“Over a long period of time, living as if you were someone else is no fun.”
TRQ: Richard Chamberlain, Born March 31, 1934
Award-winning actor and singer Richard Chamberlain, known for his starring roles in Dr. Kildare and The Bourne Identity, was born in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Beverly Hills High, and studied art and drama at Pomona College in Claremont, California. After performing in George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man in college, Chamberlain realised that “maybe I could embrace my first love and actually become an actor!”
However, after college Chamberlain was drafted into the Korean War. “I hated being in the Army… I don’t like being ordered around. I don’t like ordering people around. I came out a sergeant. It was all just another role for me,” Chamberlain later told The Advocate.
He landed the starring role as physician Dr. Kildare in 1961, for which he won a Golden Globe Award in 1963. The television series made him a household name, but soon he was starring in dramatic films like Twilight of Horror (1963) and Joy in the Morning (1965). After Dr. Kildare ended in 1966, Chamberlain moved to England to pursue work in the theatre.
Chamberlain’s film career continued through the 1970’s with The Three Musketeers (1973), co-starring Michael York, Oliver Reed and Raquel Welch, and The Towering Inferno (1974) with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. On television he starred in The Man in the Iron Mask (1977) and Centennial (1977).
In the 1980’s he starred in the miniseries Shōgun (1980) as Pilot-Major John Blacktorne, and The Thorn Birds (1983) as Ralph Bricassart. For both performances, Chamberlain was nominated Emmys and won Golden Globes.
Then in 1989, while starring as Dr. Daniel Kulani in Island Son, Chamberlain was outed by the French magazine Nous Deux. Worried over the impact of being gay on his career, he had spent his life deeply closeted, and only came out in his autobiography, Shattered Love, published in 2003. In 2003, he told Dateline, “I’m not a romantic leading man anymore, so I don’t need to nurture that public image anymore.”
Very much aware of realities of homophobic stigma of the era, Chamberlain later told the Advocate, “It’s complicated. There’s still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture. It’s regrettable, it’s stupid, it’s heartless, and it’s immoral, but there it is.”
As a case in point, Chamberlain had been involved with Wesley Eure, a younger actor subsequently fired from the soap opera Days of Our Lives, for being gay. This, despite the fact that the head of daytime programming at NBC at the time was a gay man, Earl Greenburg.
“For an actor to be working is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren’t, so it’s just silly for a working actor to say, ‘Oh, I don’t care if anybody knows I’m gay’ — especially if you’re a leading man. Personally, I wouldn’t advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.”
Chamberlain then met and began a forty-year relationship with Martin Rabbett, an actor, writer and producer. Chamberlain moved to protect their mutual assets by legally adopting Rabbett.
His career continued on television with roles in shows created by gay men. These included Will & Grace (1998-2006), Nip/Tuck (2003-10), and Brothers & Sisters (2006-2011). He returned to the stage in 2012 for a role The Exorcist with Brooke Shields, and in 2014 with Sticks and Stones, alongside Holly Hunter and Bill Pullman. Most recently, Chamberlain appeared in David Lynch’s reboot of Twin Peaks (2017). In 2013 he published a book of haiku poems, My Life in Haiku.
Even though Chamberlain moved back to LA in 2010, leaving Rabbett in Maui, he explained to The Advocate, “Well, we haven’t really split. In other words, we’re still very, very close. The essence of our relationship has remained the same; we just don’t happen to be living together. I went home for Thanksgiving and had the most wonderful time, and we’ll be spending Christmas together with friends in NYC. So, we’re not split, really. I just moved to L.A. because I wanted to work more. Martin, unfortunately, doesn’t like L.A. at all, but he’s thinking of moving to San Francisco.”
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