it sort of amuses me when others don't see him as hot, etc...because he is one man i would go to bed with in a heartbeat...my brother, also gay, does not see it...he thought justin was the hot one. ah, we had many a fight over that. good times.

As a friend of mine likes to say, I wouldn't kick him out of bed.  (Though i thought Justin was a lot hotter.)

There isn't the slightest evidence in the world that Gale Harold was ever "fired for playing the diva" other than a whispering campaign by Fox's minions long after the decision to replace him was made and the firestorm of public reaction had long been raging.  It was a flimsy excuse then, and it's a flimsy excuse now. 

Without a whisper of any unprofessionalism, Gale Harold starred for 5 years on a cable series, did guest appearances (almost all of them two-episode arcs) on some of the most popular and/or distinguished series (Law & Order: SVU; Deadwood; The Unit; Grey's Anatomy; Street Time); did a movie of the week, two Off-Broadway plays, and 7 indie films. 

Divas don't do well in low-budget indies, they don't do well on the stage, and they tend not to go from one hit show to another.  The testimonials to him from his co-workers and producers (Cowan & Lipman, Dick Wolf, Fay Ann Lee, Jennifer Elster, Harris Allan, Sharon Gless, etc etc.) have been many and effusive. 

I live in NYC and have many friends and deep roots in the New York theatre, and Gale's reputation here is excellent.  Immediately upon leaving Vanished (where the whispering campaign had him chronically late and drugged) he went directly into a play with Blythe Danner and Cara Gugino for 8 performances a week, never missing a single performance or delaying a single curtain. 

When his firing from "Vanished" resulted in plummeting ratings, a number of people at Fox suddenly had to explain why anybody would start planning on replacing their lead instantly and do so 7 episodes in -- after HIS casting had already made the show the most buzzed about new show on the Internet prior to its premiere (acccording to a study conducted for Media Life magazine).  A number of people at Fox suddenly had 'splaining to do. 

Their solution was to plant rumors on a couple of websites and feed snarky questions to Michael Ausiello for Josh Berman to half-heartedly deny.  I'm sorry to see this campaign of character assassination still going on, so long after "Vanished" has bitten the dust, Josh Berman has gone back to procedurals whence he came, and Mimi Leder has gone God knows where. 

Interestingly, post-Vanished, the show's director and creator have fared far worse than the guy who's about to be on "Desperate Housewives" in front of 16 million pairs of eyes a week.  Is Josh Berman still planning on tying up the loose ends of "Vanished" on "Bones," or has even that idea gone nowhere?

Nowhere has it EVER been confirmed that Gale got fired because he was "a diva." I've never heard anyone who has worked with him say that he is anything other than professional, from costars down to crew members.

Hal sparks actually said kissing another man was like kissing a dog? he really freaking said that? GEEZ. insecure much Hal?

It's ok to be uncomfortable with it and not like it....but seriously a dog? goodness.

 

At least not from my perspective. I endured the first season of QAF but simply couldn't watch it after that because I could never understand how a) anybody could think a guy as bland (and mean) as Brian could be sexy and b) how anybody could actually want to be friends with such an a**hole. The guy had no redeeming features whatsoever, and Gale Harold lacked (and probably still does) the talent to overcome this shallow characterization.

If Brian was meant to be the guy-you-love-to-hate, a la J.R. Ewing, the creators and Harold failed miserably. There was no reason for any of the others to stay friendly with such a mean-spirited, negative character; at least with a J.R., even though you knew he'd stab you in the back at some point, he had an ingratiating charm and sense of humor.

Check out my blog: http://radicalsexy.blogspot.com/

  

That's the first time I read this about Gale. ..

He did some theatre since QAF, no? If I wasn't living in Europe I certainly would have tried to go to one of his plays.

R.I.P. - Heath Ledger [1979 - 2008]

I will admit i don't care if he is snapping for service at every second...i find him hot and that's why i watch him.

I also think he is a pretty decent actor. A lot of celebrities are usually very arrogant. I love Frank sinatra's music as do tons of people...but I know a man who hung out with frank and he told me "he treated women like dirt, but damn he made good music and i'll never stop listening to him..."

My point is...I don't think we should hold such a grudge towards an actor because they're arrogant IRL...hell, i bet we would all be a bit more arrogant if we made a lot of money and lived "the life" that these people do.

People can (and almost always do) have multiple facets.  Some are admirable, some not.  Some that some people would find admirable others would not.  I don't know the story behind the supposed prima donna reports.  If there's one thing I've learned about the media it's that stories get twisted all the time, wind up in the ether of public consciousness, and then take on a life of their own.  I'd have to fully research the prima donna story to know more fully what really happened.  But either way, I DO know that he played a gay guy for five years, and I've never once found anything negative he had to say about the experience or about gay people.  Unlike Hal Sparks and others, who go out of their way to make everyone know they're straight and uncomfortable playing gay.  Also, he was criticized quite a bit for his acting on the show, and from multiple angles.  I always thought his acting fit the character perfectly.  I've always thought William Shatner's acting as Captain Kirk in Star Trek was also perfect for the role.  He's kind of a crappy actor, but perfect for that particular character, in a way another, better, actor couldn't have pulled off. 

