Out Personalities: November 2006 Archives

As if tipping you off to my current piece in The Advocate wasn't enough, here is a tip to check out a story I wrote for the new issue of LA-based Frontiers. It is my interview with a very special man named Thom Bierdz. Some of you may remember him from the three years he spent playing Phillip Chancellor on "The Young and the Restless."

Since he was a closeted soap star, it was ironic that Thom was a hearthrob to so many female fans.
“At one time there were 7,000 girls to see me in Toronto—but they weren’t there to see me,� Bierdz remembers. “They were there to see my character Phillip. I knew that I was gay, and I didn’t think they were there because they knew who I was, so I never got too involved in that. I was always a little removed.�

But after Thom left the show in 1989 to pursue movies, the worst kind of tragedy struck:Back home in Wisconsin, Thom's chronically troubled youngest brother Troy beat their mother Phyllis to death with a baseball bat in the kitchen of the home where they grew up. Things were never the same personally or professionally for Bierdz, who, six years ago, also discovered the body of his other brother, the charismatic Gregg, who unexpectedly committed suicide.

He also became obsessed with delving into his mother’s murder and his brother’s history of mental illness, which not only resulted in a reconciliation with the sibling who ended their mother’s life, but also produced the haunting and painfully honest memoir "Forgiving Troy," an “art-o-biography� that mixes Bierdz’s writing with his paintings.

Here are some of Thom's paintings:

Except for appearing on an episode of Matlock and returning briefly to the soap, his acting career was all but over. But his creative output had just begun. Bierdz became a prolific and respected artist who has made hundreds of paintings of varying mood and style.

“After my brother killed my mother, my priorities really shifted,� he says. “I went really introverted and spent a lot of time examining what was really important to me. Acting became very difficult for me. I was always an introvert, and I just seemed to get more nervous as I got older. I wrote for a while and the painting happened by accident, and people were just very interested.�

The handsome Bierdz, 41, lives with his boyfriend, actor Steve Callahan (pictured, left) - who was terrific in " East Side Story" - in the mid-Wilshire section of Los Angeles. Their home is filled with Bierdz’s paintings.

Bierdz is so prolific that he is hired to paint on-the-spot at various events, including the recent Thalian’s Ball, where he received an award from organizer Debbie Reynolds and his painting that night earned $6,000 for charity. "Forgiving Troy" can be purchased at www.thom bierdz.com, where about 400 of Bierdz’s paintings can be viewed as well as a video of him visiting his brother in prison. I promise you, it's a really engrossing and deeply personal read.

Well-done Thom!

Remember Danny Roberts, the openly gay housemate on MTV's "The Real World New Orleans"? During his stay in the house, Danny was in a relationship with Army Capt. Paul Dill, whose face was blurred whenever he came for a visit. If his identity had been revealed, he would have been kicked out of the military because, yes, even in 2006, it's not OK to be openly gay in the military.

Anyway, six years after the show, Roberts and Dill have split up and Roberts did an interview with "The Advocate" that appears in the Nov. 21 issue. (A likttle self-promotion here: I have a companion piece with the Roberts interview in the magazine about people who are "Suddenly Single.")

But enough about me. Here is some of what Danny had to say:

Dill left the military in 2003 but for two years, Danny lived with him in North Carolina while he was still in the Army:
"Ironically, moving in together was the beginning of our undoing...We could not live our lives. We could not be a normal couple. We lived in so much fear. We were forced to live underground."

On the break-up: "Paul and I are better friends now. That's not to say it wasn't ugly when we first broke up."

On being single again: "I don't think anyone truly wants to be single. We all would love to be with someone. But it is so nice to be on my own, to do what I want and to find out who i want to be."

Working in real estate for two years: "Actually, that got a little strange. I had little problem with people contacting me who weren't interested in buying homes...I don't know what they wanted. I'll just say there are a lot of lonely people in the world."

Roberts' post "Real World" speaking career: "It's something that is offered to just about every fool who's been on any reality show. So there's nothing original about that part of it. But I realized pretty quickly that there was a niche I could fill. I could go to colleges and share my coming out experiences or talk with people about 'don't ask, don't tell.'"