"... Mr. Chamberlain was rarely a critical favorite as a younger man. People magazine once summed up his reputation as an actor: 'pretty — and passionless.' Over the years, and especially toward the end of his career, he more than amply corrected that impression by tackling Hamlet and other Shakespearean parts on the English stage and embraced characters with a dark, even cruel edge. As a sign of his range, he grew a beard and wielded a samurai sword for 'Shogun' (1980), and playing a hunky but tormented Catholic priest wrestling with illicit love in 'The Thorn Birds' (1983), one of the most-watched miniseries of all time."
I remember arguing with my sister about who was better, Dr. Kildare or Ben Casey. She was for Dr. Kildare. Ben Casey (Vince Edwards) died 30 years ago, and now Dr. Kildare has joined him in that great hospital in the sky.
I quite liked and was rather influenced in my formative years by The Thorn Birds book and was looking forward to the miniseries, but it was a big let-down. Chamberlain was the right look for Fr. D'B but didn't like the way he played it. Most of the cast left me feeling that way.
Oddly enough, in the book, Meggie (Rachel Ward) ended up hating and divorcing Luke (Bryan Brown), but the actors met on the set, got married, and have been together ever since.
Richard Chamberlain was my aunt’s favorite. Shogun and The Thorn Birds were must watch TV in our house. Richard Chamberlain did not disappoint. I watched Ben Casey in reruns (with Dr Zorba played by Sam Jaffe). That was a depressing show.
Ben Casey seems like a hairier, swarthier, more plebian version of the refined and epicene Doctor Kildare. For decades, I was convinced that it was Ben Gazzara who played Ben Casey. Ben Casey's mentor Sam Jaffe (Dr. Zorba) grew up in poverty in what is now the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Kildare's mentor Raymond Massey (Leonard Gillespie, M.D. F.A.C.P.) came from an extremely prominent family in Canada.
Loved Richard Chamberlin in "Shogun". And in "Count de Monte Cristo" and "Petulia". A good solid actor. Glad he lived to 90. I assume Raymond Massey played the "Wise ol' greybead Doctor" who tutored "Young, headstrong" Killdare.
Kinda sad when you never get married and have no kids. Must have been a lonely death. But that's the way things roll.
I didn't watch either of these doctor shows, slightly before my time, but I know of them, slightly. The most striking feature of my slight knowledge is the more than slight semblance of one doctor show to the other. Each show has a slightly metaphysical tone ("Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity.") and each feature a young and slightly sexy recently degreed physician paired with a wizened old coot of an MD as a slightly antagonistic mentor.
he had a significant other, nuff said, those who come down from another planet would not get his importance in the media of the 70s and 80s, from that profile,
From comedy singer Allan Sherman's "One Hippopotami," a song about singular and plural words:
"One hippopotami cannot get on a bus, Because one hippopotami is two hippopotamus. And if you have two goose, that makes one geese, A pair of mouse is mice; a pair of moose is meese. A paranoia is... a bunch of mental blocks, And when Ben Casey meets Kildare, that's called a paradox!"
"Must have been a lonely death." Weird assumption, given how obviously gay he was, long before he came out formally. He was with the same guy for about 30 years.
My favorite Richard Chamberlain role was his Aramis in Richard Lester's Musketeers saga, one movie split into two mostly for greedy reasons, mostly because it's one (or two) of my absolute favorite films ever.
RIP. It was a different era, everybody watched the same thing at the same time. "Shogun" had dialogue in Japanese. In "The Thorn Birds" the characters' accents were all over the place.
Re: Raymond Massey. His brother Vincent was the first native-born Governer-General of Canada and once (maybe still is) on some of their paper money. Family is of the Massey-Ferguson tractor line.
"Porcelain faced"? WTF. He was very good in Shogun. I remember watching that. It inspired me to read the book by Clavell. I think it led to reading another giant Clavell book as well as King Rat, his novel about industrious POW "ranchers" in Viet Nam.
