Shattered Love

by Richard Chamberlain

  While I was living and working in London I took Sally Ann Howes to a big show-biz party where we were seated with Sean Connery and his wife at dinner. I thought that was pretty good, but then I looked across the room and saw Noel Coward talking with some friends and I nearly fell off my chair. When I could speak, I exclaimed to Sally, “My God, there’s Noel Coward!” Sally blithely replied that he was an old friend of hers and would I like to meet him?

  Sally led me across the dance floor toward the great man—I followed fearing the worst. An actress I’d worked with in Private Lives had told me of meeting Coward at a party. The hostess had introduced her, “And this is Mary Robin Red.” Sir Noel had glanced at her and said waspishly, “Of course you are,” and turned away. I could imagine him saying all sorts of prickly things about young Dr. Kildare. But in fact he shook my shaking hand graciously and said, “Ah, Mr. Chamberlain, I’ve admired your work so much.” Well, whether he meant it or not, I was struck dumb. I felt it would be ridiculous to lamely reply that I admired his work, too, so I just stood there like a blushing idiot. Luckily I was able to redeem myself at a later meeting. The point is that Coward was quite open to conversation while I strangled myself with my illusory mental story of his unapproachable greatness. I was oblivious to the fact that in a hierarchical sense he was just another human being.

  One of the world’s greatest fabricators of intimidating hierarchical illusions is England’s Royal House of Windsor—the grand palaces and stupendously theatrical rituals are a form of hype so brilliant as to be thoroughly irresistible.

  British royals were once the pinnacles of absolute political power in their expansive country, to be feared and obeyed. Today the royal family of Windsor has no political power at all; their duties are merely symbolic and ceremonial. It’s true that during the horror of the Nazi blitzkrieg of World War II, the royal family stayed on in London through the incessant bombing and were hugely helpful in keeping the beleaguered English morale high. Yet they cannot be said to have been any braver than the millions of other Brits who lived and fought throughout the blitz. Still, despite recent scandal, the Windsors retain a tremendous mystique and are the very foundation of the ancient British class system. Without their king or queen, being a duke or earl or baron would have little meaning. Without their monarch, the Brits would all, heaven forfend!, be commoners. Most of us love the romance of pomp and circumstance and would feel diminished without the glittering theatrics, proving the effectiveness of the royal hype machine.

  In the early sixties, the immense success of Dr. Kildare gave me a taste of celebrity (the American version of royalty), which accorded me entrée into some royal high jinks.

  Britain’s Princess Margaret, young, beautiful, vivacious, and somewhat reckless, was the Diana of her time. Around 1964, she and her husband, Lord Snowdon, arrived in the United States for a splendid tour involving Washington fetes, charity events, and a bit of frolic. The royal couple ended their tour in a Hollywood social whirl designed and executed by the princess’s longtime friend Sharman Douglas. Sharman and Princess Margaret had met as girls when Sharman’s father had been the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James.

  The Hollywood crowd was ablaze, excitedly anticipating the advent of genuine royalty. Even I, busily at work on Kildare, was eagerly hoping for a chance to glimpse the fairy-tale princess and her consort.

  Unbeknownst to me, my public relations agent, Rupert Allen, was deeply involved in the social arrangements for the royals and, through Rupert, Sharman Douglas asked that I be her escort to a huge charity ball honoring the princess. I was of course flabbergasted, but I decided to play it cool. I had heard that there was to be an “intimate” dinner party for Their Royal Highnesses at the Bistro restaurant, attended by only the triple-A list of show-biz luminaries. I told Rupert that I’d be delighted to escort Ms. Douglas to the charity ball if I could be invited to the Bistro bash. It worked! I was Sharman’s escort to both events.

