Billy Campbell turns 67 today and his birthday present from me is an encore presentation of our 2011 interview! It was long ago but it’s the only one I got – and it’s a nice memory.
Billy will always have a special place in the hearts of gay fans because of two roles: Luke Fuller on Dynasty and Dr. Jon Philip Fielding on the original Tales of the City miniseries and its two sequels.
On Dynasty, he was Steven Carrington’s boyfriend and the two had just arrived at a solid place in their relationship when they had to go to Moldavia for the wedding of Steven’s sister Amanda. Well, there was a massacre during the wedding (Amanda was marrying a prince) and one of the victims was Luke!
Poor Steven was never going to find happiness on that show!
But his 1984-85 run on Dynasty jump-started Billy’s career in television and film and he went on to star in NBC’s Crime Story series then the feature film Rocketeer. He also did a very memorable 1988 guest spot as Captain Thadiun Okona on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
But it was in 1993 that another iconic gay role came his way in Tales of the City. His romance – and that kiss in the convertible! – with Michael “Mouse” Tolliver were a highlight of the miniseries. He reprised the role in the less-magical sequels More Tales of the City and Further Tales of the City.
My favorite role of all though was Billy as divorced dad Rick Sammler who melds his family with Sela Ward’s on ABC’s late, great Once and Again. It was a series that was so well-done, so special. Of course it only lasted three seasons!
He had another hit with the series The 4400 and starred in The Killing as a clean-cut politician who may or may not have something to hide.
When we spoke at the TV Critics Association gathering 15 years ago (!), I wondered if Billy was happy with his overall body of work at that point.
“I don’t even think of a body of work to tell you the truth,” he said. “I have as many bad things in my past as I do good. When I think about them, I think about them in of the people I met, the friends I have from many of those things which were good or bad. Most of why I like [acting] anyway is just having a job and going to work with people.”
There was a specific reason for my question. Billy had recently spent a year at sea and would have remained had the offer for The Killing come through.
“It literally felt like a dream,” he said of his first day at work. “I stepped onto shore and the day after I got off the ship, I was in front of a camera in Vancouver and I felt like I was having an out of body experience. I was just floating. That was very, very strange and it lasted for a good, long while.”
In The Killing, it’s hard to tell whether Billy’s character is a bad guy or a good guy. I wondered which type of guy he’s prefers since he’s played plenty of both including playing a college professor rapist on an episode of Law & Order: SVU last season.
“If I had to choose I’d say I prefer bad guys,” he said. “When you think about it, a bad guy can behave any way but a good guy really only behave like a good guy. I’m really kind of excited by the notion of not knowing. I think it keeps it really interesting for all of us.”
He its to not being as ambitious as he once was: “I’m just changing as a person. For me it’s definitely more about the journey and definitely less about the destination. I’m very much more zen about everything I think, genuinely so.”
“In the last few years, I’ve begun to be able to just kind of let things go – the disappointments – just kind of let them go and accept the things that happen with a certain amount of serenity. It just all seems to work out that much better. A lot of that has to do with having gone to sea I think.”
After The Killing, Billy played Dr. Alan Farragut in the SYFY series Helix and Det. John Cardinal on CTV’s Cardinal from 2017-20. Most recently, he’s done guest spots on Mr. & Mrs. Smith and FBI.
In a chat with Olivia Marks, Jinkx Monsoon chats about Jinkx Monsoon is Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow, her soon to be Westend debut in Oh, Mary! and what she likes and dislikes about her new found British-ness.
Tony award-winning Broadway star Idina Menzel performed a stunning rendition of the National Anthem on July 4th, 2026 at Philadelphia Stadium ahead of Paraguay vs .
He’s Australia’s number one ranked male tennis player and ranked sixth in the world overall. He’s Alex De Minaur and he’s still in contention for this year’s Wimbledon title winning his first three matches so far.
Sexy Alex has made it to the quarterfinals of all four grand slam tournaments (seven times in all) but has never made it to the semifinals. Let’s hope this is the tournament where he makes his breakthrough!
At 27, Alex has won 11 singles titles and more than $25 million in prize money.
He has dual Australian and Spanish citizenship, and is fluent in English and Spanish and also speaks some French.
Before performing “America the Beautiful” at the Statue of Liberty, Grammy-award winning artist Brandi Carlile speaks with David Muir about the meaning of the song and the power of the words.
Some funny bits as we head into the July 4 weekend! Miriam Margolyes is known for saying what most celebrities wouldn’t dare say out loud. From roasting Hollywood stars to leaving interview hosts completely speechless, here are some of her wildest and most brutally honest moments.
As regular readers of Greg In Hollywood well know, I’m a huge fan of the talented and oh-so gorgeous Patrick Wilson who turns 53 today and is one of the stars of the new Amazon TV series Cape Fear.
