Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

new with Richard Chamberlain. Most of his life he has been in some spotlight or other — but essentially alone in a crowd. All that time he’d had everything anyone could wish to make him confident, easy and open — good looks, health, talent, brains— plus the ability to go after what he wanted and get it. Whether it was grades, girls, sports, art, acting or honors Dick could wind up a winner. He had security too; a good home and well-off enough parents. The worst sickness he ever had was measles, his only accident a broken toe. “To this day,” says one old friend, “Dick hasn’t had a really hard knock. He’s never needed one.” Yet, somehow a sign, “Private — No Trespassing,” has hung on him almost from the day he was born right in Beverly Hills, at 6:30 P.M., March 31, 1935. “Only five and a half hours away from being an April Fool,” Dick points out. “I’ve always thought the margin was too slim.” He’s kidding, of course. Neither brains, nor much of anything else was lacking in George Richard Chamberlain’s heritage. It was solid and solidly American, including a touch of Indian blood on his father’s side, which you can spot in Dick’s high cheekbones and, perhaps, in his stoic reserve. The rest, as Dick breaks it down, is “two-thirds English and onefourth German,” and he owns the sturdy yet sensitive traits of those races, too. His dad, Charles Chamberlain, came from Indiana, went through Indiana University, played football and injured a leg so badly that a Hoosier doctor told him it would never heal. So, Charles came to California “to die” in the sun. Instead he got well, found a job in a service station. A lonely child One day a girl with the marathon name of Elsa Winifred Von Fischer Benson drove in for some gasoline. Elsa was from San Francisco, where her grandfather, a refugee from Germany, had come in a covered wagon. She was blonde, pretty and musical. Her own mother had been on the stage and Elsa had sung briefly herself. However, any ideas she may have had of a career vanished when she fell in love with the husky, handsome gas station attendant. As soon as Charles Chamberlain found a better job as salesman for City Refrigerator Company, they were married. By the time Dick came along his brother, William, was almost seven. After Dick, Elsa had another son, but he died at birth. That left Dick not an only child but still a lonely one. Because, more than an age gap separated little “Dickie” Chamberlain from his big brother. “I was never very close to Bill,” Dick says. “He was all the things I wasn’t — outgoing, sporty, handsome, romantically confident with girls, and, of course, way out ahead of me.” “Billy” vyas a true chip off his aggressive, man’s man father, and he followed in his footsteps. He went back to Indiana University, took Business Administration, married early and today those Chamberlains work together, manufacturing fixtures for stores and markets. Throughout Dick’s boyhood, though, p Bill’s glamorous trail cast a backward shadow in which Dick Chamberlain felt chronically blotted out. Dick appraises himself then as, “a shy, serious, lugubrious kid, painfully thin, with a long sad face.” Back of it, however, lay an adventurous spirit which, even as a tot, made Dickie both a personage and a problem on South Elm drive. The Chamberlains lived on that pleasant, middle-income Beverly Hills street from the time Dick was two until he left for college. It’s a street where apartments mingle with modest houses. Dick’s home was one of the nicest — a comfortable seven room Spanish type stucco with a Mexican tiled patio in back and out front two huge pittasporum trees shading the lawn. But for some time this haven was a prison for Dickie and he contrived to spring himself at every opportunity. Elsa Chamberlain, going about her housework, would spot Dickie contentedly playing with his toys or pet turtle one minute. The next time she peeked he was gone. A crack at the door was enough; he’d scoot out like a tiny scatback. Usually, she found him wistfully hugging the fence surrounding the playground of Beverly Vista school down the block. But sometimes he ventured further and then the police would have to be called to round him up. Excitement was rare on respectable South Elm Drive; the only real rumble was once when a reputed “gangster” got himself shot in a nearby apartment. So, neighbors threw open their windows, leaned out hopefully then slammed them shut as bluecoats led Dickie dismally home. “Just that Chamberlain kid running away again,” they