Decades after Dak Rambo’s death, a friend’s tell-all memoir added one final, shocking chapter to the story of the actor who once seemed to have it all. The claim placed the rugged TV heartthrob in a secret world of hired companions for closeted celebrities, long after the public believed they had learned the full truth about his private life. Born Norman J. Rambo in California in 1941, the actor grew up on a farm with his twin brother, Orman.
The brothers, tired of their easily confused names, renamed themselves Dak and Durk before heading to Los Angeles to pursue acting. After studying with famed coach Lee Strasberg, the twins landed their first roles together on The Loretta Young Show, playing two of the star’s sons. The series lasted only a single season. Durk managed to book episodes on The Virginian and Dragnet before tragedy struck.
In February 1967, Durk was killed in a car crash. Dak carried on, landing the lead in The Guns of Will Sonnett, a western that featured early performances from Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper, but it too was canceled after two seasons. Rambo spent the following years cycling through a string of roles and failed projects. He appeared in guest spots on Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, and The Love Boat before taking a short-lived role on the soap opera All My Children.
A recurring part on Fantasy Island led to a supporting role in Paper Dolls, a heavily promoted prime-time soap centered on the fashion modeling world. Despite positive reviews, the show was canceled just three months after its debut, and Rambo’s potential big break fizzled out. In the mid-1980s, Rambo set his sights on Dallas, the top-rated prime-time soap whose ranch setting reminded him of his farming roots. He admitted later that he schemed and manipulated to land the role.
Once he got it, however, he was miserable. He felt like an outsider and hinted that some of the cast behaved like the conniving characters they played. To cope with his unhappiness, he turned to prescription drugs. Rambo eventually left Dallas.
In 1991, while working on the daytime soap Another World, he learned he had contracted HIV. He told producers immediately and went public with the news. At the time, AIDS was heavily stigmatized and largely associated with gay men, and Rambo had been publicly known as straight. In a late November interview with the Washington Post, he revealed that he was bisexual, a declaration considered highly courageous for an actor at that time.
He became close friends with evangelist Ronnie Pierce, and the two prayed together and spoke at churches and on Christian television. Rambo co-founded the Dak Rambo Healing Foundation to support people facing life-threatening illnesses. When asked how he wanted to be remembered, the man once seen as a sex symbol said he hoped fans would remember him as a great man of God. Around the same time, a National Enquirer reporter received an anonymous tip from a worker at a California medical clinic.
The caller said a famous prime-time soap star was in the final stages of AIDS. Reporter William Kek paid for the information and learned which room the actor was in. When he and another writer arrived at the clinic, the bed was empty. Rambo had died.
Shortly after Rambo’s death on March 21, 1994, the National Enquirer published what it presented as a last interview with him. In his memoir, When You Step Upon a Star: Cringe-worthy Confessions of a Tabloid Bad Boy, Kek said the entire interview was fabricated and that he had not participated in writing it. Rambo was buried beside his twin brother. Almost three decades later, Doug Probst, known professionally as Sha Matt, added another layer to Rambo’s story.
In his 2021 memoir, Matt, the Musings of a Narcissist, a Survivor Story, Probst wrote about his life as a man for hire for closeted celebrities. He claimed Rambo responded to his advertisement and that the two met at a hotel after Rambo arrived in a Porsche. Probst, who said he did not watch much television and did not recognize the actor, claimed he fell in love with Rambo and that the two remained friends until Rambo’s death. He also said he was there for Rambo when the actor received his HIV diagnosis.
Few people who knew Rambo have disputed his reputation for kindness. Actress Sheree J. Wilson, who joined Dallas after him, described being terrified before her first scene. Rambo, noticing her nerves, reassured her by saying, “Just relax.
We’re all friends here. ” Wilson remembered him as brave and noted that he used his celebrity to educate the public about AIDS, even as he faced the darkest hours of his life.