Actor Richard Chamberlain took the first public political stand of his career last week, traveling to Washington to testify before a Senate subcommittee. The issue that galvanized Chamberlain to become involved was the preservation of the wild Tuolumne River, which fows out of Yosemite National Park.
During Chamberlain's appearance Thursday morning, nearly all office work stopped briefly on the third and fourth floors of the Senate Dirksen Building as more than 100 Senate staffers crowded the hearing room and the hall.
Chamberlain's support was appreciated by the Tuolumne's allies, for he was 
unexpectedly eloquent. He wrote this statement on the airplane from California.

My name is Richard Chamberlain and I'm speaking on my own behalf this morning
to urge you to support inclusion of the Tuolumne River in California wilderness
legislation.
About a year ago abunch of my friends and I went white-water rafting down the
magnificent Tuolumne River and I felt in love with her.
This feeling of deep caring for the river took me by surprise. I've had the good fortune to travel widely throughout the world, living and working in Europe, trekking in the Himalayas, traveling through the orient, Indonesia, Australia, South America,
Canada, and our own wonderful country. And I rafted on the Rogue, in Oregon, and the Salmon River, but I didn't lose my heart until I experienced the unique and
ravishingly, beautiful Tuolumne. Plunging down her rapids, which are some of the best and most exciting in the world, camping in the evenings along the gentle
tributaries and lush forests, and fishing her abundant trout.  I felt more whole and closer to the very source of nature than I'd ever felt in my life.
 

I don't want to see her destroyed.
And the Tuolumne offers much more than beauty and recreation. A San Francisco 
Examiner editorial stated the following:
"The Tuolumne River is one of California's working rivers. It provides electricity
and water to San Francisco and a dozen other Bay Area communities, and irrigates
hundreds of thousands acres of Central Valley Farmland."

A Los Angeles Times editorial reminds is, referring to the proposed development of the river: "The complex (of proposed dams) is in no way a water project; it is a 
money project, designed to produce cheaper power for a small number of Californians at the expence of a river that belongs to the Californians at the expence of a river that belongs to all Californians."
I would expand that to read - at the expence of a river that belongs to the whole nation. To my eyes, God seems to have lavished a special abundance of loving gifts on the Tuolumne River and it's surrounding wilderness. We have the power to destroy it, but never, in our wildest imagination could we ever re-create it.
At this moment the Tuolumne River is used with a near-perfect balance between economic, recreational and environmental purposes. 

I respectfully urge you to permanently preserve the Tuolumne as a wilderness area,
so that what remains of this glorious river may challenge, entrance and enlighten you, your children. Adn your children's children.

As gaggles of moon-eyed women waited outside a packed hearing room in the Dirkson Office Building Chamberlain told the Senate subcommittee on public Lands and reserved water about his aquatic love affair in passionate detail: "Plunging down her rapids, camping in the evenings along the gentle tributaries and high forests and fishing her abundant trout. I felt more whole and closer to the very source of nature than I'd ever felt in my life." So naturally when I heard the Tuolumne was in danger- "she's already pulling her own economic weight with five dams"- he did what any selfrespecting hero would do.
 

"This is the first time I've ever testified before Congress," Chamberlain confessed with a shy smile over a cheese omelet and bacon breakfast in his hotel a few hours before the hearing.

Previously he shunned such publicity (during the filming of "Shogun" he told a reporter that "an actor should stay as distant as possible from public scrutiny") partly because I never found anything I felt this strongly about before.
"But even though I've been around the world a bunch of times, I've never seen a more beautiful dazzling river."

Looking beautiful and dazzling himself in a trim tan suit, blue shirt and navy silk tie, his graying moustache and sideburns meticulously trimmed a his skin a honey tan, the Monarch of the mini-series said he was "star struck" after spending Wednesday on the Hill visiting senators and representatives. "I was amazed." he said "to see all those people I read about all this time-like Cranston and Kennedy and Percy-in the flesh".