What stuck in my teenaged brain and rattles around still is cute little Mariko saying "pilot," since he (Benjamin's character) was of course the pilot of the Big Black Ship, and it coming out as "pirate." That and how kimonos of different layered colors and patterns were worn that if replicated with American clothes would have clashed.
Anyone here remember Lew Ayres? He was the first Dr. Kildare. Richard Chamberlain occupies the same place in the firmament as Lew Ayres. Future generations will talk of him in the same reverent tones that they now speak of Lew Ayres.
@Mike (MJB Wolf) - I remember now that Mariko and Blackthorne would have been speaking to each other in Portuguese but for expediency that dialogue was presented in English.
Raymond Massey was a great movie villian. Played the crazy John Brown in Sante Fe trail, and French officer trying to catch the Scarlet Pimpernal. But he ended his career on TV as a good guy. Like Raymond burr (another Canuck).
RCocean II, is there a reason why you are so consistently nasty? Do you not have people in your life who you look at, and say --- this is a good person, I am not going to let them down by going on line and saying the nastiest things I can ? If you do not have such people in your life, I suggest you try and find at least one, and stop telling people about how hard it is to die without a wife and kids. Unless of course you are beloved by all whom you know, and have no reason to try to be a better person than you are.
Ah, the doctor show antithesis... Care to predict the synthesis?
The popular scuttlebutt says House is an homage to Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle's unlikeable smarty-pants, who in turn was an homage to Dr. Joseph Bell, Lecturer in Medicine at Edinburgh University and Doyle's mentor in the art of diagnosis. Ian Richardson played Joseph Bell in a TV movie called "The Murder Rooms" with same eviscerating manner Hugh Laurie has applied to House.
Wow, glad Chamberlain lived to a ripe old age. Hope he remained healthy.
@William - Lew Ayers was a busy actor in the 30s and rode the wave of B movies both before and after the Hays Code went into effect. You can find a number of his early films (of varying quality) on YouTube.
I was a little too young when "Shogun" was on TV but, boy howdy, I and my girlfriends had our eyeballs all over "The Thorn Birds"!
I recently came across another Clavell-based mini-series, "Saipan", with Pierce Brosnan. The 80s directorial style and clothing notwithstanding, it was a decent drama with an interesting premise.
"Raymond Massey was a great movie villain. Played the crazy John Brown in Santa Fe trail, and French officer trying to catch the Scarlet Pimpernel."
The Scarlet Pimpernel, that was a great movie with a great cast. Merle Oberon was unspeakably beautiful as Lady Blakeney, Leslie Howard was unspeakably multi-faceted as Sir Percy Blakeney, baronet, and Raymond Massey was simply unspeakable as Citizen Armand Chauvelin, the most loathsome bad guy there ever was and therefore the most fascinating screen presence. Massey got the shit role, but did he ever make the most of it. Wowsers.
What I remember about Kildare was a very emotionally gripping multiple episode theme about IIRC kidney machines (dialysis?) and that there were too many people for the few machines and heart-wrenching decisions had to be made as to who got treatment and survived and who didn't get treatment and probably would die without it.
"there were too many people for the few machines and heart-wrenching decisions had to be made as to who got treatment and survived and who didn't get treatment and probably would die without it."
That sounds like a contemporary plot about the Canadian health-care system.
Speaking of Raymond Massey, I remember seeing Arsenic and Old Lace as a kid. It was a very funny movie, but Massey’s over-the-top performance as Cary Grant’s murderous brother gave me nightmares.
Until I watched the credits just now I had no idea that the Dr. Kildare theme music was written by Jerry Goldsmith. Or at least someone called Jerrald Goldsmith. My alltiime favorite movie score : Patton.
I remember Dr Kildare as 'the new kid in town' and a fat-free vanilla imitation of Dr Casey, in the late '50s.
In my LA days (late '70s), I lifted many a martini with A, B and lesser Listers at never-ending functions that involved 'sightings', 'pitches', 'introductions' and industry 'social lube' - life west of PCH and north of Wilshire.
