Actor Richard Chamberlain: biography and personal life

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

An actor like Richard Chamberlain deserves to have a novel or feature film made about his life and work. However, we will confine ourselves to a short article. We will try to briefly highlight the biography of this famous American actor and singer, three-time winner of the Golden Globe Award. During his long career, he has appeared in numerous films. His face has been recognizable since 1959, and for more than half a century, audiences around the world have been enjoying his stage play. The general public is also interested in the personal life of Richard Chamberlain. The actor never made a secret of his non-traditional sexual orientation and was openly in a civil marriage with Martin Rabbett, a writer, actor and producer. But for the past five years, the couple has been living separately. Is it a complete break or temporary difficulties in the relationship? But let's go in order…

Family

The future actor was born on the last day of March 1934 in Los Angeles (USA). At baptism, the boy was given the name George Richard Chamberlain. He was the second child in the family. Bill was the firstborn of a couple of Elsa and Charles Chamberlain. He was six years older than his brother. The actor's father worked as an agent in a trading company that supplied goods to a chain of stores. Therefore, the famous crisis did not affect the material well-being of the family. Although there is no need to talk about excessive luxury either. In 1936, the Chamberlains moved from Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, near Hollywood, where they bought a seven-room house. Charles Chamberlain was also involved in persuading people in the Society of Alcoholics Anonymous to stop drinking. His oratory has helped many to start a new life.

Study

When Richard was six years old, he was sent to Beverly Vista Grammar School elementary school. He also received his Abitur from Beverly Hills. This happened in 1952. His classmates mention that Richard Chamberlain always had good manners. The proximity of Hollywood at first did not affect the young man's choice of profession. He dreamed of becoming an artist, and for this purpose he entered Pomona College in the town of Claremont, which is 40 km from Hollywood. Richard studied applied painting, but gradually became more and more involved in the activities of the student theater circle. He nevertheless completed his education, but, having received a diploma in 1956, he was firmly convinced that he would become an actor. The call to the army for a while pushed back his ambitious plans. The young man served two years in Korea and returned home with the rank of sergeant.

Richard Chamberlain: biography, the beginning of an acting career

Returning to America, youngThe man decided to try his luck in Los Angeles. He began to bypass agencies and studios, go through auditions. Realizing that he did not have a special education, Richard took private acting lessons in his spare time from looking for work. We can say that his career began in 1959. The twenty-five-year-old actor had bit parts (Pete in Gunsmoke and Clay Pine in Alfred Hitchcock Presents). But it wasn't all that. Chamberlain's finest hour came in 1961, when the MGM film studio decided to make a television series "Dr. Kildare" and was looking for an actor for the lead role. Chamberlain successfully passed the audition, and this sealed his fate. From the very first episodes, the actor became a sensation. And glory has not left him since then. The series was filmed from 1961 to 1966. This tape was extremely popular. In 1963, the actor received his first Golden Globe for the title role in this series.

Singer career

In the early sixties, the already famous actor Richard Chamberlain decided to try himself in the music field and began taking vocal lessons. And he also succeeded! His albums became hits in the first half of the sixties. Naturally, it would be a sin not to take advantage of acting fame. One of the albums - "Three Stars Shall Shine Tonight" - was directly related to the series "Doctor Kildare". The hit entered the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. But, despite the success in his singing career, Richard Chamberlain was attracted to the stage. In 1968, he became the first American actor to, after a 40-year hiatus,played Hamlet on the British stage. This role brought him fame and overseas, in Europe. Moreover, which rarely happens, his performance delighted both theater critics and the audience.

Famous roles of Richard Chamberlain

When the actor was forty-five, he starred (skipper John Blackthorne) in the short series Shogun. This tape became a hit, and Richard Chamberlain in the ranking of the most famous and popular actors took third place after Sean Connery and A. Finney. It would seem that his star will no longer rise higher. But the roles in feature films, where he played the musketeer Aramis, Anton Chekhov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Edmond Dantes, Octavian Augustus, Casanova and Louis XIV, did not bring him such fame as his work in The Thorn Birds. After he appeared on the screens in 1983 in the image of the priest Ralph de Bricassart with Rachel Ward, telling the audience a touching story of forbidden love, the actor for a long time went out into the street only in black glasses that covered half of his face. He was afraid that the fans would literally tear him to pieces. In 1981 and 1984, the actor was awarded the Golden Globe.

Films, series and theatrical performances with Richard Chamberlain

For the role of the priest in the film "The Thorn Birds", the actor was called "the king of small television series." But this is a superficial definition. The actor worked hard and incessantly on the set of feature films. Yes, it was television that brought him fame. Work in such tapes as "The Secretnamed after Bourne”, “Casanova”, “Dream West” (in the Russian box office “Road to the West”), “Centennial” and “Wallenberg - the story of a hero”, created a name for him. But we should not forget about the roles in feature films. He was remembered by the domestic audience for the films "The Man in the Iron Mask" and several stories about Allan Quatermain ("King Solomon's Mines", "In Search of the Lost City"). Now the actor has exchanged the ninth decade. Is Richard Chamberlain filming anywhere else? Films with his participation are quite famous. True, he plays only episodic roles in them. These are Virtuosos, Body Parts, Desperate Housewives, Chuck and Impact. In recent years, the actor has been involved in Broadway musicals. These are My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Scrooge: The Musical.

Richard Chamberlain: personal life

As already mentioned, the actor has never made a secret of his homosexual orientation. He has no children, not even illegitimate ones. The only one - known to the general public - his love was the writer, producer and actor Martin Rabbett. Chamberlain entered into a civil marriage with him in the mid-1970s. The couple settled in Hawaii. Gradually, the actor got involved in charitable activities to help the indigenous population of the archipelago, as well as to protect animals. It was rumored that Richard Chamberlain and his "wife" were more interested in the welfare of the natives of Oahu than filming a movie. However, the active spirit of the actor made itself felt. In early 2010, Chamberlain left Martin and moved to Los Angeles. He found a new producer to replace Rabbett, and nowstarring in the series “Leverage”.

Chamberlain as a writer

In 2003, the actor published the book "Broken Love", which is essentially an autobiography. In it, he talks about his experiences and psychological problems associated with homosexuality. He describes the stages of his spiritual development. In recent years, the actor again took up painting. In the paintings "Age and Wisdom" and "Somewhere Within Us" he expressed his philosophical view of human existence.