Richard Chamberlain, biggest TV star of the 80s thanks to 'Shogun' and 'The Thorn Birds', dies at 90

It is no exaggeration to say that in the 1980s, Richard Chamberlain was the most famous television actor. 'Shogun', a miniseries based on the novel of the same name by James Clavell, premiered in 1980 on NBC with audience peaks of 26 million viewers, had already turned the Californian actor into a star. He portrayed an English navigator who went from being a plundering mercenary in search of fortune to becoming a respected samurai.

However, global frenzy arrived three years later thanks to the four episodes of 'The Thorn Birds', the nickname that ended up being used for any attractive priest in Spanish parishes. Ralph de Bricassart, a priest torn between his faith, his ambition, and the love of a woman, drew 110 million American viewers to the small screen. Thanks to 'Shogun', 'The Thorn Birds', 'Dr. Kildare', and 'The Count of Monte Cristo', Richard Chamberlain rightfully earned the title of 'king of the miniseries'.

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The actor passed away this Saturday at the age of 90 in Hawaii due to complications after suffering a stroke, as explained by his representative to 'Variety'. "Our beloved Richard is now with the angels," declared Martin Rabbett, Chamberlain's life partner, in a statement sent to the American media. The quintessential heartthrob, the man desired by millions of women, came out of the closet in 2003 in an interview given to the 'Dateline' program.

"I'm no longer a heartthrob, so I don't need to maintain that image," said the actor at 68 years old. He had never acknowledged his homosexuality, although it was an open secret. Throughout his extensive career, he played some roles with this orientation, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 'The Music Lovers' in 1971, directed by Ken Russell and alongside Glenda Jackson. "When I was younger, being gay, effeminate, or anything like that was forbidden," he justified.

Chamberlain also spoke about his homosexuality in his autobiography 'Shattered Love', published in 2003, where he confessed to having suffered a difficult childhood due to his father's alcoholism. At 10 years old, he already knew he was gay, but he was not with a man until he was 23. He grew up in Beverly Hills and after graduating with a degree in Fine Arts from university, he fought in the Korean War, where he reached the rank of sergeant. Upon his return, he took acting seriously and by 1959 he was already appearing in an episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'.

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After several television roles, the producers of 'Dr. Kildare' were looking for a new and attractive face. They found him in 'Fort Comanche' and, although he was unknown, Chamberlain donned the white coat for a whopping 191 episodes between 1961 and 1966. The actor always regretted not having negotiated his contract better. The popularity of the series was such that he received 12,000 letters a week and even stethoscopes with his face were marketed. The leap to cinema was inevitable with notable films like 'Petulia', by Richard Lester; 'The Madwoman of Chaillot', by Bryan Forbes; and 'The Three Musketeers', again under Lester's direction and in the role of Aramis, which he would reprise a year later in the sequel, 'The Four Musketeers'.

Richard Chamberlain was not only a great actor but also a gifted singer. He recorded albums and starred in Broadway adaptations of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', 'My Fair Lady', and 'The Sound of Music'. As a major star, he appeared in the ensemble casts of two disaster film milestones of the 70s: 'The Towering Inferno', where he played the negligent engineer, and 'The Swarm'. The subject of a new version that Disney Plus has just released, 'Shogun' once again kept him on television and pitted him against the legendary Toshiro Mifune. If that series popularized orientalism around the planet, 'The Thorn Birds' exploited the morbid fascination and scandal to the point that the Catholic Conference demanded that it not be aired during Holy Week.

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The actor continued to shine in the 80s thanks to his role as Allan Quatermain alongside Sharon Stone in 'King Solomon's Mines' and its sequel. He portrayed the spy Jason Bourne on television in a movie directed by his partner, Martin Rabbett, before Matt Damon did it in the cinema. In 2019, at the age of 85, he retired to Hawaii to paint after a last phase in which he mainly portrayed gay characters. He appeared in 'Brothers & Sisters', 'Nip/Tuck', and the new 'Twin Peaks'. "I spent much of my life pretending to be someone I wasn't, and that's not the best way to live," he acknowledged in his autobiography.