Dr Kildare

He was a dreamboat. But as soon as he said his career kept him too busy to date, everyone knew he was gay. He could’ve banged any of his female guest stars in his dressing room. No need for dinner & a show. Plenty of ladies wanted him

Ben Casey is not shown either. Wouldn't mind seeing them again.

Is any medical show that was around before 1980 still in syndication? Even now I wouldn't kick Dick out of bed for eating crackers.

I didn’t like Ben Casey. He was an apish, hairy, male chauvinist pig. He treated nurses like dirt, always screaming at them like an insane baby & the nurses were all “Yes Dr Casey! Right away, Dr Casey.” They need a lesbian ex-WAC nurse on that show to show Dr Casey what he could do with his shouty baby behavior.

I watched both shows but preferred Dr. Kildare. My mother liked Ben Casey.

I guess they are too outdated. My sister had her thymus irradiated as a child because doctors just figured why not? They thought her thymus was enlarged so they bombarded it with Xrays. I remember watching Marcus Welby & a woman on the show had a thyroid problem & Marcus said that was because of the misguided 1950s use of radiation. That’s when my mother said to my sister “You had that done to you.” (She had to have her thyroid killed years later).

It’s completely irrelevant nowadays because those women are in their 70s. Doctors don’t care what happens to them. And nobody’s had their thymus irradiated in 65 years.

I remember there was a big deal made of a Dr Kildare episode where his girlfriend got raped in front of him by Bradford Dillman (who always played a bad guy. If you saw Bradford Dillman announced as a guest star at the beginning of the show, you knew he did the rape/murder/beating or whatever was going to unfold on the show).

It was quite shocking in those days.

Something about Dick Chamberlain made him creepily handsome. Like Matt Bomer.

But Chamberlain was abnormally pretty as though he had cosmetic surgery at age 20 to make him a plastic Ken Doll.

But I suppose I should respect him for going to England in the late 60s in an effort to gain credibility.

R6 Are you saying Dr Kildare had a girlfriend?

(I never watched it because I was just a child)

Dr. Kildare is an NBC medical drama television series which originally ran from September 28, 1961, until August 30, 1966,[4] for a total of 191 episodes over five seasons.

An unsold and unaired pilot was shot in 1960 featuring Joseph Cronin as "Dr. Kildare" and Lew Ayres as "Dr. Gillespie". As a younger man, Ayres had played the role of Kildare for many years in the earlier MGM film and radio series. Later, a second, successful pilot was made with Richard Chamberlain as Kildare and Raymond Massey as Gillespie.

Before the little-known Chamberlain was cast, the Kildare role was offered to William Shatner and James Franciscus, who both turned it down. The role catapulted Chamberlain to fame.

I think my sister had that done to her too. She had a large circular scar on her neck. Whatever it was, it didn’t have any long term effects.

I feel like they don't show a lot of shows that are in black and white. There are all these shows just sitting in vaults that could be shown and we're subjected to this garbage on Netflix.

R10 Jim Franciscus and Dick Chamberlain were cookie-cutter copies of each other.

(Of course I'd let both of them have their way with me)

Surprising what a great career he actually had, here and England.

Dr. Kildare (during its original run) was the only time I saw my mother watch TV, other than the day of JFK's assassination. She never voiced what she thought of the actor, but she must've been infatuated, because she never watched anything, ever, no matter what was on, or when it was on, until she retired in her 60s.

He was so gorgeous back then, nothing "creepy" about it at all

Dr Kildare as played by Richard Chamberlain = TOO GAY. Way too gay.

I thought this as a tiny gayling in the mid-1960s. Chamberlain was beautiful, nice, clean, completely sexless, which meant gay as a Easter basket in 1965. I found Vince Edwards, the hairy Italian who couldn't act his way out of a Chanel bag, soooo much sexier.

^. Yes he was clean, sexless and unthreatening. He only appeared in 'women's movies'.

He was gay in that 1970 Tchaikovsky movie.

It's not true that he only appeared in "women's movies"

Chamberlain put that to rest with his portrayal of the abusive husband in 1968's Petulia, what lay behind the perfect facade.

[quote] I feel like they don't show a lot of shows that are in black and white. There are all these shows just sitting in vaults that could be shown and we're subjected to this garbage on Netflix.

They show twilight zone, Hitchcock & the fugitive, but it’s true they show them very late at night. I think maybe Dr Kildare was a little preachy & 60s sincere. It was also a show that was kind of like a medical version of Love American style or Fantasy Island because it was the type of series that showcased guest stars every week.

Now that I think about it, a lot of series showcased TV actor guest stars each week. Batman, eg. Colombo. Everyone wanted to be a villain or do a walk-on.

