David Burtka isn't the first actor to have the spolight on his professional talent eclipsed by his personal life, and he won't be the last.

Yet while male and female co-stars have been bonding on the set ever since cameras first began rolling, the romance between Burtka and fellow "How I Met Your Mother" cast member Neil Patrick Harris has a definite 21st century feel to it.

According to www.Canada,  the two were actually a couple even before Burtka appeared on "How I Met Your Mother" as Scooter, the former high school boyfriend of Alyson Hannigan. The Website's take was that Burtka had gotten that gig because of his relationship with Harris.

Given the fact that favoritism in the entertainment business is hardly novel, that revelation didn't draw much of a reaction. When it was recycled by the U.S. gossip site Hollywood Heartbreaker, Harris' spokesperson issued a terse press release saying that his client was "not of that persuasion." Not long afterward, though, Harris "came out” in a front page article for People Magazine. Since then, he and Burtka have made their relationship public.

All of this obscured, at least temporarily, the fact that Burtka's career has been on a steady incline. Born May 29, 1975 in Dearborn, MI, he was raised in Canton, MI and received a bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. Like most young actors, he then headed to New York City, where he studied further at the William Esper Studios, best-known for producing Oscar winner Kathy Bates.

Burtka then jumped right in on Broadway, appearing as Tulsa in a 2000 production of "Gypsy" that starred Bernadette Peters. A year later, he earned Broadway's Clarence Derwent Award for most promising male performance for his work in Edward Albee's "The Play About the Baby."

Besides "How I Met Your Mother," he has also appeared in episodes of "The West Wing" and "Crossing Jordan."

Most recently, Star Magazine said Burtka and Harris planned to have a child through a female surrogate – and were, in fact, bombarded with applicants.

Harris issued a denial, noting dryly “If it’s in the Star, it must be right.”

Earlier, in an interview with “Out” magazine, Harris said of the potential pitfalls of being a gay power couple: “If we walk hand in hand down the red carpet together, then he’s known as being linked to me. If I walk down the red carpet and he walks in front of me, then it looks like we’re not proud of being with each other.”