular on the 90s and horror convention circuit, appears at Hocus Pocus reunion panels, and takes Cameo bookings. In October 2026 he reunited with his Hocus Pocus co-stars in Salem, Massachusetts, to recreate the film's cemetery scene for the town's 400th-anniversary Halloween celebrations.
Why did Omri Katz quit acting?
Katz retired from acting in 2002 at age 26 because he wanted a normal life outside the industry he had grown up in. He has said he went soul-searching for a more human experience after spending his childhood on soundstages. He attempted a brief comeback with episodic roles on Freaks and Geeks and General Hospital, but found he could no longer perform comfortably and admitted he had wanted to return for the wrong reasons, so he got a real job and never looked back.
What does Omri Katz do now?
Katz works as a hairdresser in Los Angeles, a trade he took up after leaving Hollywood and practiced for about eight years at a high-end salon. He also runs The Mary Danksters, a cannabis-themed apparel and lifestyle brand built around the slogan 'positivity, herb and unity.' Alongside that, he works the 90s and horror convention circuit, joins Hocus Pocus cast reunion panels, and records Cameo videos for fans.
Was Omri Katz in Hocus Pocus 2?
No. Despite fan hopes, Katz was not cast in Hocus Pocus 2, which premiered in 2022. In 2021 he told TMZ that he had not been asked back, though he said he would have loved to be involved for the fans. Director Anne Fletcher later explained that the filmmakers discussed including the original young cast at length but could not make it work without reducing them to background cameos. Katz publicly supported the sequel.
Is Omri Katz married?
Omri Katz has never publicly confirmed a marriage. He has been linked with Michele Watters, with whom he has been photographed on outings, but he keeps his romantic life largely private. He has no publicly known children.
What was Omri Katz's last acting role?
His final acting credit was the short film Journey Into Night in 2002, in which he played a character named Sean. Before that, his last television roles were a 1999 episode of Freaks and Geeks as Brad and a 2000 appearance on General Hospital as a tattoo artist. He had retired from acting by age 26 after a career that began on Dallas in 1983.
How old is Omri Katz?
Omri Katz was born on May 30, 1976, which makes him 50 years old as of 2026. He was seven when he joined the cast of Dallas as John Ross Ewing III in 1983, fifteen when he headlined Eerie, Indiana in 1991, and seventeen when he played Max Dennison in Hocus Pocus in 1993.
Sources
- Omri Katz Played Max in Hocus Pocus, Then Walked Away from Acting to Follow the Grateful Dead for 5 YearsThought Catalog
- Hocus Pocus Star Omri Katz Looks Very Different Decades After Playing MaxUNILAD
- Hocus Pocus Cast Reunites in Salem, 33 Years LaterPixel Twelve
- Omri KatzWikipedia
- Where Is Hocus Pocus Omri Katz NowDoYouRemember