Actor Richard Chamberlain just passed away at 90 years old. 

Chamberlain was trying to be an American Peter O’Toole.  He was a little much.  Chamberlain started out as the lead character in a medical drama, Dr. Kildare, in 1961, then bounced around doing TV movies and being a guest star on other TV shows.  He kind of settled on mini-series.

He seemed kind of cheesy, so I knew what he was in, but don’t recall ever watching any of it.

Chamberlain was in a Shōgun mini-series.  People liked it, and has an 8.1 on IMDB, but he put me off.  Last year, a new Shōgun TV series came out.  It has an 8.6 on IMDB.  I watched that, and quite like it.  The lead actor, Cosmo Jarvis, has the same off-putting demeanor as Richard Chamberlain. 

Another main character is played by Anna Sawai.  She was fantastic.  Here are the old and new versions of John Blackthorne and Toda Moriko.

Anna Sawai was also in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.  I had just seen her in that, and found her to be intolerable and unappealing.

All of the young team, shown in the photo, were insufferable dicks.  When I watched Shōgun, I didn’t realize it was the same actress. That suggests that Sawai is very good at her job.  Maybe Cosmo Jarvis is also.  If he shows up in anything else, we’ll see.