He’s had success on Broadway and on television but it is his movie career that seems to be hottest in recent years portraying demonologist Ed Warren in James Wan’s supernatural horror films The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and last year’s The Conjuring: Last Rites. He also portrayed Orm Marius/Ocean Master in Aquaman and co-starred in the action thriller The Commuter. His other films include The Phantom of the Opera, The Alamo, Lakeview Terrace, Hard Candy, Little Children, Watchmen, The Founder, Insidious, Insidious: Chapter 2.
A few years ago, I finally watched Space Station 1976 in which Wilson plays the closeted gay captain to a spacecraft. Glee’s Matthew Morrison has a small role as his ex-lover and Matt Bomer plays a married man with a kid who is really in love with Liv Tyler’s character. Check it out sometime!
On Broadway Wilson was in The Full Monty, Oklahoma!, All My Sons, and Barefoot in the Parkand on television he starred in Fargo, Angels in America and the short-lived CBS series A Gifted Man which was canceled far too quickly by CBS. It was expected since the series did struggle in the ratings but I always enjoyed the show – especially when Patrick’s shirt was off!
So shallow, I know, but so true!
Patrick is a two-time Tony Award nominee and has also been nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe .
Watch what happens when two NBC icons link up for a drive through the West Village. On this episode of Joy Rides, Hoda Kotb and Andy Cohen talk raising children as single parents, Hoda’s run-in with Beyonce at The Today Show, and Andy’s favorite person to share a New Year’s Eve toast with (besides Anderson Cooper, obviously).
Emmy-winning actress, producer, author, and transgender rights trailblazer Laverne Cox s Monica Lewinsky this week on Reclaiming for a live taping at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle.
With her new memoir, Transcendent, out in the world, Laverne opens up to Monica about what it means to finally tell her story in her own words—from childhood trauma and self-worth to fame, healing, and the complicated cost of visibility. She retraces her path from growing up in Mobile, Alabama, where homophobia taught her early lessons about shame, to finding freedom, community, and creative purpose in New York City.
Laverne also reflects on how, after nearly 20 years spent struggling as a working actress, Orange Is the New Black changed everything, making her the first openly transgender person nominated for an Emmy in an acting category. Together, she and Monica explore vulnerability, the difference between being seen and being safe, and how Laverne continues to reclaim dignity for trans people everywhere.
Professional hockey player Luke Prokop s Canadian talk show The Social for an interesting and candid interview. Prokop is the subject of a new documentary, The Hockey Player, which explores his personal journey as the first player under contract with an NHL team to come out as gay. He talks about why he chose to come out, the outpouring of he received from figures like Justin Trudeau and Elton John, and how coming out has impacted his career.
I’ve been a Dave Karger fan long before he became one of the main faces of TCM. Dave spent many years as a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly when it was a can’t-miss magazine I would get in my mailbox every week. I’d get home after a long day at the Los Angeles Times covering a double homicide or something else deadly serious and just get lost in the EW articles written by Dave and others. In 2000, I decided to leave The Times and The Hollywood Reporter then later became entertainment columnist for the LA Daily News.
But enough about me!
Here is what Dave had to say on social media today about his TCM milestone: “It’s mind-boggling to me that exactly 10 years ago today was my first night as a guest host on @TCM. The last decade has been the most exciting and rewarding of my career and I’m so grateful to everyone at TCM past and present (particularly Robert Osborne who gave the blessing for me to fill in for him in the first place) as well as all the viewers for giving a new guy a chance. The last photo is from my first-ever shoot back in 2016.”
Before Margaret Cho became a legendary comedian, Emmy-nominated actor, and one of the most influential voices in stand-up comedy, she was a 15-year-old kid who had just been expelled from one of San Francisco’s most prestigious high schools for truancy and bad grades, with parents who had essentially given up on her.
Then James Jackson, an English teacher with a Southern drawl, a speech impediment, and a vintage motorcycle, started writing notes in the margins of her essays that changed everything: A+, so great, brilliant, funny.
In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, the trailblazing comedian sits down with David Begnaud to share the story of the man who believed in her when she was just trying to blend into the walls. Margaret opens up about meeting Mr. Jackson at the School of the Arts in San Francisco, a teacher who rode a motorcycle, wore a leather jacket with cigarettes in the sleeve, and spoke like a Southern Barbara Walters. She talks about the composition book he gave her at the beginning of the year, how his handwritten encouragement in the margins reignited the excellent student she had forgotten she was, and why his gentle belief felt so tender it was almost poetic.
She shares what it was like to watch him get bullied by jocks in the classroom for being gay, how that made her feel as a closeted teenager herself, and the day she and her best friend Jerry walked out of school forever after those same jocks mocked Mr. Jackson’s murder.
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