Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

DICK CHAMBER LAIN Continued from page 40 In that same city Joan Crawford — a star Dick had gaped at as a kid himself — entertained him at tier home and at the theater. “Because my girls are crazy about you — and so am I.” Coming hack to Hollywood, Dick’s guest star was Gloria Swanson, queen of that town before Dick was horn. Raved Gloria. “My most fascinating experience since “Sunset Boulevard. Right now, “Dr. Kildare” is out ahead of “Ben Casey” in popularity ratings and for 40,000,000 Chamberlain conquests (in the USA and 19 foreign lands) homework, of one kind or another, is tough to arrange when he’s on. Both his song platters are sellouts and Dick is skimping lunch hours to cut new albums. Meanwhile, at M-G-M, trucks dump more fan mail (13,000 letters a week) than ever swamped Robert Taylor or Clark Gable in their heydays. It’s from smitten females, mainly, of all ages. For instance Dinah Shore’s teenage daughter Melissa, who invaded Dick’s dressing room at his last TV spectacular, pretending to fix her hair. Or the middle-aged lady who snatched a chair he sat in — and gave the cops $8.50 to keep it. By now, maids and mamas from all over get the same wistfully rash ideas from Dick Chamberlain’s wholesome, clean cut spell. “I’m bringing my daughter out to Hollywood to meet you,” warned one frankly the other day. “You’re just the man I want her to marry ! Surveying all this, Dick Chamberlain wags his handsome head incredulously. “I love every minute of it. sure,” he admits. “What guy in this business wouldn’t? Still.” he sighs, “it’s sort of unbelievable — isn’t it?” That it is — but Richard Chamberlain is even more so. What Dick means, of course, is that barely two years ago he was just another obscure Hollywood hopeful, lost in the shuffle and spiritually down after fourteen boring G1 months of exile in Korea. He was slugging away at lesson after lesson — drama, voice and ballet — but not sure he was getting anywhere and periodically telling his coach, Jeff Corey, “I’m going to quit trying to act.” Living in a gloomy apartment house perched over a smogbound freeway and inhabited by decrepit old folks, he spent most nights hoping the phone would ring with a dinky job offer, which it almost never did. He was keeping body and soul together by chauffeuring a polio-stricken lady around. Then suddenly, a year ago last September, Dick was blasted off to the stars in what his voice teacher and friend, Carolyn Trojanowski, rightly calls, “the most overwhelming thing that can happen to a young man” — instant glory as the star of a hit 1 V series. That experience can indeed be devastating. It sent Gardner McKay, for example, emotionally shattered, off to the South American jungles to try and rediscover himself; it threatens to wreck George Maharis’ health and it has turned Dick’s rival. Vince Edwards, into a surly set tyrant with an apparent Napoleonic complex. By contrast, after fifty “Kildare’s” and almost two years of a pressured 7 A.M.-to-7 P.M. daily grind, Dick Chamberlain carries on apparently as smooth, fresh and cool as a mentholated cigarette ad. On TV he seems as pure as Sir Galahad, off TV as above reproach as the Queen of England. And Dick is not much help in cracking that illusion— and part illusion it is. “Hey,” cried a frustrated reporter. “Can’t somebody get this guy to say something stronger than that he’s against sin and loves his mother?” “It’s just my phony front,” Dick himself grins. "I’m gradually growing out of it.” But that’s not necessarily so. The truth is that all sides of Dick Chamberlain’s many faceted personality are as valid as government bonds. He is what he appears to be and what he doesn’t. And that is his hidden panic. “I know Dick seems too good to be true,” says one of his closest friends, Martin Green. “But it is true. He’s kind, clean, considerate and polile — as a gentleman, the greatest. Don’t forget, though, he’s an actor. In a sense, all of us are. because life is an acting game. Dick recognizes that, plays t he game to the hilt and has a great time. He is not dewy-eyed, but realistic.” And if someone is hiding something, isn’t it better to hide it by playing the game? Another pal. Bob Towne. an articulate young writer who like Green, chummed with Dick all through college, put it a little differently: “If Dick were religious — which lie’s not — he’d he a humanist,” Towne believes. “He has great compassion. He couldn’t hurt anyone if he tried. Yet he’s a Stoic, too — in the classic sense — with an inner citadel of freedom. He’s superbly self-contained , and his basic quality. I’d say, is toughness. Inside, he’s the British officer type who could calmly dress for dinner in the jungle while the natives outside were howling. He’d he great to have around in a crisis. You see, what Dick has is grace and control under pressure.” Hemingway called that by another name — courage. Carolyn Trojanowski backs Bob Towne up. “Dick is a perfect example of a ‘cool head, she says. “He can look at himself and a problem objectively, analyze it and calmly set out to correct it at once. I’ve never seen him blow up. He never will.” Whatever his subsurface secret — courage. control, cool head or superb act — on State 11 at M-G-M. Dick Chamberlain is a white-coated paragon, the beau ideal of any TV producer. Compared to the turbulent tension of “Ben Casey,” “Dr. Kildare’s” set is a rest home, thanks mainly to Dick. He’s never late, never sick, never sore and always knows his lines. “Working with Dick,” his veteran colleague, Raymond Massey, says, is pure pleasure. He’s young but mature — a professional. Like a good golfer, he doesn’t press.” Female guest stars, from Suzanne Pleshette to Gloria Swanson trip over themselves beaming back Dick’s suave, courtly manners. 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