muttered. What got Dickie in dutch was pure loneliness. His downfall was the siren sound of kids shouting at play out on the street. The biggest, most inviting cacophony came from Beverly Vista school. Dick went there when he was six. By then Billy was on to greater glory at Beverly Hills High, but his golden aura still lingered. Dick didn’t dare hope to match it; he just wanted friendships and fun. His mother took him the first day and they watched a new little girl stage a crying scene when her mother left. “Now,” said Mrs. Chamberlain, “isn’t that silly?” Dick thought so, too. He was proud that he didn’t cry. But why should lie when he was finally where he’d longed to be? In a few days he wasn’t so sure about that. It came as a rude shock, Dick remembers, that school was not just one long, happy romp on a playground. He was also supposed to learn things — laborious and rather uninteresting things at that. This wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. Again he found himself a celebrity, in reverse. “For a while I refused to let them teach me anything,” he recalls. “I earned a unique honor — the most uncooperative kid in school.” No threats, or PHOTOGRAPHERS' CREDITS Pg. 16: Fuchs-Vista; pg 29: William Woodfield; pg 30: Black Star; pgs 32-33: Marty Blumenthal; pg 34 (Bazlen) Hurn-Globe; pg 35: (Weld): Wiesburd-Topix; pg 38: HaydenVista; pg 43: Gilloon; pg 44: Wertheimer-Topix; pg 51 : Kobrin-Globe; pgs 52-53: Nat Herz; pgs 58-61: Frank Bez; pg 66: Art Palmer. appeals to his parents did any good. It didn’t even faze Dick when they put him back a half grade. Worst of all was learning to read. He didn't really get with that until he encountered a patient, understanding teacher named Florence Montgomery in Fourth Grade. She took time after class to break down his rebellious block, and for that Dick is still grateful. “She was a wonderful woman,” he says, “and I really don’t know what would have happened to me without her.” Yet, even today Dick Chamberlain has trouble with oral reading. It handicapped him when he was trying out for his first Hollywood jobs. Learning lines is no problem but give him a script to read — as Dick often faces for charity appeals, promotional stunts and such — and he gums it right up. Win or quit Back then, Dickie Chamberlain gummed up about every conforming situation he ran into. He finally got through Beverly Vista with a passable C-average, but he hated school, organized sports, teams and regimented games. He was the fastest kid in school; he’d run a race with anyone — and he usually won. But when he couldn’t he’d quit. “One time,” Dick recalls, “I ran the 100 in a YMCA track meet against kids from all over town. I took it for granted that I’d win— I always had. But suddenly several guys were out ahead of me and pulling away. So I stopped running. Everyone was sore. They said, ‘It’s a race, and you finish a race, win or lose!’ That didn’t make sense to me. I like to think that quitting that race was the last honest thing I ever did!” Dick was always joining this and that group under pressure, then unhappily toughing it out. Cub Scouts bored him silly and he never did finish weaving his Indian basket. BSA experience was as unfruitful. “Troop 37” somehow elevated him to First Class Scout before he defected but his record is undistinguished. The summer camps at Buckhorn Flats in the mountains and on Catalina Island were okay, mainly because they were outdoors. But he never earned a merit badge. “I did win a soapstone carving contest,” allows Dick. “I carved an arrowhead with my initials on it.” Sundays Dick had his arm twisted and trotted dutifully off to the Beverly Vista Community church. He even stood in the choir briefly, singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy” as an alto with a bunch of lady sopranos. “I hated it,” he admits honestly. “But I had to go. I’ve always hated anything where I don’t have freedom of choice.” Given that, Dickie Chamberlain was as normal as the next boy. On his block, which “throbbed with kids,” he freewheeled happily around with junior citizens on the loose named Skeeter, Kurt, Mary Anne, and another Dickie, last name Vennaman, who lived right across the back alley. They worshipped the same girl, a baby doll named Arden, and beat up each other regularly. Dick looked like a mild tow-headed cherub but, as always, his looks were deceptive. With the gang he heaved dirt clods at passing cars until one target turned out to be a cop patrol, and that was disaster. Periodically, a circle of kids gathered under Dick’s pit