Shattered Love: A Memoir by Richard Chamberlain

Author:Richard Chamberlain [Chamberlain, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780060087449
Publisher: It Books
Published: 2004-05-04T07:00:00+00:00

THE FIRST MINISERIES

My agent, Flo Allen, called and said NBC was planning a mammoth twenty-five-hour miniseries dramatizing James Michener’s bestselling historical novel Centennial, which described America’s tumultuous early westward expansion. They wanted me to play Alexander McKeag, a Scots trapper who would dominate the first four hours. McKeag was a hardy, capable fellow who combined masculine prowess with a degree of sensitivity unusual on the frontier. The huge production was to be shot pretty much on location around the actual Platte River in Colorado, a far piece from New York.

I dreaded telling Martin about the job because it would mean leaving our home for months just when we were really getting close. And as I’d guessed, Martin was dead set against my going.

I agonized over the decision, but in my gut I knew I had to go. At that time I was my career, my career was me. It wasn’t clear to me then, but looking back I can see that nothing could stand between me and a great job. Without my work, which I had always felt was a kind of destiny, I simply wouldn’t exist.

Young Martin felt abandoned and hurt, but he didn’t bolt as I feared he might. When I returned home months later, he was there. Luckily, in New York he had his own career to pursue.

It’s my guess that underlying many highly successful careers is a kind of focused mania, a whisper of madness that requires constant achievement to stabilize severe inner imbalance.

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