The heartthrob admitted to some pulse poundings of his own at the prospect of testifying, where he would play one of his most difficult roles-himself. "I've got stage fright," he confessed. "I don't have a character to hide about this time. And I'll be talking about something I care about very, very much."

Until recently, Chamberlain said he wouldn't have dreamed of making this kind of public statement. "For one thing," he said "I've had a phobia about reading in public ever since I was a little kid. I didn't read or do anything well in school. I remember being asked to read aloud in front of a formidable school administrator, Mrs. Abbey, and bungling in and getting very depressed".

He wrote his testimony on the plane in from California Tuesday night and had not had a chance to memorize it. "So I guess," he said "I'll have to read it".
But a more significant reason for his dicision "to finally speak out about something I feel strongly about" is "the personal growth and change" Chamberlain said,  he has experienced over the last few years. "I grew up not liking myself very much," said Chamberlain, who despite published reports that he is 48 said adamantly "I'm 46. 
That's all I am going to say about it."Somehow as a child I got the idea that something was missing," he said earnestly, thrusting his square jaw forward onto his upturned palm. "I didn't like school and I didn't like sports and I didn't like anything everybody else liked. So I figured there must be something wrong with me, and I grew up with this sence of a certain unworthiness. "I think that was one of the motivations I had for becoming successful, I would be worthy."

But after achieving success, "I still had this core of discomfort. I was so busy pleasing people that I lost touch with myself. I didn't know when I was angry; I'd get withdrawn I inverted the anger and screwed myself up." After several years of "psychological work," including sessions with a gestalt therapist and retreats with physician-turned- holistic-teacher Brugh Joy, he said, "That has all changed. I love what I do much more than I did. My reason for doing what I do now is very different. "While he used to work to please others", he said "now I work to please myself."

As for becoming a public advocate, "I sort of feel I have a right now. I'm a human being, a citizen who cares about something and pays a stupendous fortune in taxes. We all sit around and think 'If only they do this' or 'If only they won't do that.' 
Well, I decided to stop sitting around.

This personal growth is one reason the man People magazine called "a confirmed bachelor" has never married. Asserting that "my private life is very private," he acknowledged, "I'm a bachelor, but 'confirmed' is too strong. Life is full of surprises."
Although he is dating several woman, he said none of the relationships was very serious.
"I've been serious before ." he said. "I've been close to marriage. I'm not sure what happened; I probably got a job and went to Europe. "The real reason I've been single so long is that I've been raising myself. The energy that some people put into children I've put into myself and I've needed it."

Being an actor results in "a kind of schizophrenia," he said, "where I don't know who I am. I don't have that kind of constancy that I imagine other people have. My identity is more vague. "As far as children go, there are a few I like. But I'm not up to the day-to-day business of raising them, and I don't think it's fair to give someone else that full responsibility."

As for the future, Chamberlain said he'd like to do "a few more movies." He has just completed an upcoming CBS mini-saga, "Cook and Peary: Race to the Pole," in which he stars as "good guy"Frederick Cook to Rod Steiger's "bad guy" Robert E. Peary.
 

Recent reports that he almost died on location in Greenland, he said "were greatly exaggerated. I was staning on this big island and it split in half all of a sudden. In my business you think everything's part of the show, and I thought, 'Hey what a great special effect,' Then everybody started screaming 'Jump, Jump.'

Despite the example set by other leading men who have used acting as a springboard to political power, Chamberlain said he has not such aspirations.
"I think actors need to be real careful in getting politically involved. We have a little more attention-getting power than the average guy, and I think that should be used with great discretion. "Being a politician, he said, Is not my temperament at all". I get bored real fast and I don't have the patience of chess players foresight to meticulously plan ahead.  Also, in my one day in Washington, I've learned that compromise is all in politics.  You can never have everything you want in politics, it seems. And I don't like compromise. 
I like things the way I like them."