Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

it. “It’s just something you learn in class.” “And that,” says Clara, “is what you’d call subtle persuasion. You see, both Dick and Carolyn have been bugging me for months to take dramatic lessons. I’m a singer, so to me that seems a waste of money. But I know I haven’t a chance. I'll be taking them if I stick around Dick.” Not long ago Clara played a small part in a “Dr. Kildare.” Actually, she was so good that cast and crew plugged to have her join the show as a regular. But when Clara saw the rushes with Dick she hid her face in her hands. “I had no idea I did all those God-awful things!” she wailed. “You really did, didn’t you,” he replied, rather ungallantly. “You have to be shown, don’t you?” Dick Chamberlain’s stern dedication to self improvement and his cool, correct manner of tackling it are his trademark with all who know him. “Dick,” his friend Bob Towne, told him the other day, “you know, your greatest virtue is also your most besetting sin — you’re always a perfect gentleman and scholar!” “Oh, Lord,” Dick came back. “Not that again!” But it’s true. And it’s very hard to beat, everyone agrees. “Dick is quietly but steadily going about improving his acting instrument,” observes Towne seriously. “I think his scope is unlimited.” Bob Weitman, head of M-G-M, puts it another way: “Richard Chamberlain,” he’s said more than once, “is the most promising long-range star we have here.” All this work and no play, of course, could conceivably make Dick a dull boy. To more than a few that’s just what he seems to be. However, Dick Chamberlain can — and usually does — break out a far more colorful side when he’s within his tight little circle of old friends. Among those, in fact, he’s known as a party clown and show off who, as one says, “will climb up a wall if he has to, to entertain.” Dick has even wriggled through limbo exhibitions and twist frenzies at Carolyn Trojanowski’s, after “Potpourri” shows. Usually, though his fun stunts are sophisticated, creative and, in effect, performances. “Noel Cowardish,” is the way Boh Towne describes them. If there’s a piano handy, Dick will sit down and start rippling the keys witli Debussy or Ravel, correctly and with feeling. But before anyone knows it, he’s off in wild improvisations which are pure Chamberlain — and killing burlesque. Not long ago at a “Potpourri” cast party at Martin Green’s Costa Mesa studio, things like this went on till dawn, helped along by champagne in paper cups. “Dick did a fake strip-tease with all the props that was paralyzing,” Green recalls. “Then we all sat around my electric organ and took turns composing and singing operas. Dick loves to take something like that and go with it. He always has. “I remember,” Green goes on, “one winter back in college, we — Dick, Dave Ossman and I — semi-stole Dick’s mother’s Lincoln and took off for San Francisco. What I mean is, we were nice enough to leave her a note. Anyway, the trip was a glorious debacle. We practically froze because the power windows stuck wide open, we ran out of gas and money, almost starved — about everything happened to us except landing in jail. Back home the gang got together for a party and Dick headed for the piano. He sang a long, witty piece he’d composed that included every private joke and hotfoot of that trip. He had us rolling on the floor.” “Dick has a devastating wit,” confirms Carolyn Trojanowski. “No one he knows well is safe, especially himself. It’s always creative and you never know when he’ll let it fly.” A while hack Carolyn was giving Dick a hard time in a tough voice lesson. As she left the room to answer the telephone she noticed Dick draw a straight line on the blackboard. “When I got back,” says Miss Trojanowski, “it was covered with a web of other straight lines. They formed a kookie sort of abstract portrait of someone you didn’t particularly like too much— undoubtedly me!” “I don't know him” But even Dick Chamberlain’s closest friends recognize a line behind which Dick occasionally steps to become someone nobody really knows, possibly including himself. Carolyn Trojanowski, who has known him before he went to Korea, says, “Sometimes I have no idea what Dick is thinking. I might think I do, but I can’t he sure.” Clara Ray, thoughtfully fingering the diamond pendant Dick gave her admits, “The longer I know Dick the more I realize I don’t know him.” And Martin Green, who has painted two portraits of his pal. muses, “When Dick sits for a painting his personality seems to turn inward. He’s not easy.” Like all true artists, Green paints what he sees — inside his subject related to inside himself. What came out on canvas the last time was a fascinating hut disturbing study mostly in black, deep brown and yellow. The eyes are somberly glowing. the lips rebelliously set. The mood is brooding, intense and a hint unhappy. To Dick (no mean painter himself) it had. “a forward motion and restraint at the same time — expressing a sort of inhibition.” Dick has bought many of Martin’s pictures to hang on his walls. He took this one home. The other day he brought it hack. “I’m afraid I can’t live with it,” he told Martin. Dick Chamberlain’s critique of his portrait. by his best friend’s brush, is a neat and honest self-analysis. He has had other analyses, too, professional ones, inviting the real Dick Chamberlain to please step forward. That is a maneuver popular with today’s young actors, to improve their art. In Dick’s case it is partly that but more: There is evidence that, despite everything that has come his way Dick Chamberlain is far from satisfied with himself as a person. He would like to know himself better, crack his mask of reserve and let more of his new world in. But with him that’s a tough order. The other night a friend dropped by Dick’s hideout on his way home from the beach. “Dick offered me a brandy and we had one, then a few more,” he reports. “He began to open up. I don’t remember all that he said but I got the impression that down deep Dick feels a hit unfulfilled and lonely. He mentioned what few close friends he really had and how hard it was for him to make new ones.” If that’s true, the feeling is nothing AJsaJ for every body € Smoothing Cashmere Bouquet' Talc acts like a hip slenderizer for girdle donning. Made of silky-fine Italian talc, CB smooths your skin to let your girdle/ glide on gracefully without tugging. It keeps its shape . . . you keep yours! Cashmere Bouquet Talc Cashmere Bouquet i.di.c GENUINE 1 CARAT : BRILLIANT ZIRCON s/r in i/j on, 14 Kt. Yellow Colt not plated: or sterling silver plat 10% T«i PAY ONIY 10.97 M Monit-Bac* j ^■■GUAtANTfC . Matching Wedding Band 11.95 Send * Save postage — send payment with order. 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