| Ben Casey | |
|---|---|
Dr. Maggie Graham (Bettye Ackerman) and Vince Edwards as the title character |
|
| Format | Medical drama |
| Created by | James Moser |
| Starring | Vince Edwards Sam Jaffe Bettye Ackerman Jeanne Bates John Zaremba Ben Piazza Jim McMullan Franchot Tone Stella Stevens Marlyn Mason Harry Landers |
| Theme music composer | David Raksin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 153 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45–48 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Bing Crosby Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Picture format | Black-and-white Color |
| Audio format | Monaural |
| Original run | October 2, 1961 – March 21, 1966 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Return of Ben Casey |
Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph Ransohoff was a medical consultant for the show and may have influenced the personality of the title character.
Contents |
The series stars Vince Edwards as medical doctor Ben Casey, a young, intense but idealistic surgeon at County General Hospital. His mentor was Doctor David Zorba, played by Sam Jaffe. At the beginning of the 1965 season, Jaffe left the show and Franchot Tone replaced Zorba as new Chief of Surgery, Doctor Daniel Niles Freeland. The show began running multi-episode stories and Casey developed a romantic relationship with Jane Hancock (Stella Stevens), who had just emerged from a coma after thirteen years.
In its early run, Ben Casey dominated its time slot. In the 1962-1963 season, it swamped Loretta Young's return to weekly television in her family sitcom The New Loretta Young Show on CBS. In 1963, it moved to Wednesdays as the preceding program for ABC's drama about college life, Channing.
However, due to the combination of CBS' The Beverly Hillbillies and The Dick Van Dyke Show, Ben Casey returned to its original Monday night time slot in the fall of 1964, remaining there until its cancellation in March 1966. Daytime repeats of the series also aired on ABC's weekday schedule from 1965 through 1967.
Ben Casey had several directors including Irvin Kershner and Sydney Pollack.[1] Its theme song was written by David Raksin; a version performed by pianist Valjean was a Top 40 hit in the United States.
Filmed at the Desilu Studios, the series was produced by Bing Crosby Productions.
There was both a comic strip and a comic book based on the television series. The strip was written and drawn by Neal Adams. The daily strip began on November 26, 1962 and the Sunday strip debuted on September 20, 1964. Both ended on July 31, 1966 (a Sunday). The half page format was regarded as the best Sunday format, and one effect by Neal Adams can only be appreciated in the half page—a globe in one panel is a continuation of Ben Casey's head in a lower panel. The daily strip was reprinted in the Menomonee Falls Gazette. The comic book was published by Dell Comics for 10 issues from 1962 to 1964. All had photocovers, except for the final issue which was drawn by John Tartaglione.
In 1962 the series inspired a semi-comic rock song, "Callin' Dr. Casey," written and performed by soon-to-be-renowned songwriter John D. Loudermilk. In the song, Loudermilk refers to the TV doctor's wide-ranging medical abilities and asks whether Casey has any cure for heartbreak.
From 1962 through 1963, the paperback publisher Lancer Books also issued four original novels based on the series. They were Ben Casey by William Johnston, A Rage for Justice by Norman Daniels, The Strength of His Hands by Sam Elkin and The Fire Within, again by Daniels, small-print standard mass-market size paperbacks of 128 or 144 pages each, typical of tie-ins of the period. Though Elkin was, even at the time, a relatively obscure author, Johnston and Daniels were unusually prolific even for career pulpsmiths, Johnston being unusually artful as well, and all four books are accurate and entertaining pastiches of the show, given their authorship in that pre-VCR era when tie-in accuracy was not always the rule. But then, there weren't many regular characters to juggle and the personae of the leads were a study in strong personalities and stark contrast. Johnston's novel is notable in particular for never internalizing Casey's thoughts; he's absolutely the lead character, yet he is only seen in action or through the eyes of others. This allows Johnston to maintain the literary equivalent of Casey's essential dichotomy: a balance of passionate, sometimes furious devotion with an emotionally impenetrable demeanor -- a "romantic lead" who is still an enigma. Though the first three novels feature photos of Vince Edwards on their covers (the second book even offering a "free" 7X10" black and white, "autographed" pin-up headshot of him as Casey), the final book features a drawn rendering (artist unknown) of Edwards as Casey in scrubs, glancing up from his clipboard toward the direction over his shoulder -- where behind him an interested looking nurse looks at him, seemingly distracted from the operation being performed by two masked doctors just behind her.
In 1988, the television movie, The Return of Ben Casey, with Vince Edwards reprising his role as Casey, aired in syndication. The pilot was not picked up by the major networks to bring the series back. [2] One result of the show's popularity in the 1960's was in Vietnam where American army medics were often referred to as "Ben Casey" in radio communications.