In an era when TV heartthrobs were expected to marry their leading ladies off-screen, Richard Chamberlain rewrote the script entirely. While he never had a traditional spouse or family, his life overflowed with love and companionship. For 33 years, actor and producer Martin Rabbett stood as his constant, serving as a partner, confidant, and chosen family through every chapter of Chamberlain’s extraordinary journey.
The two met in 1977, when Rabbett was just 20 years old while Chamberlain was 43, and their relationship became one of Hollywood’s worst-kept secrets long before Chamberlain publicly came out in his 2003 memoir, Shattered Love. They shared a commitment ceremony in Hawaii, where they lived together for nearly 30 years in Waimānalo, a tranquil coastal town.
Though they amicably split in 2010, Rabbett remained by Chamberlain’s side until the very end, releasing a heartfelt statement upon his death on March 29, 2025: “Our beloved Richard is with the angels now. He is free and soaring to those loved ones before us. How blessed were we to have known such an amazing and loving soul.”
Richard Chamberlain Never Had a Wife, but He Was in a Relationship With His Longtime Partner, Martin Rabbett
Chamberlain’s lack of a marital relationship wasn’t accidental. It was a survival tactic. In the 1960s, as America’s most adored TV doctor, he was contractually obligated to play the heterosexual leading man. Studio execs orchestrated dates with starlets like Angie Dickinson, whom he escorted to the 1963 Golden Globes, and he perfected a canned response to marriage questions: “Getting married would be great, but I’m awfully busy now.”
The charade weighed on him. In Shattered Love, he confessed, “When I grew up, being gay, being a sissy or anything like that was verboten. I disliked myself intensely and feared this part of myself intensely.” The pressure was so crushing that he made a teenage pact with himself: “I would never, ever reveal this secret.” It wasn’t until he was 69, long after his leading-man days, that he finally broke that promise.
Before Rabbett, Chamberlain had a brief romance with actor Wesley Eure in the mid-1970s, but it was Rabbett who became his life partner. They even worked together professionally. Rabbett played Chamberlain’s brother in Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986), and their Hawaii home became a sanctuary.
Chamberlain once joked to The New York Times in 2014 that their post-breakup friendship thrived because they lived apart: “We don’t live together anymore, and we’re much better friends than we’ve ever been. So, I’m in the business of advising people who are married, etc., to get another house.” Despite the split, Rabbett was the one who announced Chamberlain’s death, revealing he’d succumbed to complications from a stroke just two days shy of his 91st birthday.
Richard Chamberlain Did Not Have Kids by Deliberate Choice
Children were never part of Chamberlain’s story, but he had a complicated relationship with fatherhood. His own dad, Charles Chamberlain, was an alcoholic salesman whose volatility cast a shadow over his childhood. In Shattered Love, Chamberlain described himself as a “shy, serious, lugubrious kid, painfully thin, with a long, sad face,” who found escape in acting.
The idea of repeating that cycle or risking an offspring facing the same homophobia he endured likely made parenthood unthinkable. Instead, he channeled his nurturing side into his craft, playing paternal figures like The Thorn Birds’ conflicted priest, Father Ralph, and The Sound of Music’s Captain von Trapp on Broadway.
Though he never had a wife or kids, the multimillionaire Chamberlain’s legacy isn’t defined by their absence. His love story with Rabbett (who never became his husband) spanned 33 years, his artistry influenced generations, and his courage to come out later in life paved the way for others. In lieu of flowers, Rabbett requested donations to NPR or the Hawaii Humane Society, a nod to Chamberlain’s quiet philanthropy.
And while Hollywood’s golden age demanded he hide his truth, his final years were spent unapologetically himself, even guest-starring as openly gay characters on Will & Grace and Desperate Housewives. As he once told El País, “I would’ve been a happier person being out of the closet and being free. But I had other motives that made me happy. I was a working actor, and for me, that was most important.”
So no, there was never a spouse or little ones. But there was Martin, there was art, and there was a life lived, eventually, on his own terms.
