The former costar of the long-running Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, claims that job offers suddenly disappeared after a picture of him kissing another man was published in a tabloid magazine in 1996. Chad Allen, who played Matthew Cooper on the series from 1993-97, said during an interview Friday on ABC's 20/20 that, rather than accept his publicists' advice to cover up the matter, he decided to come out -- a decision, he indicated, that virtually put the brakes to his career. "You know, you're talking to a guy who never stopped working from the time he was five years old. I came out, and it stopped," he said. "The year after Dr. Quinn was over, I couldn't get an audition for a pilot for the same network I worked six years in a top-ten television series for." Allen said that it is his belief that it will take an A-list movie star to come out before film producers are willing to hire openly gay actors in starring roles. "I am so certain of that as a fact," he said, "that the audience could care less."




21/05/2007