From: Favorite Hunks & Other Things
Actor Thom Bierdz is an example of a true Hollywood survivor. He played Phillip Chancellor on The Young and The Restless for many years. After leaving the soap, he struggled to make a living. He focused on his passion for art and has become an award winning artist and author.
Thom Bierdz (born March 25, 1962) is an American actor best known for his portrayal of Phillip Chancellor III on the daytime drama The Young and the Restless, appearing from 1986 to 1989, returning for a "dream sequence" in 2004, and in a surprising twist, returned to the role in May 2009. He was also a guest star on Melrose Place as Sarah's abusive boyfriend Hank.
In the mid and late 1980s, Phillip Chancellor III is involved in a "love triangle" with Christine "Cricket" Blair and Nina Webster. Although it appears he is going to marry Cricket, Nina reveals that she is pregnant with his baby. Phillip and Nina get married and their son, Phillip IV, is born. Soon Phillip, drinking heavily, is killed in a drunk-driving automobile accident in 1989. In 2007, it is revealed that Phillip III was supposedly not Jill Abbott's biological son. Jill's nemesis, Katherine Chancellor, was said to have switched the babies after birth. It was said that Jill's real son was raised in Australia as Cane Ashby after Violet, the woman he thought was his mother, died. On May 15, 2009, Bierdz appeared as the mysterious character "Langley." "Langley" is revealed to actually be Philip III, the real son of Jill and heir to the Chancellor fortune. Phillip has been alive for the past 20 years and had faked his death after the drunk driving accident in 1989. In another revealing twist, Phillip returns to Genoa City and explains to Nina that the reason he left all those years ago is because he was gay and felt back then he would not have been accepted.
Bierdz is openly gay and left The Young and the Restless in July 1989 to pursue film roles. Shortly after, his youngest brother, Troy, murdered their mother with a baseball bat and is currently serving a life sentence in a Wisconsin prison. In May 2002, his brother, Gregg, committed suicide leaving his older sister, Kim, as his only remaining sibling. Bierdz has devoted most of his life to painting. In 2005, he received the 2005 Out Magazine Best Emerging Artist of Los Angeles for painting pictures of cows. He is also the recipient of the Key to the Light Award from The Theylains. Thom has also written a memoir entitled "Forgiving Troy". In September 2009, The Human Rights Campaign at a Black Tie Gala themed "Speak Your Truth" presented Thom with their Visibility Award for his continued contributions to charity work for human rights, through his art, his acting, his writing, and his painting in the nude.
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