Longtime Hollywood Actor, Richard Chamberlain, Has Passed Away At 90

TV & Film

Apr 2

Richard Chamberlain, actor, singer, and 60s heartthrob has passed away at age ninety, due to complications from a stroke. His final moments were spent at home in Waimanalo, Hawaii.

Richard Chamberlain was born in 1934, in Beverley Hills, the son of a shop equipment salesman. Like many of his generation he was drafted into the US Army, much of the two years were spent abroad in Korea where he climbed the ranks to Sergent.

On his return to the US, he founded Company of Angels (which is still going, the oldest not-for-profit repertory theater in LA.) with Leonard Nimoy and a handful of other actors. In 1959, the same year, he landed a small guest role in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and his television career began. It only took him two years to land the lead in his own series, NBC’s medical drama Dr Kildare. Richard Chamberlain was cemented as a romantic lead and Hollywood was soon knocking at his door.

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In 1973 he was cast as the dashing Lord Byron in the BAFTA-nominated Lady Caroline Lamb. A year later he found himself starring beside Oliver Reed, and Christopher Lee as Aramis in The Four Musketeers. Although Chamberlain was often cast as a swashbuckler, he did his best to vary his roles and showed his musical theatre talents in the popular Cinderella adaption, The Slipper and the Rose.

Richard Chamberlain has the distinction of being the first actor to play Jason Bourne, in The Bourne Identity miniseries in 1988. He finally got to shed the hero persona in Towering Inferno and play a shifty antagonist. The star-studded film received eight Oscar nominations (unheard of for an action movie) including Best Picture.

The part that he received the most acclaim for, however, was Father Ralph de Bricassart. The Thornbirds did the ‘hot priest’ trope over thirty years before Fleabag.

As well as his screen career, he was a regular on Broadway, starring in the 1993 revival of My Fair Lady as Henry Higgins as well as Monty Python’s Spamalot. He also released several compilation albums, Richard Chamberlain Sings reached number 21 on the Billboard chart, and number 8 in the UK charts.