Richard Chamberlain's 10 greatest roles

Telegraph

30-03-2025

The death of the actor Richard Chamberlain at the age of 90 deprives his many admirers of the man once known as 'the king of the miniseries'. Over the course of a decades-spanning career, the suave and charismatic Chamberlain excelled at playing heroic and sensitive figures, albeit often with a dark side or concealed secrets. His success at portraying these demanding roles presumably came from his own closeted homosexuality, which would have destroyed his mainstream career had it been exposed in his Sixties and Seventies heyday.
Like an American Dirk Bogarde, Chamberlain's career became more interesting as he cast off his matinee idol trappings in favour of more challenging roles, which, in retrospect, seem clearly designed to indicate to those in the know that there was more to him than the white-bread wholesomeness of Dr Kildare.
In the last years of his life and career, after he confirmed he was gay in his 2003 autobiography Shattered Love, Chamberlain seemed more comfortable embracing a camper and more relaxed side on screen, his leading man days long behind him. Yet he continued to surprise, not least in his final television appearance, which was not some piece of stunt casting in a sitcom but a knowing cameo in David Lynch's 2017 Twin Peaks redux as Billy Kennedy, a high-ranking FBI supremo: proof that, even in his eighties, this versatile and always interesting actor was beloved by the best. Here are 10 of his most varied roles, from Tchaikovsky to Edward VIII – to say nothing, of course, of Dr Kildare and Father Ralph.
10. Dr James Kildare, Dr Kildare (1961 – 1966)
After a series of undistinguished early roles, the handsome Chamberlain first achieved household name status in the immensely popular NBC medical drama which aired for five years in the Sixties. It saw him receive 12,000 fan letters a week, many of them asking for medical advice. Such was the popularity of both actor and character that he even recorded its theme as a single – The Stars Will Shine Tonight – which duly reached the top 10 in the US charts. It was not, in truth, the most demanding role that Chamberlain ever took on, although the much-parodied series should be given credit for attempting to deal with some reasonably serious issues – it was the first American show ever to explore epilepsy, for instance – and the actor's smooth bedside manner meant that the Golden Globe he eventually won was much deserved.
9. Jason Bourne, The Bourne Identity (1988)
Two-and-a-half decades before Matt Damon and Doug Liman created one of the most iconic action heroes of the 21st century, Chamberlain, by then nearing the end of his leading man career, took the first stab at playing Robert Ludlum's amnesiac spy. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his now little-seen attempt at playing Jason Bourne, although this three-hour miniseries comes up short when compared to the subsequent Paul Greengrass-directed pictures. It's far closer to the original novels than the films were, and reflects the Cold War era in which they were written, and the now 55-year old Chamberlain is a more sombre, stately figure than Damon ever was. Still, he's always watchable, if never exactly magnetic (you can't imagine him engaging in a spot of parkour, for instance) and, as usual, Chamberlain conveys a chilly sense of reserve that marks him out as a natural spy.
8. David Danner, Petulia (1968)
Richard Lester's romantic drama Petulia is a film entirely of its time, in its focus on an unhappy but glamorous late Sixties socialite – played, inevitably but superbly, by Julie Christie – and her burgeoning relationship with a progressive doctor played by George C Scott. Yet much of the film's interest and appeal comes from Chamberlain's cast-against-type performance as Christie's violently abusive husband, an architect named David Danner. It was clear that, after several years of being associated with the near-saintly Dr Kildare, Chamberlain wanted to take on more testing roles, and although he does not have a leading role here, his ability to delve convincingly into his dark side precipitated far more interesting parts in the early Seventies, and beyond.
7. Edward VIII, The Woman I Love (1972)
Chamberlain spent a considerable part of his career working in the United Kingdom, where he played some of his greatest roles. It may have been seen as acclamation of his talent that he was cast as the country's most controversial 20th-century monarch, the spoilt, petulant Edward VIII. Although this television film prefers to present his love for Faye Dunaway's Wallis Simpson as a grand amour, rather than the selfishly destructive (and constitutionally damaging) disaster that it really was, Chamberlain manages to make Edward a sympathetic and glamorous figure, with his love for Mrs Simpson seeming wholly believable rather than (as in real life) the display of an obsessive masochism. Not until Guy Pearce in The King's Speech did anyone play this most inessential of monarchs better.
6. Roger Simmons, The Towering Inferno (1974)
The Seventies was the peak time for big-budget, star-studded disaster pictures, and The Towering Inferno is fondly remembered by many as the peak example of the genre, not only for its then-groundbreaking visual effects but for the on and off-screen machismo that was brought about by the casting of the two biggest stars in Hollywood, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.
