Then he raps a wooden table conveniently in reach, and laughs again. "I've got one-and-a-half scenes, but a really GOOD scene!" "A job like this is ideal," says Chamberlain before a recent performance as his current Man of God. "Then all hell breaks loose," says Chamberlain, adding with a chuckle, "I've played a lot of priests over the years." Not the least of them was Father Ralph de Bricassart, that passionate priest of "The Thorn Birds," the 1983 miniseries whose success on the heels of likewise top-rated "Centennial" and "Shogun" certified Chamberlain as The King of the miniseries genre. In his small but pivotal role, he plays Father Donald, who is called in to counsel the son - a traumatized Vietnam war veteran - of co-stars Holly Hunter and Bill Pullman. 14, Chamberlain can be found onstage in an off-Broadway production of the David Rabe black comedy "Sticks and Bones." Today, at 80, he is still working and, thanks to facial exercises and defiant genes (but no cosmetic work, he vows) retains the dreamboat looks of an elder James Kildare. He passed away two decades ago at age 67.īut a happier fate awaited Chamberlain, who, spared the typical flare-out of an overnight sensation, followed up his stint at Blair General Hospital with a varied and distinguished slate of films, TV and theater. Rugged, swarthy Vince Edwards would never again enjoy his prominence as Dr. Then, as if on cue, each sputtered to a finish five seasons later. Both launched out-of-nowhere heartthrobs. 28, 1961.īoth shows erupted as smash hits. Kildare" and its 27-year-old leading man, Richard Chamberlain.Īdding to the excitement was the harmonic convergence that found a rival doctor drama, "Ben Casey," arriving in ABC's lineup just four days after "Dr. This charming, well-liked man, who declared his homosexuality in his candid 2003 memoir, Shattered Love, and was freed of fear, has touching insight into the tortured self-deceptions of the idealized all-American family in Rabe’s Sticks and Bones.NEW YORK - It is hard to describe the hysteria that was whipped up by the new NBC drama "Dr. Kildare, he dared to play Hamlet in England (which, despite his initial terror, was well-received). But his admired stage work began as early as the 1960s, when, following his first success as Dr. “I wouldn’t trust him as my priest,” he says.Īmerica’s original TV heartthrob became globally famous in the 1980s, when he played a different kind of priest-the seethingly ambitious, philandering Father Ralph de Bricassart, who was mad about Rachel Ward in The Thorn Birds. Chamberlain, now 80-“No surrender!” he tells us-plays Father Donald, a bigoted priest. The blinkered lives of its soap-opera mom, Harriet (Academy Award winner Holly Hunter), and dad, Ozzie (Bill Pullman), are torn apart when their crazed son, David (Ben Schnetzer), a blind Vietnam vet, returns home from the war. Rabe’s 1971 Tony Award-winning play-one of his remarkable quartet of Vietnam dramas-goes to the damaged heart of American family values. The surprising appearance of Richard Chamberlain in the New Group’s revival of David Rabe’s savage black comedy Sticks and Bones (opening this month at the Pershing Square Signature Center, Off Broadway) is an inspired coup de théâtre.
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