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 .
