Happy Birthday to Thom Bierdz!

Handsome Thom Bierdz, who plays Phillip Chancellor III on The Young and the Restless, turns 49 today!

The talented actor, artist and author has been through a lot of rough times in his life which he details in his harrowing memoir Forgiving Troy.

But he has proven himself to be a survivor and it is extraordinary how Thom has been able to launch a second showbiz act after 20 years away from acting.

He was a closeted young actor when he first played Phillip in the 80s but when he returned to the show in 2009, his presumed-dead character was very much alive and like the actor in real life, he was gay!

“After coming out I had a unique opportunity in 2009 to play the same part I did 20 years ago on Y&R, Phillip Chancellor III, who was straight,” he said in a recent interview with Frontiers IN LA. “And now all these years later, as in my own life, the writers have brilliantly written Phillip as gay, and as a son, brother, father, with an ex-wife he adores. My character on the soap has been loved since he was born in the ’70s, and now viewers—even those who think they don’t know any gay people—know Phillip is gay and that the actor playing him is also gay; so they have to/get to experience Phillip as a multidimensional gay man who is as worthy of love as the other legacy characters on daytime.”