  The Bistro party was, socially (and hierarchically), the high point of my life. The elite Hollywood crowd, including Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rosalind Russell, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra with Mia Farrow, Gregory Peck, Loretta Young, and others, had to be completely assembled before Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon arrived. Everyone had what seemed like intense first-night jitters, and we all headed for the bar for a shot of liquid courage. Roz Russell, whom I’d never met before, nervously asked me if I thought her black dress was appropriate. Sinatra, beaming devastating charm, was the only seemingly unflappable star present. Maybe he was madly in love with Mia at the time and sailing on that blissful energy. Anyway, he buzzed with the same exuberantly devil-may-care vitality he had on-screen in his musicals. He wasn’t afraid of anybody. The only person I’ve ever met whose charm had the impact of Sinatra’s was Laurence Olivier. Olivier could broadside you with his charm the way a howitzer levels a Sherman tank. He had an inexplicable animal power that he could summon up at will. Once I was following him in a reception line meeting the cast backstage after seeing a play in London. Olivier bowled over each actor as we went along, making them, one by one, weak in the knees with his seemingly loving attentions. At one point he turned to me with a wink and whispered, “How am I doing?” He knew exactly how he was doing.

  Finally the royal couple arrived, Princess Margaret gorgeous in a simple white dress and almost no jewelry at all. At the door she chatted briefly with Elizabeth Taylor, who was practically staggering under the weight of a spectacular tiara and pounds of diamonds and emeralds. Seeing them together was a comic lesson in contrast—dignity conversing with excess.

  The party was a smash hit right from the start for everyone but Richard Burton. It seems there are gradations of status even among the triple-A glitterati. At dinner Elizabeth Taylor was seated by Princess Margaret at the front of the dining room, and Richard Burton was seated with me and four others at a table near the middle. Burton, a few sheets to the wind, complained bitterly to us about the indignity of his being forced to share our table so distant from the folks who really mattered!

  After dinner everyone glided into another room with an orchestra and a dance floor. Princess Margaret was seated at a long table, and each guest was escorted to a chair opposite to her for a brief chat. When it was my turn to meet the princess, Laurence Harvey, very drunk, had squeezed in beside her a bit too close for comfort, so in order to escape she asked me to dance. I was thrilled to oblige, and we danced and chatted for a delightfully long whirl around the floor. I was enchanted by this lovely princess.

  Later in the evening at the princess’s request, Judy Garland sang and Fred Astaire danced and the magical merriment flowed late into the night.

  Then the plot began to thicken. The next week during a session with Linda, my shrink, she related a very odd conversation she’d had two days before with a woman she’d sat next to on a plane from San Francisco. Somehow my name came up and the woman, whom Linda had not met before, said what a shame it was that a fresh young fellow like Richard was going to be invited by Princess Margaret to the Ranch. (If this were a movie there would be a doomy musical sting here.)

  Rumor had it that at the end of their U.S. tour the royals would go with some friends to Sharman Douglas’s father’s ranch in Arizona for a bit of fun and frolic. The less friendly rumors hinted that the Ranch might be the scene of considerable overindulgences. Linda suggested that for the sake of my pristine reputation I’d be wise to sidestep such an invite if it indeed materialized. Nevertheless I was mightily intrigued.

  Then came the big charity gala. I met Sharman and the princess at their hotel and was driven with them to the gala, where I was seated at a dinner table next to the still-powerful and regal gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. I’d first met Hedda during the early days of Kildare’s hot success. An MGM publicist took me to her Beverly Hills home for our first interview. We were shown into a cozy library, where a few minutes later the famous Hedda made a grand entrance and directed our attention to
framed and signed photos on her walls, showing her being chummy with all sorts of movie luminaries. She was especially proud of a picture with the great swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks, wearing his trademark tights. “Of course he padded,” confided Hedda. “So did Barrymore as Hamlet. Of course most ballet dancers pad. With athletes it all goes to other places.”

  During our conversation at the gala I was stunned when Hedda said she’d heard I was to be invited by the royals to the Ranch. I gulped and replied that I’d heard the same. Hedda, whom I’d liked from the start, gave me a long, intense look and said, “You’re getting into very deep water…. Can you swim?” This was obviously a veiled but strong warning, and though it greatly increased the aura of intrigue, I took it seriously.

