Article 66

Why I Fell In Love With Rachel!

TV heart-throb Richard Chamberlain has talked for the first time about his love for Rachel Ward.

Chamberlain confessed that he still adores the beautiful co-star from his last TV hit, "The Thorn Birds."

After months of filming steamy sex scenes with Rachel, Richard finally fell in love with her for real.

He admitted: "Rachel is one of the sexiest women I’ve ever known."

"She emanates desire with her husky voice, and she has a unique way of moving."

"When she walks it is as if she is stepping over ice."

"She makes a man feel he has to protect her. All he wants is to put his arms around her and promise to take care of her forever."

"We established a perfect harmony while we were working and it spilled over into real love."

"At first I wanted to make Rachel fall in love with me so she would be convincing when we came to film "The Thorn Birds."

"Well, we certainly over-acted. And soon I fell in love with Rachel, which was hardly an enormous task."

"It was her first starring role and she would often arrive on the set in tears. Then I would just take her in my arms. I felt a great affection for her."

"I cared for her in a way I haven’t felt for nay of the other actresses with whom I’ve worked."

For those who know Chamberlain well, it was no surprise that his special relationship with Rachel was short-lived.

Still boyish looking at 50 and still making women go weak at the knees, he is a firm believer in brief encounters.

Marriage frightens him and, anyway, Rachel is now happily married herself to another of her Thorn Birds co-stars, handsome Australian Bryan Brown.

Richard said: "It is definitely over, but the love I feel for Rachel will always be there -and she knows that."

"Anyway, marriage is not for me. It is the actual contract that I object to most."

"If marriage could be reviewed every so often and you could keep deciding about whether to sign on for another period of time or not, then I would say it might be an interesting proposition."

"I might even sign on. But I would hate to be subjected to the whims of another person who might try to dictate how I should live my life."

"Many wives can be like sergeants in the Army. I had that and hated it when I fought in Korea."

"I couldn’t bear marching within ranks or having to fold my socks in a certain way, and that’s how I see marriage."

Wallenberg is the true story of a Swedish diplomat who disappeared in Hungary after helping what remained of the Jewish community there during the Nazi occupation.

Richard said: "this is the 40th anniversary of Wallenberg’s disappearance. It’s my wild dream that our film will help find an answer to the mystery."

"Some people think he is still alive in a Soviet prison."

"My goal is to help influence public opinion. I want to apply as much diplomatic pressure as possible to find out if Wallenberg is still alive."

Off-screen, Chamberlain divides his time between his three beautiful homes -a Japanese-style mansion in Hollywood, a beautiful New York apartment and a beach house in Hawaii.

But at the moment he is sweating it out in the steamy bush of Zimbabwe, re-making the screen epic "King Solomon’s Mines."

And by all accounts, he is not enjoying it.

The set is only a few hours away from Bullawayo where the graves of six tourists have just been discovered, resulting in Prime Minister Robert Mugabe ordering the army to cordon off the whole city.

And deep in the bush -where the crew are filming- sheet lightning killed more than 100 people last week.

Production executive Lize Odental said: "Richard is one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, but he is finding the conditions very difficult."

"He works from five in the morning until 7:30 at night and always goes back to his hotel room at locks himself in."

"Because of the terrible weather we’ve only been able to shoot a few minutes a day. We spend hours at a time just watching the rain and jumping at each thunderbolt."

The Chamberlain remake of "King Solomon’s Mines" is costing £12.5 million and is expected to take more than £100 million at the box office.

It differs from earlier versions in that the whole film is a gigantic spoof.

Lize said: "It is all tongue in cheek. For instance, Richard meets his beautiful co-star, Sharon Stone, in a cooking pot as they are both about to be boiled by cannibals."

It is Chamberlain’s first feature film for seven years. He is already signed up for the sequel.