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THE ADVOCATE
Page
1|2|3
By: Bruce Vilance / october 9th 2001issue
Chad Allen: His own story
How strict was the Catholic upbringing?
Oh, heavy. When I wasn’t working that was it, for 12 years.
Of course, we didn’t have nuns by the time I was in Catholic
school. Gay priests? Sure. Some of them were very open. One
was very open and helpful to students who were openly gay.
Like you?
Like me. There was love and acceptance, and it
was OK; they just weren’t allowed to have sex. That was not
my situation. I had to strike out and try everything on the
great spiritual journey. Basically, I was having a blast in
high school. It was the first time I had been off the set
since I was 4 years old.
You were open?
Open and careful. What you had to be. I was also
doing a lot of other things besides sex. There was a lot of
partying. After high school, I was living by myself in a motel.
I had worked all my life, so I had my own money, and things
were not so fabulous at home. I mean, I used to go there a
lot to eat. They’d make sure I’d come over for food. We’re
Italian, with a dose of German blood, so there’s always a
lot of eating and arguing. Besides my twin, there were three
other kids. It was good to be away from it, but I kept drifting
back for the food. I was a pretty crazy 17-year-old, partying,
never taking care of anything. My rebelliousness was a big
issue.
And what about your sexuality?
Well, it was a big issue to me at
the time but not to them. They never really knew anything
about it. Maybe I’m in denial. I saw a lot of my family, but
I was so busy doing crazy things that that kept them occupied.
[Being gay] never came up. I was living by myself in a motel!
They had other issues.
Such as?
First of all, I had decided to pack my bags and
move to New York and see if I could make it as a stage actor.
Then I got the offer for the pilot of Dr. Quinn, Medicine
Woman. We did the pilot, and then I went home and packed for
New York, and they picked up the series. I thought, Eh, what
are the odds? How long can it go? And it lasted six years,
and we’re still doing Dr. Quinn TV movies.
So you were the prisoner of a hit.
I was the child of a hit! I mean, I actually grew up doing
that series. I went into it a crazy teenager and came out
of it a crazy young man! It was great; I had many, many older
brothers on that crew who looked out for me. Jane [Seymour]
was very motherýng, and Joe Lando, who played Sully, really
was like an older brother. We both loved motorcycles and guns—this
was a Western, remember—and I looked up to him. He was very
cool. The whole ensemble was great. A lot of wonderful actors
played characters that didn’t get a lot of screen time on
that show. But they had a lot of time on the set, and that
was terrific for me. I learned an awful lot.
And you were once again in the teen
idol pool?
Well, I kept a very low profile in that area. I dated. Or
I should say, I was dated. That was how I met Heather Tom,
who became a producing partner of mine in a theater company.
It was one of those classic Hollywood dates. She was on The
Young and the Restless, another CBS show, and I was her date
for the show’s anniversary party. We had nothing in common.
She was totally conservative; I was in extreme rebellion.
I had my first car, and I was more interested in that than
I was in Heather. So things went pretty much along like that
for a few years.
And that was when the world found
out about your—you should forgive the expression—hanging Chad.
OK, it wasn’t a nude shot, but it was the shot that brought
you out.
It was a truly extraordinary circumstance. I was 21 years
old when a guy that I was seeing sold photos of us kissing
in a swimming pool to a magazine, a tabloid. I was 21 and
working on a family-oriented TV series. All of a sudden I
get this phone call from a publicist saying the Globe is doing
this thing and running this picture, and they’re gonna claim
I was with a prostitute and all these things that weren’t
true. So I was scared. Just scared.
What happened next?
All of a sudden there’s a lawyer; I’m stuck in a room with
agents and managers and network publicists and lawyers sitting
around discussing my sexuality. And I’m 21 years old, and
I can’t discuss my sexuality! I didn’t want to be on the cover
of a magazine, but I also didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t
want to lie. I was absolutely convinced that whatever I did,
whichever way I went, lying was not an option. Certain people
wanted me to be one thing or another. But I didn’t want to
be a part of anyone’s agenda. I was not political, certainly
not then. Then I was trying to figure out what to do about
my family! I didn’t really care what my dad thought at that
point. But my mom was who I was really worried about.
But you had to face them.
I drove down there, and I started talking, and out came an
hour’s long speech about what was going to happen. My mom,
I guess, thought she was supposed to cry, and so she tried
to cry, and then she said, “Well, I always thought you were
too cute not to have a girlfriend.” My dad couldn’t look me
in the eye. And that hurt. Because a boy always wants his
dad’s acceptance. And I knew I’d been lying to them. What’s
amazing is that I’m sitting here talking about my parents
at all. For a long time, that would not have been the case.
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