Richard Chamberlain has died. A television staple since the 1950s, Chamberlain is best known for his performances in Dr. Kildare, The Three Musketeers, and the original Shōgun mini-series. Per Variety, which confirmed Chamberlain’s death through his publicist Harlan Boll, the actor died of complications following a stroke. He was 90.
“Our beloved Richard is with the angels now,” Martin Rabbett, Chamberlain’s longtime partner, said in a statement. “He is free and soaring to those loved ones before us. How blessed were we to have known such an amazing and loving soul. Love never dies. And our love is under his wings, lifting him to his next great adventure.”
Born on March 31, 1934, Chamberlain followed in the footsteps of his mother, an actor and singer. After high school, he studied art history at Pomona College in Claremont, California. According to his 2003 memoir, Shattered Love, it was there that he had a “life-changing breakthrough” and thought he “could embrace [his] first love and actually become an actor.” Those dreams would have to wait. In 1956, Chamberlain was drafted into the army during the Korean War. He “hated being in the army” and saw it as “just another role,” but after 16 months, he left the military as a sergeant.
Following the war, Chamberlain returned to Hollywood and hit the ground running. He co-founded the Company of Angeles theater company with fellow up-and-comers Leonard Nimoy, Vic Morrow, and Vic Tayback and landed roles on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Gunsmoke.
In 1961, Chamberlain became a television sensation as the titular star of the medical drama Dr. Kildare. Based on a popular series of magazine stories and novels, not to mention several screen adaptations, Kildare tells of a young intern trying to win the respect of his elders. Chamberlain was the third actor to portray Kildare on screen, but his boyish features, strong jaw, and velvety voice perfectly fit the character’s bedside manners. The show was a sensation, made Chamberlain a star, and won him a Golden Globe. Not content to merely star on the show, Chamberlain also sang the theme song to Kildare, which appeared on his first and most successful album, 1962’s Richard Chamberlain Sings. Several songs from the album charted in the Billboard Top 20, including “Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo,” “Love Me Tender,” and “Theme From Dr. Kildare (Three Stars Will Shine Tonight).”
”I used to be chased around supermarkets. I had a convertible stingray, and girls would chase me around in the hills, but I usually managed to escape,” he said in 2010. “When traveling with my parents in Switzerland, we were at some mountain top when someone came up and asked me for my autograph. And my father said, ’Now I know you really made it.’”
After Kildare finished its 191-episode run, Chamberlain spent time on Broadway, starring in revivals of My Fair Lady and The Sound Of Music. In the ’70s, he returned to Hollywood for a series of successful literary adaptations, starring as Aramis in The Three Musketeers and its two sequels, The Four Musketeers and The Return Of The Musketeers, The Count Of Monte Cristo, and a TV version of The Man In The Iron Mask.
At the turn of the ’80s, Chamberlain began his reign as The King of the Mini-series. The era started with his performance as John Blackthorne, the first Englishman to wash up on Japan’s shores, in the 1980 Shōgun miniseries. He won his second Golden Globe for the role and picked up another for his work on the follow-up mini-series The Thorn Birds. He capped off the decade as the first actor to portray Jason Bourne in the television mini-series The Bourne Identity.
Chamberlain continued to act throughout the ’90s and 2000s, appearing on Will & Grace, The Drew Carey Show, and Desperate Housewives. His final TV role was a brief appearance, appropriately, in another landmark television mini-series, 2017’s Twin Peaks revival, as Bill Kennedy.
Chamberlain had no children and kept his personal life, particularly his homosexuality, private. He is survived by his long-time partner Martin Rabbett, Chamberlain’s co-star in Allan Quatermain And The Lost City Of Gold, with whom he shared a lengthy relationship. The couple broke up in 2010 but remained friends and were living together in Hawaii when Chamberlain died.
