Richard Chamberlain, the handsome hero of the 1960s television series Dr. Kildare who found a second career as an award-winning "king of the miniseries," has died. He was 90 and died Saturday night in Waimanalo, Hawaii, of complications following a stroke, his publicist said, per the AP. Tall with a romantic style, Chamberlain became an instant favorite with teenage girls as the compassionate physician on the TV series that aired from 1961 to 1966. Not until 2003 did he acknowledge publicly what Hollywood insiders had long known, that he was gay. He made the revelation in his autobiography.
The actor became known as "king of the TV miniseries" in 1978 when he landed the starring role in Centennial, a production 24 hours long and based on James Michener's sprawling novel. He followed that in 1980 with Shogun, another costly, epic miniseries based on James Clavell's period piece about an American visitor to Japan. It drew 120 million viewers, one of the biggest audiences ever, per the Washington Post. "A miniseries has to seem special," he once told the New York Times. "We were worried about Shogun because so much of it was in Japanese. But it caught on for that very reason." Chamberlain scored his greatest miniseries success in 1983 with another long-form drama, The Thorn Birds, based on Colleen McCullough's best-seller.
He played Father Ralph de Bricassart, a Roman Catholic priest in Australia who falls in love with Meggie Cleary, played by Rachel Ward. The ABC production, which also starred Barbara Stanwyck, reportedly attracted 100 million viewers. Chamberlain won Golden Globes for his work in Shogun and The Thorn Birds. Years earlier, he received one for Dr. Kildare. When the public began to lose interest in miniseries, Chamberlain turned to the theater, where he displayed a fine singing voice, per the AP. He also appeared in numerous films, including The Music Lovers (as Tchaikovsky), The Madwoman of Chaillot, The Towering Inferno and The Three Musketeers.
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In Shattered Love, Chamberlain, who was born in Beverly Hills, recounted how he was forced to hide his sexuality. He would escort glamorous actresses to premieres at the request of studio executives and dodge reporters' questions about why he had never married with a stock reply: "Getting married would be great, but I'm awfully busy now." In an NBC interview, he later said: "When I grew up, being gay, being a sissy or anything like that was verboten. I disliked myself intensely and feared this part of myself intensely and had to hide it." Revealing his sexuality in his autobiography provided great relief, Chamberlain said. "Being gay is one of the least interesting facts you can know about a person," he said.
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