One night at a gathering of people with projects and ideas, hoping to excite people with money, I noticed a small guy standing alone and looking like he might have wandered in to fix a copy machine, or something. Ranking not much above by-stander status, myself, I drifted over to see if Mr Nothing-Burger had anything interesting to say.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that the guy I was hoping to coax a complete sentence from, was none other than the brilliant Dr Casey, himself. I don't think "Ben" had had much meaningful work of late and his prospects didn't seem particularly bright. Maybe, I'd just caught him on a slow night.
To his credit, he was an affable enough fellow and took it well when I told him, right off the bat, that I'd been pissed at him for almost 20 years. I explained that I'd had a bad habit of calling my true love in high school at the exact time her favorite show was on the tube. He thought that was funny.
Hardly the beginning of 'a beautiful friendship' but it served as part of a friendly personal greeting at subsequent encounters over the next few years.
The only episodes of Kildare I remember from childhood were the two-part arc with Yvette Mimieux, whom I immediately fell in love with. “Tyger, Tyger.” I puzzled over the spelling until reading Blake’s poem a few years later.
Chamberlin is one of the few actors who got more attractive as he got older. He was great in The Three Musketeers (Lester edition). I had a Ben Casey doctor shirt as a child with the symbols for man/woman/birth/death/infinity running along the opening.
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RIP, king of the mini series, and the original Dr. McDreamy.
our Professor said..
"arguing with my sister"
SISTER!?!?
i didn't Know you had a sister? is she a redhead TOO?
As far as doctors, i vote for Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D., F.A.C.S.
Even though his relationship with Dixie McCall never worked out
I quite liked and was rather influenced in my formative years by The Thorn Birds book and was looking forward to the miniseries, but it was a big let-down. Chamberlain was the right look for Fr. D'B but didn't like the way he played it. Most of the cast left me feeling that way.
Oddly enough, in the book, Meggie (Rachel Ward) ended up hating and divorcing Luke (Bryan Brown), but the actors met on the set, got married, and have been together ever since.
ah Rachel Ward, next question, see also against all odds,
Doctor, Doctor
Mr. MD
I gotta
Bad case that’s killin’ me
Richard Chamberlain was my aunt’s favorite. Shogun and The Thorn Birds were must watch TV in our house. Richard Chamberlain did not disappoint. I watched Ben Casey in reruns (with Dr Zorba played by Sam Jaffe). That was a depressing show.
♂ ♀ ✳ † ∞
"Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity"
Ben Casey seems like a hairier, swarthier, more plebian version of the refined and epicene Doctor Kildare. For decades, I was convinced that it was Ben Gazzara who played Ben Casey. Ben Casey's mentor Sam Jaffe (Dr. Zorba) grew up in poverty in what is now the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Kildare's mentor Raymond Massey (Leonard Gillespie, M.D. F.A.C.P.) came from an extremely prominent family in Canada.
Loved Richard Chamberlin in "Shogun". And in "Count de Monte Cristo" and "Petulia". A good solid actor. Glad he lived to 90. I assume Raymond Massey played the "Wise ol' greybead Doctor" who tutored "Young, headstrong" Killdare.
Kinda sad when you never get married and have no kids. Must have been a lonely death. But that's the way things roll.
The best part of that? 'Treatment Room' label -- in brass! -- on the treatment room LOL
I didn't watch either of these doctor shows, slightly before my time, but I know of them, slightly. The most striking feature of my slight knowledge is the more than slight semblance of one doctor show to the other. Each show has a slightly metaphysical tone ("Man. Woman. Birth. Death. Infinity.") and each feature a young and slightly sexy recently degreed physician paired with a wizened old coot of an MD as a slightly antagonistic mentor.
he had a significant other, nuff said,
those who come down from another planet would not get his importance in the media of the 70s and 80s, from that profile,
From comedy singer Allan Sherman's "One Hippopotami," a song about singular and plural words:
"One hippopotami cannot get on a bus,
Because one hippopotami is two hippopotamus.
And if you have two goose, that makes one geese,
A pair of mouse is mice; a pair of moose is meese.
A paranoia is... a bunch of mental blocks,
And when Ben Casey meets Kildare, that's called a paradox!"
