Lunch Break Video: Ryan Phillippe as gay teen Billy Douglas on ABC’s “One Life to Live”

Before there was Luke and Noah and Oliver and Fish, there was Billy Douglas, daytime TV’s first gay teen. The character on ABC’s One Life to Live was played so memorably by future movie star Ryan Phillippe – proof even back in the early 90s that a gay role does not hurt your career. Above, Billy introduces his boyfriend to his dad – it does not go well.

In this scene, Billy’s dad flies off the handle in what is every gay kid’s nightmare – being rejected and disowned by a parent. But Billy was lucky, he had a mom who was not about to abandon her son.

This is, I believe, one of Ryan’s last appearances on the soap as his character was accepted at Yale.