With the gay storyline on ABC’s One Life to Live taking center stage and being done so well, you gotta hope the writers at CBS’s The Young and the Restless are taking note and thinking of some interesting things to do for their openly gay characters who have not had much to do as of late.

One of those characters is Phillip Chancellor III who returned to the show after being resumed dead for 20 years. Als0 back is the actor who played him back then: Thom Bierdz. Thom came out of closet long before Phillip did and became an acclaimed artist and writer in the years in between.

He recently sent out this update: “I am loving my return to The Young and the Restless.  Everyone on the set has been so supportive.   I won’t be on the air much in October but I will quite a bit in November.  We are taping those scenes now.

A little FYI and this is exciting and was totally unexpected.  TV GUIDE CANADA named me one of the top 25 powerful people in daytime!  The bad news is they didn’t like my acting, but, hey, I have to have a sense of humor about that.”

Thom was ranked 15th in a pretty heady list and the magazine writes that he has proven “coming out doesn’t have to hurt your career. Bierdz is the first major out gay contract player in soap history. Will he inspire others to follow? He certainly has inspired the gay community – both in front of and behind the camera.”

Comments

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2 Remarks

1. October 7th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
   Caillou says:

   Today I like to watch The Young And The Restless.

2. October 7th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
   Kim says:

   Thom’s co-star Clementine Ford is also the first out lesbian contract player in soap history. To my knowledge anyway.