Born On This Day- August 8th... Michael Urie

Although it seems almost as if it as an aughts period piece, I still miss Ugly Betty, with its brash gay tone, over the top art direction, & terrific performances, especially by Birthday Boy Michael Urie.

Urie’s almost exclusive devotion to the Off-Broadway stage since Ugly Betty went off the air might seem bold, especially for a young Julliard trained actor whose portrayal of the spicy, sassy fashion assistant Marc St. James helped make the show a favorite at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia  for its entire 4 season run.

Urie’s performance as Rudi Gernreich (with whom he shares a birthday today), the Austrian gay rights activist & founding member of the Mattachine Society in the well-received- The Temperamentals in 2009,  brought him a Lucille Lortel Award, & his starring turn in the 2010 season revival of Tony Kushner's Angels In America brought more ecstatic reviews

This season Urie played the clumsy, lovesick Yepikhodov in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, alongside John Turturro & Dianne Wiest, in Classic Stage Company's production .

This fall Urie comes back to Gay TV with the new CBS sitcom- Partners, from the creators & writers of Will & Grace- David Kohan & openly gay- Max Mutchnick.  Urie & David Krumholtz play childhood friends, one gay & one straight, who have grown up to be business associates & basically soulmates, despite both being in relationships, with Sophia Bush & Brandon Routh, respectively. I like the idea of Mark St. John & Superman as boyfriends.

Urie identifies as "queer." He's lives in NYC with his boyfriend, actor Ryan Spahn. Urie: "I’ve been in a relationship for a while now, & if you just met the two of us together we’d be ‘gay.' But that somehow means anything that happened before we met didn’t count, & I don’t feel that way. I know that some people feel that way. They were with women, but it always felt wrong. But it didn’t for me. It felt right at the time. It didn’t work out, but it also didn’t work out with other men, many times. That’s why ‘gay’ never seemed right."

Urie & Spahn being adorable

Urie celebrates his 32^nd birthday today, August 8^th.