ACTOR Thom Bierdz’ return to reprise his starring role on the daytime soap opera The Young & the Restless sounds like something out of—well, it sounds like something that could only happen on a daytime soap opera.
Bierdz first landed the role of Phillip Chancellor III at the age of 24, playing the character from 1986 to ’89. His character was written off the show as an untimely death. What’s priceless is the comeback: in order to have Bierdz return (which he did for three seasons beginning in 2009), the audience would learn that Chancellor faked his own death, as he couldn’t deal with telling his family that he was in fact gay. Thus the once-closeted Bierdz was able to reprise his role, coming out in Hollywood at the same time his fictional character was on the highly-rated daytime soap. It was a zany twist, and it was also a first in daytime soap history.
The anecdotes about Bierdz’ adventures in daytime are just some of the stories he unleashes in his everything-including-the-kitchen-sink memoir, Young, Gay & Restless: My Scandalous On-Screen & Off-Screen Sexual Liberations. The 398-page, self-published tome includes numerous tales of sexual hookups (some hot, others just unfortunate), family trauma (his mentally-ill brother murdered their mother), personal anguish (he was sexually assaulted) and career turmoil (he did work as an actor for decades in the notoriously unforgiving town of Hollywood).
On the phone from his California home, Bierdz says letting everything hang out in the memoir was the only way he could see writing it: “I’ve nothing to hide.” He tells me that he shopped his memoir around to a few publishers, but wasn’t finding a lot of interest, and decided he wanted control over the project anyway. At times, it feels like he could have used a good editor; in his no-anecdote-left-behind style, we hear seemingly everything. He meets a guy and they engage in oral sex, he tells us at one point, but then “the smell of his balls turned me off … slight fecal odor. Not a turn-on for me.”
The book has the feeling of some very enthusiastic Facebook posts by someone who is prone to over-sharing (something he readily admits to). The lack of a filter is essentially part of the point—and there is lots of fun to be had. Bierdz lets it all hang out quite literally, as he punctuates the book with several nude photos. It helps that he was very sexually active in a gay epicenter, while also involved in the show-biz milieu, meaning he has lots of sexcapades to unload. He had the kind of boy-next-door looks that are equally at home in a daytime soap or a porn movie, and his memoirs read like a dizzying mix of both.
Bierdz’ young dating days included a couple of outings with media mogul and multimillionaire David Geffen, who seemed quite smitten with the soap stud. But things didn’t pan out, as Bierdz wasn’t quite as taken with Geffen. We learn of his brief foray into golden showers, his dick extension (simply an injection of fat taken from his stomach), and a panic attack he suffered after indulging a BDSM fantasy and realizing he was in handcuffs and couldn’t see anything because he was blindfolded.
Through all the sex, soap, and tragedy, there is an arc to the book, and it unfolds as an epic life lesson for Bierdz. He realized at a certain point that he was more of an artist and not really meant to be an actor in such a confining genre as the soaps. His experience of reprising his role on The Young & the Restless really drove that home: there were promises of storylines in which he would be able to have a romance with another gay character, but none of that materialized, and his scenes became shorter and shorter as time went on. “It was discouraging,” he says of the experience. “And a bit confusing, frankly. I mean, if I were trying to fill five hours a week with stories, I would be trying to reach for something other than heterosexual love triangles.”
This was part of the impetus for Bierdz to pursue the life he has now. An established portrait artist, he lives in rural California (“In the woods,” as he describes it), writing, painting, and living on his own. And yet, he still has insecurities. Near the end of the book he shares stories about a recent romance, one that left him unnerved and wanting to exercise more to get his old body back. This struck me as a little sad after he’s gone through so much turmoil and survived, finding himself in a peaceful place. “I know I’m not totally evolved. I’m still working at being the best that I can be.”
Matthew Hays is a frequent G&LR contributor.
