Out Actor John Barrowman Wouldn't Stay in the Closet, So His TV Character Had a Car Crash

In the 1982 comedy "Tootsie," there is a gag about an actor who appears in the soap opera where most of the satiric comedy takes place. A coffin is seen on the show's set, and a character asks what is it for, and is told that it's for that actor. The reason? He asked for a raise.

The same sort of thing happened to out actor John Barrowman when after refusing to stay in the closet, lost a high-profile television gig.

The 53-year-old actor, best-known for his out character Captain Jack Harkness in the 2005 revival of the sci-fi series "Doctor Who" and its spin-off "Torchwood," was referring to his role on short-lived CBS series "Central Park West," which ran from September 1995 to June 1996.
On the show, Barrowman played the husband to a caustic nightlife columnist M�dchen Amick, described by Metacritic as "a scheming Generation-X bitch," who has an affair with scrappy journalist Melissa Errico.

"Despite a ton of hype – and being one of the most eagerly anticipated shows of 1995 – the series failed miserably in the ratings," wrote the website Nostalgia Central in describing the show. The show was retooled "with a handful of CBS-friendly stars (including the fiercely glittering Raquel Welch) and relaunched it in June 1996, rebranding the show simply 'CPW'," added Nostalgia Central. And it failed a second time.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Barrowman recalled his experiences with the show. At that time he was living in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan with his Scott, his then boyfriend and now husband. Up to that point in his career, he hadn't publicly talked about coming out, but added: "I worked in musical theatre and we had a dog – I mean, how many more clues do you need?"

Months into filming the series, Barrowman was called in by his producers. "They asked me if I would not talk about being gay," he told the DM. He added that he was told "one of the best things that could happen would be if I was pictured collapsed in a gutter with a prostitute," and that was said by a producer whom he knew was gay.

He told Scott: "They want me not to talk about you anymore. They want me to lie about who I am."

He didn't, adding, "But I knew too many people who were living a lie. I continued to go places with Scott and to talk about him."

Then he received the script for "CPW's" final two episodes where he got a shock. "My character had been in a fire or a car crash, and the role was going to be recast. I'd been fired."

This led him to be even more determined to follow advice from his dad who told him while he was in college: "You know what? Not everybody's going to like you. Do your best to get people to enjoy who you are, but don't change for them." The words resonated with him and made him "more determined to work even harder for roles I wanted."

He recalled that years later out theater impresario Cameron Mackintosh expressed his admiration to Barrowman, which he paraphrased: "'You've just been yourself the whole time, and you've hidden nothing.' That makes me feel good.'"