Shattered Love: A Memoir (Hardcover)

by Richard Chamberlain (Author) "I was born in Los Angeles during the Great Depression and was quickly whisked off to Beverly Hills..." (more)
Key Phrases: shattered love, Los Angeles, New York, Father Ralph (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Despite its fevered title, this is a courtly, ruminative life's accounting by the TV miniseries star and 1960s heartthrob. It relates Chamberlain's journey toward self-awareness and growoing capacity for love, through the scrim of an actor's career. Although the author, who's now 69, discusses his main television, movie and stage efforts, he dishes no dirt about his colleagues or directors. Raymond Massey, Chamberlain's Dr. Kildare co-star, was like a second father to him. The Thorn Birds' co-star Barbara Stanwyck was prepared down to her gestures when she hit the set. The Three Musketeers's bombshell Raquel Welch was beloved by all. As Chamberlain revisits his acting credits, he concentrates on what he gained from them as an artist, such as how he fought for the lead in Shogun or broke through the constraints of Rex Harrison's performance to carve his own characterization of Henry Higgins in a stage revival of My Fair Lady. Throughout, he centers his account on how he evolved as a spiritual being. He writes of his spiritual counselors, who showed him how to gain strength through dissociation and open his heart to forgive and love others, particularly his alcoholic father. He speaks intermittently about his homosexuality, but considers it a nonissue, rather than a political passion. His pantheistic theology is heartfelt, but might seem unfounded to orthodox believers. The book is most valuable as a portrait of a man who has made peace with his past. B&w photo insert not seen by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

From his breakout role in Dr. Kildare, through more than four decades of unforgettable performances on television and in film, Richard Chamberlain has epitomized the ideal leading man. Strong and handsome, sophisticated yet kindly, his public persona has drawn fans of all ages. But despite his worldwide acclaim in The Thorn Birds and Shogun -- two of the most successful miniseries of all time -- the actor himself has never led a life of easy confidence. Even at the height of his fame he lived in constant fear that the "real" Richard would one day be discovered -- and that the love he had gained from fans, family, and friends would be ripped away.

In Shattered Love, Richard Chamberlain recounts his fascinating journey as an impressionable boy growing up in postwar California who stumbled into the Hollywood of big studios, big money, and big personas. Through long days on the set and glittering evenings on the town with Joan Crawford, Princess Margaret, Elizabeth Taylor, and a cast of other colorful characters, Chamberlain gamely and tirelessly played his Golden Boy role. As time passed, however, he longed to reconcile his deepest self with his public persona -- including his sexual orientation, a secret he has guarded until now. With candor, honesty, and wit, Shattered Love captures Chamberlain's poignant struggle to come to terms with the truths in his life -- from his tumultuous relationship with his troubled father to his lifelong quest to find spiritual truth in everyday life.

Warm, touching, and brave, Shattered Love draws on a lifetime of stories and on lessons learned from some of the most inspiring spiritual teachers of our time -- sharing with readers the author's own journey from desperate suppression to a life lived with an open heart.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060087439
• ISBN-13: 978-0060087432
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #612,439 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shattered Love moving Toward Love, June 4, 2003

By	D. Dube (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Richard Chamberlain tells in this book of his poignant struggles of growing up in an alcoholic home, dealing with fame (and when it deals with him), as well as his spiritual search to live an authentic and truthful life.

Many, I imagine will pick up this book with an eye for sensationalism and gossip over the revelation of his sexual preference. Yet they will be sorely disappointed that there is neither sensational and illicit tales, nor gossip to titillate. No, what the reader will find here is a book about a very thoughtful and spiritual man, who happened to act for a living, trying to navigate his way toward love and finding his true and openhearted self.

Though, given the sometimes glossed over and fast-forwarded events in his life that take place in the book, one can't help but wonder if there is another book in the offing or if much was edited out of this one. Yet the spiritual and philosophical ponderings were delightful to read and filled the heart. I am glad that Mr. Chamberlain wrote it and allowed himself to be so vulnerable and open.

On a personal note, I applaud Mr. Chamberlain's courage to write the truths revealed in the book but also wish to add that it makes no difference to me one way or another and it shouldn't to anyone who reads this book. He simply is what he is and approval is not required when reading. Acceptance however, is a bridge to understanding.

You could learn a lot about not only Richard Chamberlain in this book, but yourself as well.

Cheers to the years together, Martin and Richard!

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To live in peace with God and mortal being, July 31, 2003

By A Customer

When Amazon.com recommended to me Richard Chamberlain's book Shattered Love: A Memoir it didn't attract my attention, first and foremost because I thought it was a book about famous people and fame, stuff that doesn't interest me. But to base my decision on something I read the customers' review. Some of the reviewers got me to believe that it is a book about what the life have to offer, if one wants to create and steers his own life, rather than gossip and stories of famous people; a book about the pain that follows and are all around one who cannot be himself in his daily life. In other words, a book about being a thoughtful human being.

