25 Mostly New Films to Enjoy During Festival, Scheduled from February 9th – 16th

This time around Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown join me to share their delightful memories of shooting “The Thorn Birds.” The festival is celebrating the 40th anniversary of this sexy saga of a Catholic priest (Chamberlain) harboring a forbidden love for an impressionable heiress (Ward) to a sheep farm in the 1920s Australian Outback.

Richard, at 88 still recognizable from his stint as Dr. Kildare, speaks from his Los Angeles home, and Bryan and Rachel are at their house in Sydney. The two – an unhappily married couple in “The Thorn Birds” – fell in love on the set and are now celebrating their own 40th anniversary.

Bryan tells me he was reticent at first to respond to Rachel’s flirting, not because he wasn’t attracted to the stunning young British actress, but because this was his first Hollywood gig and he feared behaving improperly. Fellow cast member Jean Simmons egged on Rachel in her pursuit of Bryan, telling her if she were younger she would make a play for the hunky Aussie with the great pecs (the first thing Rachel noticed about him).

Richard has his own encounter with another grand dame: Barbara Stanwyk in the role of the family matriarch. In the script, he arrives at the sheep farm soaking wet and removes his clothes at what he thinks is a secret hideaway where she is meant to discover him. Richard recalls that for the first time in her more than 50 year career, the legendary actress forgot her lines. “Barbara told me later that it had been a long time since she’d seen a naked man,” he said with a laugh.

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