Richard Chamberlain Quotes

Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.

When I came out publicly, some photo editors had a field day searching for pictures of me with a limp wrist or some other stereotypical gay signifier - as though, after decades in the public eye, they'd suddenly come across a trove of shots where I looked like a Cher impersonator.

I've had enough of being a gay icon! I've had enough of all this hard work, because, since I came out, I keep getting all these parts, and my career's taken off. I want a quiet life. I'm going back into the closet. But I can't get back into the closet, because it's absolutely jam-packed full of other actors.

I hate it when people talk about Tony Curtis and say: 'His real name was Bernie Schwartz... ' That was just the name that he was given at birth. It's not the person he lived his life with, and became.

I think younger players probably just think they are who they are-they don't think about coming out. Unless you're number one in the world, nobody cares, usually.

I'll tell you one thing about me: I'm very private. I always have been private. People think I'm callous, arrogant. I didn't like the media attention.

I don't have anything to hide but what happens is the media tend to beat up what I say.

It's flattering that there are lots of Internet fan sites about me. I'm a bit of a technophobe and I don't even own a laptop, but it's probably a good thing I'm not logged on, checking up on what everyone is saying about me.

Lying about one's sexuality seems to be one of the ridiculous rules of what constitutes being a Hollywood movie star. Obviously, my own experience of working and continuing to work as an out gay actor is exactly that - working as an actor and not as a movie star. I don't think the two are the same.

Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay.

I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I'd like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me.

People are very curious and have written a lot of things about me. Right or not. I never comment on those things, because it's not much of my thing to comment on everything that's written about me.

As someone who has never been in a gossip magazine, I do not deserve the contempt of the term 'celebrity.'

When I was signed, at the age of 23...the fact that I presented myself as an out gay man was very, very unusual.

I understand why the gay community wants to embrace actors who are out. People want to be represented.

For a long time, people assumed I was gay, so when I got married the press were all a bit shocked and made a big deal of it - and ditto when I had children. I felt very much under the microscope with paps outside the house taking pictures of me getting the baby out of the car, it was excruciating. I remember getting her out of the car seat and thinking 'oh God I'm going to drop her and they're going to take a picture'. I was so nervous. Those sorts of things are really hard.

It is with some violation of the imagination that we conceive of an actor belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters which they assume upon the stage.

What I love about the gay thing is that every single person I type into Google, it doesn't matter if it's Florence Welch, anybody, if you are not being called gay you don't have a career. That's my theory!

Anderson Cooper has a job to do. And that job is to try to reinforce his credibility in the gay community after the fact that you couldn’t get him out of the closet for 10 years with a canister of tear gas. Now he’s the sheriff; now he’s running around writing everybody a ticket!

I'm not naive to the fact that I'm an out gay actor.

The more it happens, the easier it is for others, although I do understand why some actors choose not to come out. I have several famous friends who are still in the closet.

It was okay for people to write negative things about me just as long as they spelled my name right.

I'm just a guy. I get treated like I'm famous but I don't take it seriously. I take the time people take out to check me out very, very seriously.

I'm gay. I just didn't think it was anybody's business.

Hillary Clinton has this problem. The more she's seen, the more she's heard, the worse she does. This is not arguable.