Richard Chamberlain, who died today at the age of 90, recorded fame as TV Heartthrob Dr. Kildare in the 1960s.
His trembling good look won his fans’ legions and guaranteed him to work in a multitude of rather forgetful television films.
But at a middle age, his career has reunited.
Chamberlain became the King of the 1980s Mini-series: playing Western prisoners in Shogun and Catholic priest who is love in Thorn birds in temptation.
He denied that when he was confronted with a French magazine in 1989, Gay did not speak publicly about his homosexuality until he turned 70.
In interviews promoting his 2003 memoir, he advised other handsome leading actors to keep their sexuality for themselves.
“There is still a huge amount of homophobia in our culture,” he said. “Please don’t pretend to be all marvelously, blissfully accepted.”
George Richard Chamberlain was born on March 31, 1934 at Beverly Hills, California. He died the day before his 91th birthday.
His seller’s father had drinking problems, which influenced the young Richard’s childhood. He described himself as a “shy, serious, cunning child, painfully thin, with a long, sad face.”
He admitted that he was the most “even child at school”, but discovered the taste and talent for athletics.
He was nibbling on the pomon College a cast – and the role in the ants of Bernard Shaw and the men convinced him that he had found his call.
Paramount Studios was interested in him, but thoughts of an acting career were put up after being invited, he served 16 months as a sergeant with the US army during the Korean War.
He made a series of stones in the discharge in TV shows, including an episode of the popular Western, Gunsmoke.
Not everyone chose Chamberlain as a future star.
He was handsome enough: with profiles at the time, breaking over his “finely lined aristocratic face, suggesting a young Florentine nobleman – straight from the Renaissance.”
But he was naturally difficult -which acted in his favor when he auditioned by Dr. James Kildare, a medical trainee who struggled to learn his profession, in the new NBC NBC Medical Drama.
“Maybe it was inevitable,” said a friend and a rival. “Who else could look as antisctic as Dick?”
The series lasted for almost 200 programs in five seasons.
He broke new soil, raising things like drug addiction – which had not been shown before on US TV.
It was a huge reaction of women of fans.
Chamberlain received 12,000 letters a week. In Pittsburgh, it turned out to see 450,000 people on the parade, and in New York he almost caused clutter when the child noticed him and called his name.
The studio made the most of this attention, releasing novels, comics and games with Chamberlain’s picture.
Fans would even write by asking Dr. Kildare to solve their various medical problems.
And Chamberlain had a unlikely hit single: three stars will shine tonight, where romantic words added to the characteristic melody of the themes of the show.
He won the Golden Globe Award for Best TV actor in 1963. But three years later, the audience began to disappear and the NBC pulled the plug.
Now the international star, Chamberlain struggled to leave Kildare behind.
In 1966, he hoped he would break into films, but criticism predicted his appearance in a light romantic comedy, Joy in the morning.
The audience, they said, laughed in “all the wrong places.” So, he decided to ignore Hollywood and make a living on stage.
A rocky start began when the music version of breakfast at Tiffany’s – in which he played opposite Mary Tyler Moore – closed after only four shows.
Production is still considered one of Broadway’s largest turkeys. But moving to England gave him a chance to get out as a “serious actor.”
In 1967, the portrait was ladies and opposite Katherine Hepburn in Henry James Portrait in Henry James Portrait in a satirical comedy called Madwoman of Chaillot.
And, two years later, he became the first American to play Hamlet at Birmingham Repertory Theater from the great John Barrymore in 1925.
This time, the reviews were excellent and he revised the role of Danish the most appropriate prince for the Hallmark television version.
But Chamberlain acting as Tchaikovsky in an overcrowded Ken Russell biopia, music lovers, starring in Glenda Jackson.
The critics were destroyed by a movie, in which a big game was made from a relationship between composers with suppressed homosexual tendencies and his nymphomaniac wife, although it later became somewhat cult success.
Chamberlain continued to play Lord Byron opposite Sarah Miles in Lady Caroline Lamb and French swordsman Aemis at Swardbucking in Richard Lester The Three Musketeers.
He also appeared – together with half of Hollywood – in the Exalted Inferno, as the wrong electrical engineer whose cutting extinguishes leads to the spectacular destruction of the 138 floor building.
In 1977, the roots of the TV series – set up during American slavery – attracted a huge audience and nominated for almost 40 EMMY prizes.
It encouraged the revival of a mini-series that returned Chamberlain to television.
He beat Roger Moore and Albert Finney who played as John Blackthorn – a captured English navigator in Japan from the 17th century – in Shoguna.
The series was shown on the NBC during five nights in 1980, and the audience reached almost 30 million.
By winning the Golden Globe, Chamberlain then picked up another as the father of Ralph de Bricassart in Thorn birds, a priest torn between God and his sexual longress from the actress, Rachel Ward.
It was even more successful than Shoguna, winning the audience of 60% of television viewers and 16 Emmy nominations.
In the 1990s, Chamberlain’s career began to fall.
There were a number of solid, not extraordinary appearances in films made for TV and endless guest performances in other people’s shows.
They included a continuation of the Thorn birds called the years that disappeared, and Amanda Donohoe replaced Rachel Ward.
In 2003, long after he stopped playing romantic leading men, Chamberlain published his biography of Shattered Love, in which, for the first time, he confirmed that he was gay.
Despite the relationship for more than 30 years with actor and director Martin Rabbett, with whom he once starred in Allan Quatermain and the lost city of gold, they kept their private life private.
“I thought that something with me, very deeply not right,” he said, “and I wanted to hide it. I remember that I made a pact with me that I would never, never reveal this secret.”
Chamberlain and Rabbett went separately in 2010.
In later years, Chamberlain gladly played a gay man, especially in the desperate housewife and Will & Grace.
He continued to perform at the Music Theater, including a tour of the production of Spamalot, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.
But he never regretted hiding his sexuality to protect his career.
“I would be a happier person who was out of the closet and free,” El Pais 2024 said. “But I had other motives that made me happy. I was a working actor for me, that was the most important thing.”
He will remember him as the King of the TV Mini series: a trembling leading man in everything, from Dr. Kildara to the Thorn bird.
Despite his attempts to change again as a serious stage actor, he was in order on a small screen, entertaining millions by looking home at Sofa.
Because, although there were always better actors than Richard Chamberlain, there is little that he handed his ability to hold the television audience.
