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THE ADVOCATE
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By: Bruce Vilance / october 9th 2001issue
Chad Allen: His own story
The former teen idol and current actor-producer-activist tells
all about his 1996 tabloid outing, his circuit party days,
and his road to self-acceptance. By Bruce Vilanch I met Chad
Allen some years ago at a pool party. Later that day somebody
took a picture of him kissing a young man in the pool at that
party, and some weeks later the tabloids outed him with that
picture. I was not the young man in the picture, damn it.
On the other hand, I didn’t sell the picture either. Since
then, Allen has continued his acting career relatively unabated,
and he has also established a theater career, both as actor
and producer, and another career as a show business activist,
organizing and performing in benefits for a myriad of gay
causes, including AIDS and civil rights. At the moment, he’s
workshopping a play in Connecticut while producing one in
Los Angeles, the local premiere of Terrence McNally’s continuously
controversial Corpus Christi. Outed, clean, sober, and at
ease, he recently shaved his head—not for his sins but for
a role. We shouted at each other across a tiny table at a
crowded Hollywood watering hole.
So here you are, once again caught
in the publicity machine—although not in the same way as before.
Right. This time, I turned it on—the publicity machine. I
see it, but I just don’t get it. One of my closest friends
in the world likes to appear at supermarket openings. I can
do it; I just don’t get it.
You don’t get why people would want to know more about you?
Not really. I can get up in front of how many people every
night onstage and be somebody else, but to sit here and be
myself, I don’t know who that is. I think, What are you trying
to see here? Of course, I have been doing it since I was a
kid. You think I’d know by now. Whatever!
You are a show business kid.
Well, I don’t come from a show business family at all. But
my sister and I are twins, and we were cute kids, so we were
always thrown into boy and girl pairs, paraded around in ridiculous
costumes. And then it seemed like I had a talent for it. So
we went for it.
What was your first job?
My first series was St. Elsewhere. I was 8 when we started.
I played an autistic kid, and I remember my mother sitting
me down and trying to explain what it was, and she told me
autistic kids lived in their own world. And I understood that.
I would sit there and have this whole world going on in my
head. I’d be following the patterns on the wall, and in my
head there was an imaginary war going on between the shapes.
So I felt like I knew what I was doing.
Were you happy?
I was a child actor but never a child star, except, of course,
in my own mind. And I really was happiest when I was performing.
The part that you miss is the socialization. You have no idea
how to behave around other kids. I didn’t have a bad time,
but I would never put my kids in the industry. It’s just too
sketchy, and I don’t care what they say, you don’t ever have
time to really be a kid in a world of kids.
So school was on the set?
For years. I did five TV series, including Our House and My
Two Dads,üwith Paul Reiser, who is terrific. My recollections
are this: I played pretend, and I was good at playing pretend
and enjoyed it for a lot of reasons, and all of a sudden people
were making a lot of money, and I didn’t want to do it anymore.
But there was a machine, and beautiful things were happening!
I was on the cover of all these teen magazines, and I would
look at that guy on the cover and wonder who he was. He was
very well put together, and I wanted to get to know him.
Who created him?
I’m sure I had a hand in it. But publicists, mostly. Basically,
I had been raised on the set and at church—strict Catholic
upbringing there. And at 16, I more or less quit acting to
go to high school. I wanted to play sports and date and do
all those things. But I made the mistake of getting involved
in the drama department. It was basically for the rejects,
the gay kids, very uncool. We did these little plays, but
I didn’t want to be accused of being an actor, because I had
left that behind me. However, I was drawn to the camaraderie
of acting. I discovered that I liked the world of the theater,
which was so different from the world of the teen star.
This sounds like a very potent mix.
Catholic schoolboy with theatrical training and a need for
companionship. I think we have the makings of a very good
personals ad here.
I believe we do!
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