I remember those doctor shows when I was in high school. They caused a fashion trend with young women wearing so called doctor shirts.
https://moreparsimony.blogspot.com/2019/07/dr-kildare-or-dr-ben-casey-remember.html
"Must have been a lonely death." Weird assumption, given how obviously gay he was, long before he came out formally. He was with the same guy for about 30 years.
This is a neat film noir that Vince Edwards was in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_and_Run_(1957_film)
My favorite Richard Chamberlain role was his Aramis in Richard Lester's Musketeers saga, one movie split into two mostly for greedy reasons, mostly because it's one (or two) of my absolute favorite films ever.
I had forgotten that one, yes that was one of the better adaptations,
RIP. It was a different era, everybody watched the same thing at the same time. "Shogun" had dialogue in Japanese. In "The Thorn Birds" the characters' accents were all over the place.
Dr. Kildare. What an ominous name for a physician.
Re: Raymond Massey. His brother Vincent was the first native-born Governer-General of Canada and once (maybe still is) on some of their paper money. Family is of the Massey-Ferguson tractor line.
"Iman said...
Doctor, Doctor
Mr. MD
I gotta
Bad case that’s killin’ me.."
Rockin' pnuemonia
and
Boogie woogie flu?
"Porcelain faced"? WTF. He was very good in Shogun. I remember watching that. It inspired me to read the book by Clavell. I think it led to reading another giant Clavell book as well as King Rat, his novel about industrious POW "ranchers" in Viet Nam.
"Shogun" had dialogue in Japanese.
What stuck in my teenaged brain and rattles around still is cute little Mariko saying "pilot," since he (Benjamin's character) was of course the pilot of the Big Black Ship, and it coming out as "pirate." That and how kimonos of different layered colors and patterns were worn that if replicated with American clothes would have clashed.
It's like there were fashion rules way back when.
“As a sign of his range, he grew a beard…”
So he inspired Al Gore?
Anyone here remember Lew Ayres? He was the first Dr. Kildare. Richard Chamberlain occupies the same place in the firmament as Lew Ayres. Future generations will talk of him in the same reverent tones that they now speak of Lew Ayres.
@Mike (MJB Wolf) - I remember now that Mariko and Blackthorne would have been speaking to each other in Portuguese but for expediency that dialogue was presented in English.
You have to be mud face before you level up to porcelain face.
If you don't believe me watch 'Ghost' (1990) again.
Raymond Massey was a great movie villian. Played the crazy John Brown in Sante Fe trail, and French officer trying to catch the Scarlet Pimpernal. But he ended his career on TV as a good guy. Like Raymond burr (another Canuck).
@Althouse, you and your sister are both wrong. It’s Greg House.
Kildare sure took his time with that kid in the intro. I'm surprised that mother didn't punch him in the balls.
I could have sworn Chamberlain died decades ago.
RCocean II, is there a reason why you are so consistently nasty?
Do you not have people in your life who you look at, and say --- this is a good person, I am not going to let them down by going on line and saying the nastiest things I can ?
If you do not have such people in your life, I suggest you try and find at least one, and stop telling people about how hard it is to die without a wife and kids. Unless of course you are beloved by all whom you know, and have no reason to try to be a better person than you are.
Big Mike writes, It's Greg House.
Ah, the doctor show antithesis... Care to predict the synthesis?
The popular scuttlebutt says House is an homage to Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle's unlikeable smarty-pants, who in turn was an homage to Dr. Joseph Bell, Lecturer in Medicine at Edinburgh University and Doyle's mentor in the art of diagnosis. Ian Richardson played Joseph Bell in a TV movie called "The Murder Rooms" with same eviscerating manner Hugh Laurie has applied to House.
My best friend in elementary school had a huge crush on Dr. Kildare, but I preferred Ben Casey.
Wow, glad Chamberlain lived to a ripe old age. Hope he remained healthy.
@William - Lew Ayers was a busy actor in the 30s and rode the wave of B movies both before and after the Hays Code went into effect. You can find a number of his early films (of varying quality) on YouTube.