  The last royal party was a small dinner at the home of Rupert Allen. Again it was a stellar gathering, and again each of us was briefly seated by Princess Margaret for a few minutes of conversation. When my turn came, there was no mention of the Ranch. I was disappointed and relieved. Later I apologized for having to leave a bit early, but I had to be up at the crack of dawn for work. This would be my last visit with HRH and still no talk of the Ranch. As I went downstairs to the front door, Sharman suddenly came after me and in the privacy of the stairwell actually said the forbidden words, inviting me to the infamous Ranch.

  What to do? I had longed for this mysterious invitation and was youthfully titillated by the rumors of sensual delights. But at the same time I sensed that this was very deep water I’d be jumping into, and I wasn’t at all sure I could swim. For better or worse, caution prevailed and I regretfully declined, claiming the obligations of my work, thus leaving the mystery forever unsolved.

  Sometime later while I was living in London during the late sixties and early seventies, I met Princess Margaret again several times at various theatrical events and receptions. I even met the queen at a reception following the premiere of The Madwoman of Chaillot. The queen asked me what I was doing in England. I said I’d just completed a six-hour version of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady for the BBC. She said, “Oh, yes, we watched that.”

  “Wow, that’s wonderful,” I gushed.

  “Well, not all of it,” she replied, somewhat dampening my excitement.

  I returned to London in the mid-1970s to play Prince Charming in The Slipper and the Rose, a musical Cinderella film directed by Bryan Forbes. Bryan and his lovely wife, Nanette, were friendly with the royal family, and he invited Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother to visit our set to watch the filming and then join us for lunch. I was given the huge honor of sitting next to the Queen Mother at lunch and found her legendary charm to be at least a match for that of Sinatra and Olivier. She was vivacious and interesting and even a bit sexy in her seventies. We actors were all in costume at lunch—I was wearing knee britches and long stockings. Bryan told me after lunch that the Queen Mother had said she thought I had great legs. That remains my favorite compliment ever—a touch of sauciness from perhaps the world’s most delightful lady.

  One evening during filming, Bryan and Nanette even arranged a “double date” with Princess Margaret and me. We picked up the princess at St. James’s Palace. She and Lord Snowdon were separating at the time, and we certainly didn’t expect to see him. But as we were about to leave the palace for a nearby restaurant, Snowdon (who was also friendly with the Forbeses and had been an unofficial photographer on The Madwoman of Chaillot, which Bryan directed) suddenly appeared. It was then I fully realized I was “dating” another man’s wife. Snowdon was affably unpleasant, and we all felt rather awkward until we were able to leave. Though I felt a bit out of my league, the rest of the evening was enchanting. I waited for some mention of the mystery of the Ranch, but the princess uttered not a word.

  I admit to being as dazzled as anyone else by the artful and artificial majesty of modern royalty. We’re programmed by fairy tales and carefully contrived pageantry to place them on pedestals high above ourselves. Part of their mystique is that they embody our secret, childish dream of being loved and admired, not for our accomplishments and merits (most royals accomplish very little), but simply for what and who we are. The fantasy of being born into wealth unearned and position unmerited has allure, though the problems inherent in such careless largess are obvious (witness tales of wealthy woe in Vanity Fair). One way or another, the piper must be paid.

  MY FAMILY REACTS

  My family’s reaction to all the sudden excitement of Kildare fame and my dancing with princesses was a complex mix, especially at first. My father had always been the unrivaled star and sovereign ruler of the Chamberlain Magic Show, a role enhanced by his achieving a kind of divinity in AA, where he’d become a sought-after speaker in AA circles even in Europe. He really did believe he was a “somebody” (a truly magical feat considering that he had, with sobriety, “transcended” his formerly troublesome ego). My mother was Queen Consort presiding over her lesser (in my father’s opinion) domain of Al-Anon, and my older brother, Bill, was the handsome, vigorous heir apparent. I had always been the oddball; I never fit into the family hierarchy. I was around, but redundant. The eldest son was fulfilling most of his parents’ dreams—if not scholastically, then in sports and socially with gorgeous girlfriends. He shone with good health and good looks and a penchant for reckless good fun. His shy little brother didn’t hold a lot of promise.

