Tom W. Chick (born August 14, 1966) is an American actor and independent journalist. His most prominent TV roles were as Oscar's boyfriend Gil in the U.S. version of ''

The Office ''The Office'' is the title of several mockumentary sitcoms based on a British series originally created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant as '' The Office'' in 2001. The original series also starred Gervais as manager and primary charac ...

'', and the hard-hitting reporter Gordon in ''

The West Wing ''The West Wing'' is an American political drama television series created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally broadcast on NBC from September 22, 1999, to May 14, 2006. The series is set primarily in the West Wing of the White House, where t ...

''.

Early life and education

Chick attended

Harvard Divinity School Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the religious studies, academic study of religion or for leadership role ...

and received a Master of Theological Studies with a focus on the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

Career

Deciding not to pursue the ministry, he later moved to

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, where he pursued a career in writing about

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

and occasionally acting for television roles. He is also the co-founder and administrator of a web-based site for games discussion, Quarter to Three. Chick is an independent journalist whose columns on video games have appeared online and in print. As a

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

columnist, he has written for a number of sites, including Firing Squad, Yahoo Games,

GameSpy GameSpy was an American provider of online multiplayer and matchmaking middleware for video games founded in 1999 by Mark Surfas. After the release of a multiplayer server browser for Quake, QSpy, Surfas licensed the software under the GameS ...

, GameSpot, Xtreme Gamer, 1Up,

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

and others. His articles have also appeared in magazines such as the "Tom vs. Bruce
series
in ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

'', and he was listed as "one of the field's rare American practitioners" in an article on "New Games Journalism" in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. In May 2008, he partnered with the Syfy as editor-in-chief of a new co-branded gaming

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

, entitled Fidgit. Chick's most successful television acting engagement was a recurring role as reporter Gordon in nine episodes of ''

''. He also played Oscar's

homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" exc ...

lover Gil in ''

'', and Mario in '' The Nine''.

Personal life

In late September 2014, Chick revealed in a podcast that he had stage four

Hypopharyngeal cancer Hypopharyngeal cancer is a disease in which malignant cells grow in the hypopharynx (also known as the ''laryngopharynx'') the area where the larynx and esophagus meet. It first forms in the outer layer (epithelium) of the hypopharynx (last part ...

and was about to begin

chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (list of chemotherapeutic agents, chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard chemotherapy re ...

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*
Quarter to ThreeFidgit
Gaming Blog
Tom Chick's Quarter to Three Reviews
on

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chick, Tom 1966 births Living people 21st-century American non-fiction writers American bloggers American columnists American critics American male bloggers American male television actors American male film actors Video game critics Harvard Divinity School alumni