I was a little too young when "Shogun" was on TV but, boy howdy, I and my girlfriends had our eyeballs all over "The Thorn Birds"!
I recently came across another Clavell-based mini-series, "Saipan", with Pierce Brosnan. The 80s directorial style and clothing notwithstanding, it was a decent drama with an interesting premise.
"Raymond Massey was a great movie villain. Played the crazy John Brown in Santa Fe trail, and French officer trying to catch the Scarlet Pimpernel."
The Scarlet Pimpernel, that was a great movie with a great cast. Merle Oberon was unspeakably beautiful as Lady Blakeney, Leslie Howard was unspeakably multi-faceted as Sir Percy Blakeney, baronet, and Raymond Massey was simply unspeakable as Citizen Armand Chauvelin, the most loathsome bad guy there ever was and therefore the most fascinating screen presence. Massey got the shit role, but did he ever make the most of it. Wowsers.
My favorite Richard Chamberlain miniseries was "Centennial".
@Quaestor, of scuttlebutt. Truth.
"RCocean II, is there a reason why you are so consistently nasty?"
Probably from reading you.
What struck me is that nobody at the ER asked her about insurance. A long time ago in a far away country.
I could have sworn Chamberlain died decades ago.
Me too.
What struck me was that nobody at the ER asked for the patient’s pronouns, sexual preference or gender identity. Talk about malpractice!
What I remember about Kildare was a very emotionally gripping multiple episode theme about IIRC kidney machines (dialysis?) and that there were too many people for the few machines and heart-wrenching decisions had to be made as to who got treatment and survived and who didn't get treatment and probably would die without it.
"there were too many people for the few machines and heart-wrenching decisions had to be made as to who got treatment and survived and who didn't get treatment and probably would die without it."
That sounds like a contemporary plot about the Canadian health-care system.
Speaking of Raymond Massey, I remember seeing Arsenic and Old Lace as a kid. It was a very funny movie, but Massey’s over-the-top performance as Cary Grant’s murderous brother gave me nightmares.
Until I watched the credits just now I had no idea that the Dr. Kildare theme music was written by Jerry Goldsmith. Or at least someone called Jerrald Goldsmith. My alltiime favorite movie score : Patton.
I remember Dr Kildare as 'the new kid in town' and a fat-free vanilla imitation of Dr Casey, in the late '50s.
In my LA days (late '70s), I lifted many a martini with A, B and lesser Listers at never-ending functions that involved 'sightings', 'pitches', 'introductions' and industry 'social lube' - life west of PCH and north of Wilshire.
One night at a gathering of people with projects and ideas, hoping to excite people with money, I noticed a small guy standing alone and looking like he might have wandered in to fix a copy machine, or something. Ranking not much above by-stander status, myself, I drifted over to see if Mr Nothing-Burger had anything interesting to say.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that the guy I was hoping to coax a complete sentence from, was none other than the brilliant Dr Casey, himself. I don't think "Ben" had had much meaningful work of late and his prospects didn't seem particularly bright. Maybe, I'd just caught him on a slow night.
To his credit, he was an affable enough fellow and took it well when I told him, right off the bat, that I'd been pissed at him for almost 20 years. I explained that I'd had a bad habit of calling my true love in high school at the exact time her favorite show was on the tube. He thought that was funny.
Hardly the beginning of 'a beautiful friendship' but it served as part of a friendly personal greeting at subsequent encounters over the next few years.
The only episodes of Kildare I remember from childhood were the two-part arc with Yvette Mimieux, whom I immediately fell in love with. “Tyger, Tyger.” I puzzled over the spelling until reading Blake’s poem a few years later.
IIRC, the womenfolk watched doctor and hospital shows, but no guy I knew did.
By the mid-60s a lot of us were already getting red-eyed and shit-faced.
Chamberlin is one of the few actors who got more attractive as he got older. He was great in The Three Musketeers (Lester edition). I had a Ben Casey doctor shirt as a child with the symbols for man/woman/birth/death/infinity running along the opening.
It's Joanne Linville, later the Romulan Commander
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