He passed away on Hawaii on Saturday due to complications after a stroke, according to a spokesperson for the newspaper.
"Our beloved Richard is with the angels now. He is free and soaring towards those we loved who went before us. We were so blessed to have known such a fantastic and loving soul", says Martin Rabbett, Chamberlain's life partner since the 1970s in a statement.
Richard Chamberlain's career spanned many decades, but he is perhaps best known for his roles in several major TV series during the 1980s. Among others, as Father Ralph in "The Thorn Birds" and John Blackthorne in "Shogun". The TV roles earned him the epithet "The King of Miniseries".
Prior to that, he had played, among other roles, Allan Quatermain, the precursor to Indiana Jones, in a couple of films and the musketeer Aramis in the star-studded "The Three Musketeers" trilogy in the 1970s.
Chamberlain was born in Beverly Hills in 1934. After military service as a sergeant during the Korean War, he entered the acting world through a theater group in Los Angeles and smaller TV roles. He broke through as a teenage idol in the hospital drama "Dr Kildare", which was broadcast on American TV in the early 1960s.
