"I stepped into being an openly gay actor knowing full well that the rights movement wasn't done and that we weren't there and I wasn't going to be accepted in the same way as when I was closeted," Chad Allen says about being gay in Hollywood.

Chad Allen's first television appearance was at age four in a McDonalds commercial. At age six, he landed his first dramatic role in a pilot for a television series that never went into production. By the age of eight, Chad captured the hearts of the viewing public as the autistic Tommy Westphall on the cast of "St. Elsewhere."

OUT Magazine dubbed Allen as the gay "Columbo. But hotter. Way, way hotter." for his feature roles in the Donald Strachey Mysteries.

In this exclusive interview, Chad Allen explores his spiritual journey, the state of gay films and the one place he'd love to see men swimming in an aquarium.

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