Shattered Love: A Memoir Book

In his much-anticipated memoir Shattered Love, TV actor Richard Chamberlain reveals he is gay and lived a fictitious public life for decades. "I was terrified that this news would alienate fans and topple my cherished career, robbing me of the work I loved and my only source of income", Chamberlain writes. But he adds pointedly "I had to admit to myself that I was as homophobic as the public I sought to please". He reflects on his career with similar disarming ease, spinning tales about his many Tinseltown colleagues such as Paul Newman, Julie Christie, Raquel Welch, Sir John Gielgud, Steve McQueen and the legendary Barbara Stanwyck, his co-star from the blockbuster TV mini-series The Thorn Birds. Stanwyck, he writes, flubbed her lines just once--when he stripped off his clothes on-camera. "After a stunned pause she murmured, 'Well, it's been a very long time since I've stood next to a naked man'." Chapters about growing up in post-war California with his alcoholic father are written with the same breezy candour. Chamberlain also assesses his acting ability (he's "a character actor in leading-man clothing") and deals frankly with his onetime obsession with youth ("I was secretly certain that my success was almost entirely due to my youthful good looks"). Many of the later chapters explore Chamberlain's deep spirituality and lifelong quest for inner peace--Chamberlain's way of dealing with his double life all those years. "The important lesson in all this is not about revealing secrets", he says. "The real challenge is in daring to brave the silence." In so doing Chamberlain has given readers a book that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. --Richard Burnett, Amazon.caRead More