Dr. Kildare

Dr. James Kildare is the name of a fictional devised by Frederick Schiller Faust American doctor. Originally developed for short stories, was Dr. Kildare as the eponymous main character for a U.S. theatrical film series ( 1937-42 ), a U.S. radio drama series (1950 /51), a comic book series ( 1962-66 ), and for two television series, the first 1961 - 66 with Richard Chamberlain in the lead role and the second in 1972 under the title Young Dr. Kildare with Mark Jenkins in the title role, adapted.

Content and background

Kildare was in all series a very young doctor at a hospital who does his medical miracle with the help of his mentor, Dr. Gillespie as a universal medical and overcome other crises in the hospital everyday. The series dealt almost exclusively professional life Kildare, a private life or family is not illuminated. An important issue was the conflict with the hospital bureaucracy under Dr. Carough, the antagonist of the two doctors. Faust developed the character of Kildare on the model and by some anecdotes of his good friend, the New York star surgeons and rugby Olympic champion George Fish. The character of Kildare was doing unlike competitive series doctor always represented compassionate, courteous and more feminine.

Film Series

Starting in 1937 Metro -Goldwyn -Mayer, with a series of films to Dr. Kildare, which was continued into ten parts until 1941. Shown in the first film Internal Can not Take Money by Joel McCrea, was Lew Ayres in the sequels of the ordinary performer.

Seven of the films were broadcast in the summer of 1991 by the ARD in the First as a series and has since repeated several times by TM3, and the third programs.

Radio series

After the end of the film series, it was decided in the late 1940s to reuse the two characters, Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie in a radio drama series. As spokesman for the two roles Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore, who had already shown the roles of individual films in the film series, was committed. The series was produced in California in 1949 in 30 minute episodes, but broadcast in New York in 1950 and 1952 respectively, each for one season.

TV series " Dr. Kildare "

NBC decided in the late 1950s, new pick up the story as a television series with Richard Chamberlain in the lead role again; she ran from 1961 to 1966, with the exception of last year when the audience broke, was the series of the Top -10 of the U.S. market and made Chamberlain to teen idol. The series was nominated five times for an Emmy and two Golden Globe, but only Chamberlain in 1963 was honored as Best TV Star with the Golden Globe for. The series was so successful that a large amount of Merchandise - moved to yourself - from toys to trading cards to his successful comic series ( 1962-66 ).

The series had 192 episodes, one of which had the first 133 for a period of 45 minutes and were completed in the content itself. For the last season, the individual episodes was shortened to 25 minutes for arcs on up to seven episodes have been extended. In Germany some episodes of the series were in 1968/69 broadcast on the eve of the ARD program, 1994/95 was followed by the appearance of 57 new part and partly neusynchronisierte consequences of tv.münchen. This version has since been repeated several times in the pay- TV DF1 and Premiere.

TV series " Young Dr. Kildare "

1972 An attempt was made to relaunch as Dr. Gillespie series with Mark Jenkins Kildare and Gary Merrill, but failed.