Richard Chamberlain's book is well organized and in more than one way remarkable. Hopefully it will help those who walk in his shoes to benefit from his footprints. Because English is not my mother tongue I neither can nor think it's right of me to criticize the text, but can say that I find comfortable to read the book. Fortunately, it isn't a book about fame, so they who want to hear gossip should read another book. It's a book for those who respect the life and want to get acquainted with the nature and voluntarily open their heart for the unknown.

The book reflects itself in following sentence: "It's interesting that some of us are born with, or acquire along the way, a dark sea of inner doubt and insecurity that keeps us adrift, continually swimming to catch up"... The book's strength is the author's decision to accentuate on humanity. Over the years he have thought a lot of spiritual matters; in what way he can developed his mind and thought; including the love, which is naturally quite the same feeling either people are gay or straight. Finally he has found his way to live the life alive and now he shares his life experience with his readers. I fell in love with his description of the love; how he compares it to grammar; love as a noun and love as a verb. With his own words: "Love, the noun, isn't primarily something you do, it's something you are, a state of being. When you open to this level of love, you radiate love in all directions simply because that's what you are. Personal love is more a verb, an activity, a choice, something you do. Divine love has no object, it just is. Personal love is an emotion directed from you to a particular someone else or something else. Divine love shines freely like the sun on everything. Personal love tends to be selective and highly conditional." There is nothing more to say; it's wonderful description, almost poetical. His nature descriptions show that he appreciates and have an eye for the beauty in the unknown or the not well known. Sometimes I missed detailed descriptions, especially if I didn't recognized the place or circumstances. But as a person who lives in North-Europe I smiled to myself when I saw how extraordinary he thinks the bright summer nights in Finland. These long days (or short nights) are as natural as anything can be for us who live in this part of the world, but they astonish those who live far away, and that always amuses me. As a feminist I noticed especially in what way he talks about women, and can say that he deserves many points for see them as a human being, but not as a pretty things. He also deserves points for see animals as a living creatures with feelings.

It's always a sheer pleasure to read a book by thoughtful human being, but it's sad to read a book by man who the public opinion (or is it the media opinion?) puts in the circumstances to deny part of himself. Being gay and act straight man is as much normal as being straight and act gay man; something that seems to me is fashionable in the United States nowadays. Please, try to understand for once and for all that to divide people into gay and straight and make as if that tells us anything is absurd! And by the way, it's ridiculous and in contravention of common sense to talk about "to admit" homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a crime. Gay people should never have been put in the situations to explain (or spell out) their sexuality rather than straight people. Homosexuality and heterosexuality are both part of the nature's spectrum, whether or not people face up to it or close their eyes before it. Other thing is that gay people have to live their life in a straight world. Many of them have to pretend they are something else than they are, and without doubt, too many have a phobia against themselves, like Chamberlain once - it happens to famous and unknown, intelligent and unintelligent people. Because of that, it always pleases me when people, gay and straight, respect themselves and the life enough to say: Being gay is non-issue. One sunny day it will be non-issue, hopefully!

At last, because I have recently read the book The Man who was Dorian Gray, and also because Richard Chamberlain once acted in England, I must say, that, in his early years, he would have been fantastic as Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde's excellent novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Is is enough reasons to congratulate the author with a beautiful book about things that matters to us all most.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Healing a damaged soul, November 5, 2003

By	B. W. Fairbanks "Brian W. Fairbanks" (Lakewood, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've never been a fan of Richard Chamberlain the actor. I never questioned his talent, but he plied his trade most successfully in "Shogun" and "The Thornbirds," TV mini-series that didn't interest me, and in lame-brained big-screen blockbusters like "The Towering Inferno" which interested me less. Therefore, I was suprised at how much I enjoyed his well-written memoir, "Shattered Love." The dramatic title does not refer, as I initially thought, to a romantic relationship gone wrong, but to Chamberlain's belief that we are all splinters - pieces, rather than products - of a loving God. I'm not sure I accept that theory but Chamberlain is obviously sincere in his philisophical and spiritual beliefs, and they have no doubt helped heal his damaged soul.

Part of that damage resulted from his long repressed homosexuality, but though Chamberlain's "coming out" was used to promote the book, it is but one piece of the whole, just as he regards his sexual orientation as just a piece, and a mundane one at that, of his entire being. This is not a lurid confessional but a heartfelt account of Chamberlain's search for truth and self-acceptance based on the quality and content of his soul rather than the size of his fame and popularity.

Of course, Chamberlain takes time to reflect on his acting career, but avoids back-biting and gossip, finding only kind words for co-stars like Raquel Welch whom he and the other cast members of 1974's "The Three Musketeers" were predisposed to dislike but found adorable, and Barbara Stanwyck, whose professionalism impressed him when they co-starred in "The Thornbirds." But when he turns his attention to show-biz, Chamberlain mainly focuses on how he learned his craft, and how his inhibitions and insecurity were hurdles he had to jump before he could excel at his art.

"Shattered Love" is an inspiring and worthwhile read, even if, like me, you were never really a fan of the actor who wrote it. By the final chapter, you may be one.