Here is an interview with the director of the show Gale Harold was killed off on, supposedly for prima donna actions.  This doesn't prove anything either, but the director's comments surely carry more weight than unattributed gossip.  To be clear, I'm not stating it as my opinion that this represents the full or partial truth.

 It's not every day that a TV show kills off its leading man seven episodes into the first season. But that's exactly what happened on Monday's Vanished, when Gale Harold's Det. Kelton got caught in a hail of gunfire — punishment for learning too much, too soon. Now, for the first time, exec producer Josh Berman explains why he made his star, um, vanish. (Note: Shortly after this interview was conducted, a tip came in that Fox was relocating Vanished to Friday nights. No confirmation yet from the network. I'll keep you posted.)

Ausiello: So, why'd you kill him off?
Josh Berman: The premise of Vanished is that no one is safe. When we were thinking about going into baseball [hiatus] and leaving the viewers wanting more, what better way [to do that] than to have our lead character get too close to the truth? On this show, anything can happen at any time.

Ausiello: The buzz going around is that Gale didn't exactly endear himself to the cast and crew. Is there any truth to that?
Berman: I think a lot of that is gossip. Gale was a consummate professional. I really enjoyed working with him. I don't think that's a fair assessment at all. I have heard that, but I didn't experience that.

Ausiello: How did he react to the news?
Berman: Really well. We had always talked about something like this happening to his character; we just didn't know when it would happen. But when we were writing the episodes, we realized that his character was getting close to the truth quicker than we had originally anticipated. So [fellow exec producer] Mimi Leder and I had a big discussion with him about how he would feel about doing this in Episode 7, leading into baseball. And he was really gung-ho about it. In fact, in the episode where he's shot, there's a scene where his [estranged] wife gives him his wedding ring back; that was his idea. He thought that if he was going to die, it would be nice to have closure with Ava. I thought that was a great, human instinct to have as an actor. He was on board. He loves the show, and he loves his character. Like his character, Gale had a lot of questions, and I think that it was very satisfying for him to get some answers before he left.

Ausiello: So, just to be clear, this was solely a story-line-dictated decision, and had nothing to do with Gale or his performance?
Berman: No. Fox told us to think outside the box from the beginning. We're not constrained by, "Oh, we have a [contract] with him for this season." We want this to be an edge-of-your-seat kind of show. And I think now, with killing off our main character, no one can guess what's going to happen next.

It was in NO entertainment mags about Gale Harold being a prima donna.  Name one.  The closest to anything like that was Michael Ausiello of TV Guide Online asking Josh Berman if it was true that Gale was difficult, and Berman saying something like "I heard rumors about that but never personally saw it."  There were no such rumors, and Ausiello -- a notorious network shill -- was simply fed the question by Fox so that Berman could deny it unconvincingly.  Fox had a lot of covering its tail to do after firing its lead actor and sending 5 million viewers running to other shows.  I don't know where you get your "information" but ultimately it's from the same dubious network source, and certainly not from any magazine.  If you want to believe it, fine, but don't simply LIE to us and claim you read it in Entertainment Weekly or someplace.  Lying isn't an admirable trait either.

Peter Paige won't speak to him?  That must be difficult, since Peter Paige attended his play in NYC and was photographed with him.  According to both Scott Lowell and Sharon Gless, they all still play poker together in L.A.  This supposed "gossip that he was irksome when he guest starred on LAW & ORDER" I never saw before.  What I did see, was this, from an Associated Press article at the time:

LOS ANGELES -- To play a compelling and dangerous doctor on Friday's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, executive producer Neal Baer chose "one of the most charismatic actors on television."

Charismatic, and relatively unknown. But Gale Harold is an actor on the brink of a major career, according to his admirers, Baer among them.

"We think he pops," the producer said. "You want to know who he is and what he's about."

Jennifer Elster, who cast Harold opposite her in Particles of Truth, her film debuting Thursday at New York's Tribeca Film Festival, said she auditioned hundreds of actors for the part of a troubled writer.

"There are people who are lead role material and then there are people who aren't, who can't carry a film. I felt Gale could carry this film," said Elster. "I absolutely, 100 percent, feel that Gale is a major star."

Harold's most visible role so far has been that of a high-living ad executive on Showtime's Queer as Folk, a bawdy series about a group of gay and lesbian friends that's now in its third season.

His appearance as a cloning-fixated physician on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (10 p.m. EDT Friday, NBC) is Harold's first on a network series. Rhinoceros Eyes, a film in which he plays a singing and dancing detective, is poised for festival submission.

If Harold, 32, is at a pivotal moment in his career, he seems to be taking it in stride -- and one project at a time. The actor is eager to talk about work, not his potential as The Next Big Thing.

Pleeeaze! You can't be serious about the typecasting bit!! He plays skinhead and thus he must be one, or what? How many times do people upset others by asking (stupidly) whether so and so is gay only because he played gay on screen. These things have to be disociated!

Or do you desperately try to prove a point about Gale Harold only because you don't like the guy?

R.I.P. - Heath Ledger [1979 - 2008]

Oh, i am already gonna be fryin' in hell for so many reasons. (or so thats what people love to tell me...pft)

The arguement for people who don't like him seems to be because of his arrogance, which i find hilarious. I bet he is arrogant. it's showbusiness. heck, it's business in general. EH.