Richard Chamberlain, the 1980’s kind of the miniseries – including Shogun, The Thorn Birds and The Bourne Identity, has died at 90.
The 1980s were the heyday of the miniseries, and of all the people who starred in them, the undisputed king of the format was Richard Chamberlain, who, Variety reports, has died at age 90 following a stroke. Chamberlain had already been a leading man for decades by the time he made his first miniseries, having starred on TV’s Dr. Kildare, as well as in a slew of movies during the 1970s, which included Richard Lester’s classic duo, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers (he played Aramis), and Peter Weir’s apocalyptic drama, The Last Wave, plus roles in the disaster films The Towering Inferno and The Swarm (where his demise caused by killer bees triggers a nuclear meltdown).
However, his greatest fame came in the 1980s when he headlined a host of epic miniseries. His first, Shogun, is widely regarded as a classic adaptation of the James Clavell novel (with the recent remake a smash on Hulu). It was a smash hit, and Chamberlain followed it up with an even bigger hit, The Thorn Birds, which became the second highest-rated miniseries of all time (behind Roots). He followed it up with the high-rated Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story and then was the first actor to play Jason Bourne in the miniseries adaptation of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity.
In between miniseries, he also starred in the Cannon Pictures B-movie classic King Solomon’s Mines, in which he played H. Rider Haggard’s Alan Quartermain (renamed from Quatermain), who was reimagined in the film as an Indiana Jones-style hero. The movie also marked an early role for Sharon Stone, and it was followed by a cheapie sequel, Alan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold.
Notably, he also spent much of his career in the closet, only coming out in 2003, with him becoming something of an icon in the gay community, showing up in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Nip/Tuck, and Will & Grace.
As a child of the eighties, I remember Chamberlain’s work quite well, and he will be missed.
