Jason Raize, 28; Played Simba in ‘Lion King’

Jason Raize, who played the grown Simba in the original Broadway company of “The Lion King,” has died. He was 28.

Raize died Feb. 3 in Yass, Australia, southwest of Sydney, according to Chris Boneau, a spokesman for the Disney musical. The cause was suicide, Boneau said.

Raize was chosen for the role of Simba, who changes from a callow young lion into the aware adult played by Raize, after a series of grueling auditions before “Lion King” director Julie Taymor and choreographer Garth Fagan.

The musical, based on Disney’s successful animated film, opened at the New Amsterdam Theatre in November 1997 and is still running in New York City and around the world. Raize played the part for nearly three years.

The competition for the role of Simba was fierce because the musical required “triple-threat work -- singing, dancing and acting -- that you don’t get to such an extent in other shows,” Raize recalled in a 1997 interview with Associated Press.

“It was more the sense of who can take the challenge and not be daunted by the task.”

Raize, who had hoped to break into motion pictures, was the voice of an Ice Age boy last year in the Disney animated movie “Brother Bear.”

Originally from Oneonta, N.Y., Raize worked at the Orpheus Theater there while still in his teens. He was reared in an isolated area of the Catskills; he said he did not grow up seeing theater or movies.

During his brief professional career, the actor performed in a variety of shows, including a “Jesus Christ Superstar” tour with Ted Neeley, “Gypsy,” and later a “King and I” tour starring Hayley Mills.

Raize is survived by his father and stepmother, Robert and Monet Rothenberg of Oneonta; and his mother, Sarah MacArthur of Wrentham, Mass.