Without further ado, we bring you more of Billy’s Holiday Gift Giving Suggestions.  Thom Bierdz has the distinction of not only being the first openly gay actor to appear as a regular on a daytime drama, he also played a character who was openly gay.  Of course, neither the actor nor the character started out that way.  When Phillip Chancellor III was killed off of The Young and the Restless in 1989, Bierdz went into something of a freefall.  When his character returned from the dead 20 years later – as soap characters do – it was revealed that he faked his death because he wanted to live openly as a gay man.  If you think that sounds bizarre, wait till you read Young, Gay & Restless.  It’s a gripping story of a handsome young man trying to make it in Hollywood, hitting the heights of daytime drama one day, and then bartending at the Soap Opera Digest Awards the next.  Dichotomy is a regular part of Bierdz’s life.  While he was being pursued by some of the best-looking men in Hollywood, he was still feeling inadequate about his looks and took some drastic measures to change them.  Throw in one brother who committed suicide and another who killed their mother, and you have a story that’s stranger than fiction.  By the way, Bierdz is marking his second appearance on our Gift Giving list.  His previous book about the murder of his mother, Forgiving Troy, made our list in 2009.  You can get his books – and his artwork – at ThomBierdz.com.