Richard Chamberlain died. I am unmoved.

I often discuss actors or others who died and have moved me here. It is a personal experience where an actor has moved me or opened me up to new thoughts. Richard Chamberlain was one of the first people to have had the opposite effect. 

Richard Chamberlain was a horrible person who probably caused the death of thousands of others. His two most prominent roles were in the mini-series Shogun and The Thorn Birds in 1980 and 1983, respectively. He was beloved for his Dr. Killdare role from 1963- 1965. Photoplay crowned him "Most Popular Male Actor" from 1963 - 1965.

And he was gay. It was an open secret.* And during the AIDS crisis, he didn't say shit. He was friends with President and Nancy Reagan from Hollywood and might have been able to move them toward action. Rock Hudson came out in 1984 and died in 1985 - he was one of the first gay actors who admitted to getting AIDS from sex. Richard Chamberlain still said nothing.

He didn't come out until 2003, and even then, only to sell his autobiography. For you who don't know, effective wide-scale AIDS treatments started to appear in the middle 1990s. If he had said something two decades earlier, when my friends started dying, maybe, MAYBE, more people would have paid attention. Instead, it took thousands of more deaths to get America to pay attention. The most popular actor of the early 1980s just let people die and didn't say a word.

And none deserved

In 2014, he told The New York Times: "When you grow up in the '30s, '40s, and '50s being gay, it not only ain't easy, it's just impossible."

Yeah. He could have added, "And when you're superass famous in the 1980s, making money is more important than a few dead friends."

Today, I'm sorry he is dead, just like I would be sorry when any random person dies. I didn't hate him. I am unaffected. I suppose it is growth that I no longer hope he lands in a pit of boiling oil in hell. Instead, I am just unmoved.

Just like he was unmoved to bring light AIDS. A disease that killed 300,000 gay young men of my (and his) generations.

*Yes, there are plenty of gay men that are / were openly known to us. That is why we know Lindsey Graham is a self-hating homo and Kenny Chesney isn't gay. Although we can dream. (About Kenny, not Lindsey-Bell.) And the less said of Kevin Spacey, the better.