More than a decade before Neil Patrick Harris played the womanizing Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, Dan Butler had already showed the world that an openly gay actor could convincingly play a raging heterosexual on a television sitcom.

Dan, who turns 57 today, played the swaggering Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe on the long-running series Frasier and came out publicly on Entertainment Tonight during his second season on the show.

Over the years, Dan has had scores of television, film and stage roles including an Off Broadway play about his life called The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me. which which derives its title from a comment Butler’s father made when Dan came out to him.  The show earned Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk nominations during its New York run.

Dan also played himself in the indie flick Karl Rove, I Love You which he produced, co-wrote and co-directed.

On Thursday, Dan starred in a staged reading for World AIDS Day of Larry Kramer’s Tony Award-winning play The Normal Heart in Vermont.

He told a local newspaper this week: “I saw “The Normal Heart” when it first premiered in 1985 and, yes, there was an immediacy to it then; however, many of the tough issues and themes its characters grapple with are as pertinent today — identity, acceptance, family, the right to health care, tolerance, coming out, forging a sense of pride about being gay.”