Born On This Day- April 3rd... David Hyde Pierce

I don’t think I can take more of these mild surprises. First Ricky Martin comes bursting out of the closet door as a “fortunate homosexual man” & wasn’t it just a couple of yeasr ago that I had to lay down from the shock that Sean Hayes was a gay guy? & what is this I hear about Neil Patrick Harris?


Well, imagine the jolt when David Hyde Pierce loaded me with the whammy of coming out in 2007.  Mr. Hyde Pierce, whom I have had a crush on for almost 20 years when I spotted him on a very funny show- The Powers That Be from Norman Lear, had never given me an impression that he might be a homo. The ensemble of theat show included Holland Taylor, John Forsythe (the late & very great), Valerie Mahaffey, Peter MacNicol, & Joseph Gordon-Levitt.


Then came a little TV show – Frasier. As Kelsey Grammer’s title role character's brother- Niles Crane, Pierce was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy for a record 11 consecutive years, winning in 1995, 1998, 1999 & 2004. In 2005, Pierce was nominated for his turn in the stage production Spamalot. In 2007, he starred in Curtains-a new Kander & Ebb musical for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. In his acceptance speech for Curtains, he said the first words he spoke on a Broadway stage were 'I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."


Hyde Pierce came out in the softest way possible. An Associate Press notice simply stated: "He worked at Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park & a lot of regional theaters such as the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Chicago's Goodman & Long Wharf in New Haven, Conn. Pierce moved to LA in the early 1990s when his partner, actor-writer-producer Brian Hargrove, wanted to write for television."


The mention warranted little attention until picked up by the Village Voice’s Michael Musto. The reaction was underwhelming, & his relationship with Brian Hargrove was made public in 2007.

When accepting his Tony Award for Curtains, Pierce thanked "my partner, Brian, because it's 24 years of listening to your damn notes… that's why I'm up here tonight." He & Hargrove were married in California on October 24, 2008, just before Proposition 8 was adopted as law.They live in NYC & LA.

Born On This Day- December 2nd... Actor Dan Butler

Before there was Neil Patrick Harris starring in How I Met Your Mother, another out gay actor was playing convincingly straight on TV. On the award winning series Frasier, Dan Butler was the very heterosexual sports jock Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe. The role pits Bulldog against the more fey, sensitive radio psychiatrist Frasier Crane played by straight & conservative Kelsey Grammer.

I am 2 degrees of separation from Daniel Eugene Butler. He was once boyfriends with the former partner of my longtime friend & college boyfriend- WCK3. I think Dan Butler is a terrific actor & my kind of guy.

Butler is also the writer & only performer of the play “The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me…” which garnered critical acclaim across the country the world, including Drama Desk & Outer Critics Circle nominations during its Off-Broadway run. A multi-talented actor, writer, director, & producer, Dan’s love of creative invention stretches back to his Midwestern roots.

In 2009 Butler made his film directorial debut with Karl Rove, I Love You. Dan is also the producer, co-writer, & star of the film, a dark comedy shot in documentary style.

Throughout this rich variety of professional experiences, Butler has been of service in such organizations as Project Angel Food, Project Nitelight, the Suicide Prevention Center, ACT-UP, Human Rights Campaign, & the National Coming-Out Campaign. He is a proud contributor to the ACLU, the Los Angeles Mission, as well as many live theatres in LA.

Butler & his long time partner, writer/producer/actor- Richard Waterhouse live in Vermont. I like him a bunch.