Richard Chamberlain (1934-2025): An Appreciation for Alexandre Dumas
I’ve wanted to write this post for some time because it’s important to everything Dumas I enjoy today.
March 29, 2025, actor Richard Chamberlain died in his home in Waimanalo Hawaii, 2 days before his 91st birthday. Richard Chamberlain was born in Beverly Hills, CA and earned a BA in painting and art history while participating in a college acting group. The experience turned Chamberlain’s sites on acting by the time he graduated according to his obituary in “The New York Times.”
Richard Chamberlain is primarily remembered as a television actor who, because of his good looks, wasn’t taken seriously until he reached middle age. I’ll always remember Richard Chamberlain as the conduit for my Alexandre Dumas fandom. And Dumas was my introduction to the actor himself. Richard Chamberlain provided the impetus for me to go deeper into the Dumas inventory, the books, the biography, the memoirs, the future film and television adaptations of Dumas’s novels, this blog, and a play, “Dinner with Dumas” that I will endeavor to complete this year.
THE ARAMIS YEARS 1973, 1974, 1989
Chamberlain portrayed Aramis in 3 Musketeer films inspired by Dumas’ d’Artagnon Romances serial that began publication in 1844. In The Three Musketeers released in 1973, and the sequel The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge released in 1974.
In the Chamberlain’s Musketeer films, Athos, Porthos and d’Artagnon are portrayed by Oliver Reed, Frank Findlay, and Michael York who is now the only living member of the fab 4 to date. Aramis was my favorite musketeer for a long time thanks to Richard Chamberlain. Over the years Athos has taken that spot as I’ve come to understand the lead musketeer’s melancholia and grief.
The fab 4 actors returned 15 years later and grayer in The Return of the Musketeers, released in 1989. The film is based on the 1845 serial “20 Years Later,” the sequel to “The Three Musketeers” by Dumas and (I should mention) his collaborator Auguste Maquet. I haven’t seen The Return of the Musketeers, but I read “20 Years Later.” After watching a trailer for the 1989 film, I noticed Kim Cattrall, best known as Samantha Jones in the HBO series Sex and the City. Cattrall portrays Justine, the vengeful daughter of the late Milady deWinter. In the book Milady’s adult child, Mordaunt, is the vengeful son.
The 1970s adaptations of Dumas’s Musketeer novels took swashbuckling to a different level. Sword fighting didn’t look like men in tights fighting in time with a metronome. 1970s swashbuckling adds Bonnie and Clyde grit with panache. You knew everything, strengths and weaknesses, about Aramis, Athos, Porthos and d’Artagnon by the way they handled their épées.
The films’ fight choreographer William Hobbs, himself a fencing master and stuntman, liked to keep it real. Hobbs appears in The Three Musketeers as one of the Cardinal’s hitmen sent to ambush the fab 4 on their way to deliver a message to the Duke of Buckingham. Hobbs returned to choreograph the fight scenes for the 1989 sequel where, based on the trailer, we finally see a woman with an épée.
William Hobbs, the innovative fight director, fencing master and stuntman who choreographed action sequences for such films as 'The Three Mu
Richard Chamberlain would star in two television movie adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’s serials/books.
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (1975)
The Count of Monte Cristo premiered in 1975, Dumas published the novel published in serial form from 1844-1846, and in book form in 1846. Chamberlain portrays Edmond Dantés, the innocent young sailor who’s set up and sent to prison, makes a dramatic and fortuitous escape, and devises his revenge on his enemies under a new identity as a mysterious nobleman. It’s a delicious story. I’ve read the book and seen nearly every adaptation made since Chamberlain’s 1975 film. William Hobbs choreographed the fight scene in the 2002 film adaptation with Jim Caviezel as Dantés.
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK (1977)
The Man in the Iron Mask is Richard Chamberlain’s final Dumas adaptation. Chamberlain does double duty playing both King Louis XIV and his identical twin Philippe. Corrupt King Louis is the evil twin of the two. Philippe is the innocent victim whose only crime is having a face that’s identical to King Louis’s and the ongoing rumors that Philippe may be the true heir to the throne. Louis orders Philippe’s abduction and disappearance. Philippe’s entire head is sealed in an iron mask with only slots to eat, see, and breath. I still get chills thinking about it. No one is to see Phillipe’s face, speak his name, or know of his existence.
The Man in the Iron Mask is part of d’Artagon Romances. But d’Artagnon is the only musketeer from the fab 4 in the 1977 adaptation. D’Artagnon, portrayed by Louis Jordan, is both jailer and rescuer of the man who is the rightful heir to the throne. Jordan also appears as deputy crown prosecutor de Villafort opposite Richard Chamberlain in The Count of Monte Cristo. Jordan also portrayed Edmund Dantés in an earlier 1961 adaptation.
I co-host and produce a podcast with my real-life sister — “Historical Drama with the Boston Sisters,” which we’ve been recording since 2021. This year we featured a conversation with Jenny Agutter who portrays Sister Julienne on the popular British series Call the Midwife that has enjoyed 14 seasons and is about to go into its 15th. While looking back at Richard Chamberlain’s Dumas films, it hit me that Jenny Agutter was his co-star in The Man in the Iron Mask portraying King Louis XIV’s mistress Louise de la Valliere. We didn’t get to talk about The Man in the Iron Mask with Jenny Agutter for the podcast since the topic was Call the Midwife. But, if curious, you can listen to that conversation on this link.
Episode 70 goes behind the scenes of CALL THE MIDWIFE with Jenny Agutter who portrays Sister Julienne in the series. Jenny Agutter has bee
Unfortunately, Richard Chamberlain’s Dumas portfolio didn’t give him the boost he needed to become a household name, that is until 1983 when he starred in the television mini series, The Thorn Birds, based on the novel by Australian author Colleen McCullough.
Chamberlain, nearly 50, portrayed the tortured handsome Catholic priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart, emotionally and physically torn between his love for a woman (and her desire for his love), and his love for the church, maybe God. Something tells me that would not have been a problem for Aramis, who was making plans to take his priestly vows after his service as a king’s musketeer. All were divine.
Richard Chamberlain’s had a big TV role as John Blackthorne in Shōgun, based on the novel by James Clavell. The mini-series was released in 1980, 3 years before The Thorn Birds. Like his Dumas roles, Shōgun gave Chamberlain more swords to brandish in a story set at the end of Japan's Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573-1615). But The Thorn Birds generated the big buzz and water-cooler chatter for Chamberlain. The Thorn Birds was the 2nd most watched mini series of its time after Roots (1977), attracting 110 million-140 million viewers according to the Television Academy aka Emmys.
If not for Richard Chamberlain, Dumas for me may have been nothing more than the Three Musketeers, an iconic 4-some symbolic of unflinching friendship and collaboration. An ongoing cliche of “One for all and all for one.” And a candy bar that I learned was originally 3 mini bars in the three Neapolitan flavors (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry) when it was introduced in 1932. World War II rationing reduced the candy to one chocolate bar. As of this writing, only Michael York (d’Artagnon) is the only living actor of the original 4 actors from the musketeer films spotlighted in this post.
Thank you Richard Chamberlain for bringing me joy in the stories of Alexandre Dumas. In the words of Aramis from Dumas’s “The Man in the Iron Mask“: “That which is actually good never alters.”