It was typical of Chamberlain, cast in the villainous role of Roger Simmons, a slimy electrical subcontractor whose cost-cutting leads to the eponymous conflagration in the film's San Francisco skyscraper, to come between the two main actors and waltz away with the picture. Although he did not win the critical plaudits – those, and the awards, went to Fred Astaire's sprightly conman – Chamberlain yet again revealed his ability to play a dark side in a charismatic yet deeply nefarious fashion, which would stand him in great stead for his most famous roles.
5. Lord Byron, Lady Caroline Lamb (1972)
Lawrence of Arabia screenwriter Robert Bolt only directed one film, this biopic of Byron's most famous lover Lady Caroline Lamb. She was the one who famously described the aristocratic poet as 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', and so it was vital to cast an actor who could simultaneously convey seductive charisma and saturnine menace. Step forward Chamberlain, who said of his casting that 'I've been playing zanies and eccentrics for the past few years, so Byron is new for me. He was like this incredible pop star.' He steals the show entirely, both from cameo players like Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson and from the rather colourless Sarah Miles in the lead role; he makes you wish that the film had simply been called 'Byron' instead. Bolt subsequently disowned the unsuccessful picture, and understandably so, but
Chamberlain's dashing poet-meets-pop star is worth the watch.
4. Tchaikovsky, The Music Lovers (1971)
Chamberlain had repressed his homosexuality since the beginning of his career, so in retrospect it was a bold move to play the similarly closeted composer in Ken Russell's avant-garde musical drama, which explores his compromising marriage to his wife Nina (as played by Glenda Jackson) as well as his forbidden passion for Christopher Gable's Count Anton Chiluvsky. Even by Russell's standards, The Music Lovers is challenging stuff – largely devoid of dialogue, it regards instead on Tchaikovsky's music juxtaposed with Russell's signature surrealist, often highly sexualised imagery – which is why Chamberlain's dignified and charismatic performance, which stands in contrast to Jackson's atypically OTT work opposite him, remains some of his most underrated work in cinema.
3. John Blackthorne, Shōgun (1980)
Now that the recent adaptation of James Clavell's Shōgun has won virtually every award going, there has been a tendency to regard the first version of it as something of an inferior dry run, which lacks the complexity and nuance (as well as extreme bloodshed) of the newer miniseries. This is fair, but there are many strengths to the earlier series too – it did not win a Golden Globe and Emmy for Best Limited Series for nothing – although its greater emphasis on the white character of Blackthorne rather than the true lead, Toshiro Mifune's Toranaga, reflects changing audience expectations over the past few decades. Chamberlain is, however, terrific in the beefed-up central role, conveying charisma, decency and heroism in equal measure. He deservedly won a Golden Globe, and the show's success would lead to his greatest role a few years later, as well as his more regrettable appearance as the adventurer Allen Quartermain in two
B-movies that decade.
2. Aramis, The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers (1973/1974)
If it is hard to distinguish Richard Lester's two Alexandre Dumas adaptations from one another, there is a simple reason for that: the pictures were filmed together, intended as one three-hour film, and then the producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind decided to release them as two features instead, thereby doubling the box office gross. If this was a commercially rather than artistically driven decision, it did at least allow audiences to savour more of Chamberlain's most successful cinematic performance, the poetic and debonair Aramis, whose refined and gentlemanly sensibilities are only equalled by his deadliness in a duel. Despite his American birth, Chamberlain was occasionally half-seriously discussed as a potential James Bond, and this (rather than his later Bourne) is the best indication of what he would have been like had he been (to date) the first gay actor to play 007.
1. Ralph de Brissecart, The Thorn Birds (1983)
There could never be any serious doubt, however, as to which Chamberlain's most iconic and beloved role is, and his priest Ralph de Brissecart, who falls helplessly in forbidden love with Rachel Ward's Meggie Clearly, remains his most famous part.
The Thorn Birds miniseries, based on Colleen McCullough's bestseller, was immensely successful on its initial broadcast, and although it may seem overblown and almost comically eventful to contemporary viewers, retains much of its guilty-pleasure appeal thanks to Chamberlain's Golden Globe-winning star role.
The character of the priest tormented by all-too-human desires is hardly an original conception, but Chamberlain, perhaps mindful of his own secrets that he had kept throughout his life, makes Ralph sympathetic and even heroic in his forbidden passion. He reprised his role in another miniseries 16 years later, subtitled The Missing Years, but it is the original that will continue to endure for audiences.