Happy Birthday to Bill Brochtrup

The former NYPD Blue star, who has a small role in the current release He’s Just Niot That Into You, turns 46 today. Bill was one of the actors interviewed for a terriic piece Beyond the Gay Role on the AfterElton.com site. Here is an excerpt:

Bill Brochtrup played the role of openly gay receptionist John Irvin for ten years on ABC’s gritty police drama NYPD Blue. The year was 1993 and what was supposed to be a two-episode role highlighting the homophobic side of gruff Detective Andy Sipowicz (played by multiple Emmy-winner Dennis Franz), turned into a ten-year run on the acclaimed series. Brochtrup pointed out that this happened at a time when gay characters were only just beginning to take on more prominent and visible roles on television shows such as Roseanne, My So Called Life and Melrose Place.

NYPD Blue may not have explored John’s romantic relationships… but it broke new ground with another kind of relationship. Working closely in the police station with the gruff, homophobic Detective Sipowicz, Brochtrup said, “We were able to show, I think, the kind of relationship we hadn’t seen or even not quite still seen in this detail with a gay character who impacts a [straight] guy at the workplace.”

Brochtrup added that over the course of ten years, the relationship between the two characters deepened. “The end of the first season, I shook [Sipowicz’s] hand, which was a very big deal for him. A couple of seasons later, he stood up for me when somebody made a homophobic comment. … A couple of seasons later, I was babysitting his son and the last season I officiated at his wedding so there was a huge deal for that character to go.”

Television has indeed come a long way – especially cable television. Thank God for cable.