Austin St. John may or may not have been part of the reason my parents banned dinosaur names in the house while I was growing up.
His original Red Ranger in the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers story was influential to many millennial childhoods and shouting “Tyrannosaurus!” was a daily ritual for many playground kids back in the day. So what’s he been up to since his Ranger days?
Turns out, a whole lot of things. First things first, though, St. John was born as Jason Lawrence Geiger in Roswell, New Mexico near the end of 1974.
He would grow up between Virginia and California, studying martial arts and karate as a kid outside of school. While he would drop out before receiving his diploma, he would eventually return to earn his GED later after his time on Power Rangers.
MORPHIN TIME
Austin St. John would leap acting, though would only get some modeling and commercial gigs before auditioning for an upcoming kids show off a dare from a friend, utilizing his martial arts skills for a new series about teenagers with attitude. The trajectory of this dare would change the course of his life, leading to cult status and fandom throughout the world.
In a move that was more common in the eighties and nineties than it ever should have been, American studios were taking Japanese films/cartoons and splicing them with American actors to sell them to new audiences on a minimal budget with maximum toy sales.
The idea worked, and numerous shows were being adapted, such as the B-Fighter series becoming Beetle Borgs and three others becoming VR Troopers. Most popular of all though, was the adaptation of already-longrunning Super Sentai into the now worldwide hit Power Rangers.
Austin St. John would play leader Jason throughout the first season of the show, taking part in some of the most iconic moments of the show like Tommy entering as the Green Ranger and changing over to the White Ranger.
While he and co-stars Thuy Trang and Walter Jones would leave midway through season two due to disputes over low pay and long hours, he would eventually come back to the show for the next series after Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers in Power Rangers Zeo.
Legacy Ranger
Thanks to the show’s use of only parts of Super Sentai involving the Rangers masked or in Megazords, he was able to return to the role of Jason as the newest sixth ranger of the team, the Gold Ranger.
He would finish out the show as Gold, and with it the majority of his time on Power Rangers. he would come back in Wild Force for a guest appearance in the almost tenth-anniversary episode Forever Red, teaming up alongside the Red Rangers from various seasons in what was the coolest thing I had seen on television since the Ninja Turtles/Power Rangers in Space crossover just a few years before.
The 2000s saw Austin St. John take a big step back from acting, instead becoming a medic and working with emergency services throughout cities on the East Coast of the United States as well as overseas in the Middle East during the decade.
While he was doing all this, he somehow managed to find love with his wife Kelly Gieger, and the two now have three children together.
What is Austin St. John Doing Now?
Austin stepped back into acting for a time in the 2010s, though it was mostly in indie films that he was… not the best part of. That said, he did have the fallback most Power Rangers actors from the earlier seasons can take advantage of and work the con circuit, as well as selling merch based on his time as the OG Red Ranger.
He would try coming back seriously again around the end of the 2010s, making appearances in kids’ family comedy Monsters at Large before leaping at a chance to reprise the role of Jason in the videogame Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid.
While his role there would be voice only, he would make an appearance in live action in 2020 to reprise his role, teaming up with the Beast Morphers rangers along with the Mighty Morphing and Dino Thunder teams.
Unfortunately, 2020 would bring a whole heap of really bad decisions on Jason’s part as he was recently indicted on charges of fraud in May of 2022 related to the CARES act and PPP loans given during the initial COVID19 pandemic.
He is still awaiting trial, but is out on bond on condition he can’t leave the state of Texas except for convention appearances, which prevented him from taking part in the recent reunion special.
(photo)
Currently he is awaiting trial and sentencing, but with the US legal system that could take years. In the meantime, he seems to be working more on his martial arts endeavors as well as traveling for cons.
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