Yeah, R20, and that was a believable as Julie Andrews in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. HA!

He starred as The Captain and Henry Higgins in "The Sound Of Music" & "My Fair Lady" on Broadway.

r23, he was actually very good in the movie

In the early to mid-2010s, Dick Chamberlain, as he self-identified, used to post as himself in these pages.

This show is close to 60 years old and you’re wondering why it’s not shown on TV anymore?

Don't be obtuse, r27. There are at least three networks running shows from the early 60s. They're still showing "I Love Lucy" which will be 70 next year.

Viewers will watch half hour black and white sitcoms, but not so much hour long black and white dramas. Keep in mind that "hour" dramas then actually ran between 51 and 53 minutes. A network tv drama today has been pared down to allow more commercials and tend to run between 41 and 45 minutes.

[quote]This show is close to 60 years old and you’re wondering why it’s not shown on TV anymore?

Never seen an episode but I can bet it is more entertaining that all the shit shows on network TV today.

When he lived in NYC it was rumored MOMA was his cruising ground.

R20, I saw Petulia at the Castro Theater last year in a retrospective of movies set in SF. Chamberlain was great as the repressed, abusive husband. He and Julie Christie were both at their most beautiful. Plus there was a live Janis Joplin performance! It was filmed in 1968, and is the most evocative SF movie of that era I've seen. Really amazing.

One of the nostalgia channels -- probably Decades -- showed some "Kildare" episodes a while back as part of a programming block that highlighted series that aren't shown too much anymore. I watched one and was surprised to find out it was in black-and-white, because I thought that most of NBC's programming by then was in color. (I was around when "Kildare" was first-run, and remember watching it, but we didn't get a color TV until 1968.)

Some of Dr Kildare was in color, only the early years were in B&W. I used to see reruns on channel 11 in NYC a few decades ago, at least as much as I could stand of it. Lots of B&W shows, even hour shows like Perry Mason, are still shown in reruns today. Problem is, Dr Kildare is no Perry Mason.

I'm reading his memoir right now, called 'Shattered Love'. He's very forthcoming abour his daddy issues (his father was an alcoholic) his need/want for everything to be perfect and just so. He's also very honest about how much he wanted to become famous.

"Never seen an episode but I can bet it is more entertaining that all the shit shows on network TV today."

As if there wasn't lots of crap on tv in the 60s

^^Not as many as today and better written.

[quote] This show is close to 60 years old and you’re wondering why it’s not shown on TV anymore?

Which is probably why the OP said “on any of the NOSTALGIA CHANNNELS.”

r37, you're wrong

He was just a beautiful man. If you like clean and perfect rather than earthy and sexy, he's the sine qua non.

Speaking of "Love American Style" (above), is that shown anywhere on over-the-air TV these days?

He had a bangin' body when he was young

WHOA. ^^

Very beautiful, like a mannequin.

Love, American Style pops up on DECADES or MeTV from time to time. Sometimes DECADES features it as their "weekend binge."

Saw him with Dot McGuire in Night of the Iguana. She gave one of the greatest performances I've ever seen on stage. Lucky me because I've always loved her. He was very handsome but to me he was always sexless. My female friend was about to faint we were so close to him.

I saw him in "The Heiress" with DL faves Julia Duffy and Heather Tom.

The cast of Laugh In would’ve been on welfare years earlier had it not been for Love, American Style.

Some of the greatest acting in the history of the planet occurred in "The Thornbirds," where gay Richard Chamberlain and uber lez Barbara Stanwyck were playing straight people.

Did he ride a motorcycle as Dr. Kildare, or was that James Brolin on Marcus Welby?

Check out the shower scene in Joy in the Morning

R48, Bette Davis remarked on that in a veiled way when she trashed the movie. She wanted to play the lead, btw.

James Brolin rode a motorcycle, so he could quickly chase down non-compliant patients & give them their medications just as they were seizing.

I'd love to see "Medical Center" with hot daddy Chad Everett!

I wonder if conservative twat Chad Everett knew James Daly was gay

Ben Casey was more realistic---patients occasionally died on that show plus they had Sam Jaffe and his mixmaster hairdo and a better theme song. Vince Edwards was rather lazy as an actor (one take so he could get to the track---he was a gambling addict) but he still had more depth than Chamberlain.

is this show on one of them there mesothelioma channels?

Lainie Kazan was on Ben Casey!

No--that was OP's point.

R40, Decades TV plays 'Love, American Style'...not sure if it's on the weekly schedule, but they did a binge of it a few weeks ago.

Dammit nurse!

