The Last Laugh: Allen Perfectly Cast As Gay Actor Who Wants To Come Out

But then the "Dr. Quinn" offer came along.

Allen thought he could appear in the pilot, get paid and move to New York. But the series was picked up by CBS, and he was back in show business.

"I had said to the executive producer very directly at the time that if I do this, I won't be a teen heartthrob for you. ... I felt like I spent most of my life pretending to be something I wasn't, and I was determined, come hell or high water, to find a way not to do that anymore."

Allen lived in the "don't-ask-don't-tell-but-we-know" Hollywood world, where some actors were "out," and "certainly none of them were stars with big careers."

"I knew that I was breaking the rules," he says of his increasingly public gay bad-boy behavior. "The rules were, if you expect to be protected, you can't go across the line, which means you can't be hanging out with guys in public and going to gay bars and doing the things I was doing. I knew there was a very good chance I could get caught, but I couldn't not do it."

After the tabloid picture ran in 1996, he received many letters from gay young people who found strength in knowing there was someone out there like them.

Those letters were an antidote for feeling guilty about "the total fabrications in the teen magazines," where in an "Ask Chad" column, Allen would deftly dance around awkward subjects.

Sample question: "Is there still time for a girlfriend?"

Chad: "A good question! Actually I'd like to have a normal life."

Allen talked about his sexuality in a 2001 interview by friend Bruce Vilanch in the Advocate, a leading national gay magazine. The interview coincided with National Coming Out Day.

He says the career successes of actors such as T.R. Knight (TV's "Grey's Anatomy") and Neil Patrick Harris (TV's "How I Met Your Mother") are heartening.

"When Neil and T.R. came out, it wasn't that much of a big deal, and now Neil is playing the ultimate ladies' man," Allen says. "When I made the decision to come out, I did so under the assumption that there was a very real possibility that I would never work as a professional again, except maybe in the theater. I wasn't blind or ignorant to those things when I did it, but you take it as it falls. The truth of it is, I'm grateful for however it happened. I guess I had enough sense of self that, if I couldn't act again, I wouldn't fall apart."

Allen lives in Los Angeles with his partner of 2 1/2 years and his dog.

He has finished the third and fourth movies for the here! Network in which he plays gay P.I. Donald Strachey.

"THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED" plays Friday through March 9 at Hartford's TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl St. Performances are Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; matinees on Sundays at 2:30; Saturday matinees on Feb. 23, March 1 and 8 at 2:30 p.m.. Tickets are $37 to $58. Tickets and information: 860-527-7838 or www.theaterworkshartford.org.

Contact Frank Rizzo at rizzo@courant.com.

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