Danny Pintauro - XY Magazine Fall'97

[99-DJP-001.jpg] Dan Pintauro is cheerfully lazing in the sun on Stanford University's main quad, drinking a Snapple. 21 yo Dan has grown up. You don't expect this. You expect him to be pint-size Jonathan from Who's the Boss?, the TV sitcom that ended in 1992.

Dan's done a lot since then. He's a senior at Stanfordnow, he's writing a play for his senior project, sometimes he goes to gay clubs, and he has a way butch cut on his hand from playing polo. In jeans, sneakers and a knapsack, he looks like the perfect Stanford student.

But Dan was outed this summer by the National Enquirer, producing one of Hollywood's premier young gay male role models. "I always thought I'd be outed by the Enquirer," he says, rolling on the grass. "I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner."

He's surprised because he's been out at Stanford for two whole years. Just when he started to think himself no longer famous for anyone to notice, he got a call from the Enquirer. "Last Spring they said they were going to do a story about me whether I liked it or not," he says. "So I talked to my parents and decided just to do an interview with them."

He was surprised how nice the article was. "It turned out really positive and even had coming out advice in it," he recalls.

After the article, he got lots of calls from the press but he only did a few interviews -- one with XY, one in Entertainment Weekly and one for the Entertainment Tonight program, who recently interviewed him in his Palo Alto apartment.

Dan's studying theater and hopes to go into stage when he graduates, rather than the TV he's known for. He originally came from New Jersey (where he started his acting career at age 3, doing 60+ commercials as a kid) and at 6 was cast in the Stephen King film, Cujo. When he got the Who's the Boss? part at age 7, his parents moved to Los Angeles so he could take the job.

"I played a nerd on Who's the Boss?" he recalls. "He loved reptiles and reading, but could never manage to keep a girlfriend... I got a little cooler as the show went on, but I always screwed up on dates and stuff."

It's quite a different image from his current one. Dan's calm and assured -- practically suave! -- and hopes he can be a role model for people like him. "There's really not a lot of public figures my age, who young gay men can relate to," he says. "You don't usually see people like me in the media because there's nothing interesting to say about us -- just an ordinary guy from Stanford who's gay."

So, about that butch mark on his hand: Dan explains that it was caused by friction burns from polo reins. In fact polo was how he met his new boyfriend, who is on the Stanford polo team. "We've been going out for three months, which is pretty long for me," he laughs.