R55, disagree that he was a better actor than Chamberlain

It was always fun watching Black & White reruns & seeing people who became popular stars later on, like Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Kurt Russell, Jodie Foster

^ you forgot Lainie Kazan

Or Chamberlain here in color with Redford, R62...

Robert Redford was in Twilight Zone. So was Dennis Hopper, playing a Nazi

He had a long term relationship with Marty (last name, anyone?). Lived in Hawaii. Met working on a movie together.

Marty Engels?

Marty Feldman?

I remember when Shirley Jones married Marty Engels. Everyone said “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s Fenster.”

Dick Chamberlain was the Armie Hammer for his generation.

R66, his partner was Martin Rabbitt (sp).

R70, not even close. When did Armie have a hit show or a hit anything?

When did Dick Chamberlain star in a masculine role in a mainstream movie (and not a woman's soapy mini-series)?

R73, tens of millions of people watched those miniseries. A lot of them got more viewers than a lot of theatrical films. And, btw, he did star in movies like The Three Musketeers. And most of the characters he played were "masculine" (what does that have to do with anything?)

R55: Chamberlain and Kildare were earnest and bland. Not much to work with.

Also the sequel and Twilight of Honor, R73--all mainstream, all masculine. Happy now?

Maybe it’s just me but if I went to the hospital I wouldn’t want my doctors name to be KILL DARE

If he was so handsome, how come he couldn't drive a stick shift.

[quote] Vince Edwards was rather lazy as an actor (one take so he could get to the track---he was a gambling addict)

I remember there was a 60s actor who disappeared & was presumed dead. I think it was Sandy Baron who was in Hey Landlord & later showed up as Bert Klompas on Seinfeld. Turned out he was a gambler who owed a lot of money & took off for awhile because “the heat was on.”

Only someone as dull as Richard Chamberlain could make constipated Robert Redford look animated.

r64 No love for Carroll O'Connor?

r59, see r44.

I don't know what he looks like now but saw him at age 70 and he was still gorgeous.

I liked the Charles Bronson episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents where he is a gunman who robbed a gas station & took a woman hostage to drive him in her car. It had a twist ending.

You used to be able to find every old tv series online for free, nearly always on YouTube or on (old) free Hulu or Daily Motion. Now they want you to pay for everything. They’ve robbed us of our own cultural heritage We watched all that stuff for free on the airwaves. They should still be free.

Lucky I kept my old dvds, R84.

r84, there are some Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes on YouTube and Daily Motion for free

Captain Parmenter, Jeannie & Gilligan (or maybe maynard) all together with Dr Kildare.

I watched an episode of Ben Casey, and Brett Somers was the costar. I almost came.

Speaking of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.....Raymond Massey and Chamberlain both guest-starred on a episode together. When Massey was cast in Dr. Kildare, he recommended Chamberlain for the title character because he had enjoyed working with him on AHP

Dr. Kildare was an MGM show, but I believe the older MGM shows belong to Warner Bros. -- so why don't they stream it on HBO MAX?

Brett Somers had a career outside of Match Game?

[quote]Yes, she was my protégé for a while. Always swallowed.

{quote]Brett Somers had a career outside of Match Game?

Yes, she was my protégé for a while. Always swallowed.

(Ignore my previous response. This forum is kid of confusing for us dead folks. -- BTW, vote whore out of the White House in November and Melania, too)

I thought Brett Somers on,y job was being Jack Klugman’s wife

For R53.

[R54] It’s been said that Chad Everett was a closeted gay. No proof to that… So I I imagine James Daily being gay wouldn’t probably matter to him.

^ yes, it's been said Chad Everett was gay - on the Datalounge

[quote]Bette Davis remarked on that in a veiled way when she trashed the movie. She wanted to play the lead, btw.

The Thorn Birds was a miniseries, not a movie.

R54. Someone on DL said that he had sex with Chad and that Chad had an oral fixation. Maybe he will respond to this post.

Loved Dr. Kildare!! Am I the only one who thinks the guy who's in Grantchester (the original one, not the faintly Italian looking new one) bears a remarkable resemblance to Chamberlain??

How is RC doing these days? He's 86

I used to fantasize that Ben Casey and Kildare were lovers!

The gay thing stuck to Chad Everett because of James Daly who Tony Musante’s roommate by the way and because he was a Henry Willson boy.

Not all of Henry Willson’s boys were gay.

But wouldn't all of them, gay or straight, have had to put out for Henry otherwise why would he waste time on them? I mean why make love to an old creepy agent if Chad doesn't have to?

If Chad had to put out for Henry does that make him gay?

Isn’t the Thorn Birds on Amazon Prime now?

Dickie was chilling in Petulia. He managed to break free from his TV persona unlike many of his contemporaries.

r106, yes