Richard Chamberlain, an award-winning actor
came to prominence as TV’s Dr. Kildare,
 The Thorn Birds,
Elliott Forrest: Richard Chamberlain,
Richard: My pleasure. I’m glad to be here. Elliott: Tell us what it’s like to be in a musical where almost everybody in the audience knows every line and every song. Richard: I hear the kids often sing along. I can’t hear it from the stage, but people in the audience tell me that sometimes the kids sing along with the songs. It’s, funly enough, something I don’t think about and haven’t thought about at all—the fact that they’re so familiar with the material. There are a number of things that are kind of unique and special about this production, and so I think there are things they are seeing in certain ways for the first time, but, I have to pretend it’s the first time… Elliott: Every night! Richard: Yeah, every night. And, if one
suddenly gets in competition with the film, or previous productions, and
all that, you’re in trouble.
Elliott: Having said that, there are some songs I think I heard that I haven’t heard before. Richard: Yes. Elliott: Tell me about these. Richard: I believe there’s a song from the movie, I think, “Something Good”—that lovely duet, I believe was written for the movie. Elliott: I couldn’t help but notice the Hallmark name on the producing…and there’s something…it’s a beautiful production, almost like a Hallmark card in a way. How would you describe this production? Richard: Well, it’s gorgeous-looking. From the first curtain—that fire curtain, that has one of those snow balls that you shake up, and all the snow goes around, which I thought was a wonderful idea. And then, the settings themselves are very elaborate and very beautiful. And the lighting is just superb. It’s a great-looking production. I’m very proud of that aspect of it.
Elliott: And you play guitar in the show. Had you done that before? Richard: No, I hadn’t. Elliott: You do it pretty convincingly. Richard: I found it was rather difficult. It was difficult to learn. First of all, you’ve got to build up little pads on your fingers because it’s rather painful to press the strings down until those little pads build up. But I’ve got them now. And it gets easier and easier as time goes on. But it took me quite a lot of practice.  Richard: I have never done on stage this kind of straight singing that I’m doing in the show. I luckily found a wonderful teacher here named Joan Lader. She’s just miraculous. After the first lesson, I already had improved noticeably. Elliott: I saw you a couple of years ago in My Fair Lady, another classic. Were there any differences or similarities here in doing these two?  Elliott: Right! It starts off as a classic play. Richard: But, I think, in terms of the character, that’s a slightly similar arc.  Richard: Oh, Tchaikovsky—Yes!   Elliott: Ken Russell, right.   But, he was full of surprises and he was never happy unless the camera was moving around and everything was extremely choreographed, and—complicatedly choreographed—for the camera. I remember Paul Newman saw it, and I was talking to him about it. He was almost angry about what the actors were put through to accommodate Ken’s camera. I remember there was one scene that Glenda Jackson and I had in bed, and, he couldn’t move the camera, and he hated that scene. It was one of the best scenes in the picture, acting-wise, but he was very unhappy that day because he couldn’t complicate it. Elliott: Just a little while ago, we lost an actor, a friend of yours, Oliver Reed, passed away. You had done… Richard: Yeah, I was totally shocked! Elliott: …a number of movies you made with him. I was just curious how you’d remembered him. Richard: Oliver was completely beyond my imagination for a human being. He was really a wild man. He was tough as nails. And never slept. Always knew his lines, was always good in, for instance, The Three Musketeers.    Elliott: I was curious to see…with Wallenberg, you shot that in Yugoslavia, you were there for… Richard: Yes, we were in Zagreb the whole time, and it was enchanting! Yugoslavia at that time, though it was quite poor, the culture was beautiful and the people were wonderful. There was a sculptor named Mastrovich who had a little museum in town, and I spent so much time there looking at these beautiful, beautiful statues and photographing them. I loved Yugoslavia. I wasn’t crazy about the food, but I loved the place. Elliott: You started off as an artist before you moved into acting and now, so many years later, you’re now exhibiting your work. Is this something that you feel has come full circle for you? Richard: Well, yes, in kind of a surprising way because the minute I thought, my senior year in college, that I could actually make a living as an actor, I threw painting out the window and had barely worked a painting, just once or twice or three times, over all these years. Then about six years ago I started painting again. I’d been thinking about it and wishing I were painting, but I didn’t do it. The stuff, though it took a lot of work, was turning out rather well. Surprisingly well, I thought. So, I have a little website and people can order prints… Elliott: Oh, really? What’s the… Richard: I think it’s Chamberlain comma Richard something. It’s not under Richard Chamberlain. http://www.chamberlain-richard.com/ Elliott: Anyway, it’s on the web, you can find it. Richard: But it’s Chamberlain comma Richard and then, I don’t know, dots and things—I don’t have a computer. Elliott: So, what’s the style? Abstract or realism? Richard: I move between styles in order to keep really interested. I find that once I really know what I’m doing, I get slick. So, I try to keep challenging myself, and, not knowing what I’m doing, and then, stuff turns out to be rather interesting. Some of it’s realistic, some of it’s abstract, some landscapes, some flowers, some of it’s very, very designed, some of it’s a bit looser. I think when I get back to painting, my style will be much looser.  What a beautiful place! How did you pick that? Just, ‘Well let’s just go to the most beautiful place’... Richard: Yeah, yeah, in a way. I’ve always been very touched, deeply touched by nature and I’ve always wanted to live by the sea. And I happened to find a place 23 or 24 years ago, way out in the toolies, on the island of Oahu, that was so gorgeous. Tourists don’t go there. It’s a kind of local area. And it’s on the sea, and the sun always sets right there and I thought “this is it, this it just it!”. And then, I was living in Los Angeles, and I would go there for, maybe a week or two, and it would get harder and harder to leave, and I finally thought, well, why leave? Why not just stay. So for ten years I’ve lived there. Elliott: You’ve been involved with environmental issues. Is that tied in with living in Hawaii? Richard: Well, yes, to some extent. Yes, I’ve done some work there. There’s a lot of environmental problems there. Just the pollution of the city without anybody particularly doing anything wrong, when you have a city, all that junk runs into the sea eventually. But we’ve tried to educate people not to put crankcase oil down the drain, and stuff like that.  You are going to tour with Sound of Music… Richard: Yes! We’re touring! Elliott: How long? Richard: We start, I think, in late August, for forty weeks! I kind of like touring. It’s like being a kid again. The company gets very close because you’re travelling together and practically living together, and all that stuff all the time. And it’s fun to see the cities. Go to one city after another. It just seemed like a good idea. Elliott: You don’t mind living out of a suitcase for 40 weeks? Richard: No, I’ve done that all my life and I sort of like it. It has a certain seedy glamour for me. Elliott: Richard Chamberlain, thank you so much for coming and spending some time with us here. Richard: Thank you, thank you. My pleasure.
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