  My utterly unexpected blastoff into relatively stratospheric fame and fortune pretty much upset the chain of command. All at once my deluge of fan mail made Dad’s yearly haul of Christmas cards seem paltry. Mom was demoted to being distant adviser to the new Prince Regent, and Bill, whom I’d always idolized (and whose friends had wondered how a twit like me could possibly be fabulous Bill’s brother), was now becoming known as fabulous Richard’s brother. The kingdom was in turmoil—vandals at the gates!

  All this upheaval was a perfect laboratory where all of us could, if willing, examine the frantic workings of our respective egos. How illuminating it would have been for each of us to take a long look at our self-images, to see how we positioned ourselves in relation to one another and how attached we were to those positions. What an opportunity to see how much more importance we placed on the stuck solidity of our established pecking order than on the fluid, creative possibilities of love. Unfortunately I was too enthralled by the newness of my ascension and the family was too discomfited to do much introspection. Our souls remained, as far as I know, unsearched.

  My parents’ desire to protect their status quo surfaced in a prediction that my success, however undeniable, would be pretty much a flash in the pan and would shortly degrade for lack of substance. This rather unkind idea smoothed royal feathers, restoring some semblance of their former order.

  When I’d visit my family, my father and I would get a B or maybe even a B-plus for good behavior, but a deep, unspoken abyss still yawned between us. Luckily on the Kildare set Raymond Massey and I were getting along like gangbusters.

  Ray was a tall, big-boned, Lincolnesque gent with a big, resonant voice and an imposing presence, not unlike my father. He differed from Dad the farm boy in that he descended from a wealthy, influential Canadian family. Ray’s brother had been governor general of our northern neighbor.

  Ray’s wife, Dorothy, was one of the first female corporate lawyers ever to break into that male bastion. She came from solid New England stock and was cultured, witty, and tough as nails. Both Ray and Dorothy played favorites—if they liked you, they were delightfully generous and loyal; if they didn’t like you, run for cover! Fortunately they liked me, and I loved them.

  Ray became a sort of surrogate father to me. Now that I think of it, our relationship mirrored the father-son kinship of Gillespie and Kildare. Even though I was such an inexperienced actor in the beginning, sometimes requiring more time and directorial attention than the rest of the cast, Ray never condescended to me and, as far as I can remember, never even showed impatience. Nor did he ever give me unrequested advice. He graciousl
y treated me as if I were an old pro like himself.

  The most severe test of Ray’s fatherly indulgence came late in our first season. There was to be a lengthy scene in Dr. Gillespie’s office in which Kildare was to deliver an endless monologue of obscure medical terms and complex information to Ray and a group of excellent character actors playing expert specialists who opposed Kildare’s diagnosis. The speech was a minefield of technical medical jargon, almost impossible to learn, but I’d worked very hard on it. One of the medical terms was epinephrine, which I’d never heard of before and mistakenly pronounced e-PINE-e-frin.

  We rehearsed the scene several times with me blithely pronouncing the fateful word e-PINE-e-frin, and all seemed to be going well. Then just before the first take, our script girl whispered in my ear, “Oh, by the way, darling, that word is pronounced epi-NE-fron,” and I knew I was in big trouble.

  Partly because I was so pissed off that no one had corrected me earlier and given me a chance to practice this new pronunciation, I found it impossible to get through the speech. We shot it over and over again, and every time I came to epinephrine I froze up and blanked out. Even with cheater’s notes written on my clipboard and everywhere else we could hide them, it took the entire morning to get the master shot. I was embarrassed beyond belief, but Ray never flinched, never looked disapproving or exasperated. The man was a saint.

  Ray and Dorothy often invited me to their home for lunch or dinner when they were entertaining some of their notable friends, like actors Jack Hawkins, Christopher Plummer, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. I’d sit like a kid and listen to the “grown-ups” telling marvelous tales of their theater and movie experiences. Once Sir Cedric looked at me keenly across the luncheon table and said, “You know, Richard, you’ve become a star before you’ve had a chance to learn to act.” He meant this not as a dig, but as implied advice. It was partly because of this remark that I moved to England after Kildare ended, looking for solid acting training.