Ben Casey
Encyclopedia
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.
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.
'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.
and Sydney Pollack
. 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.
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.
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.
Medical drama
A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance staff, or any medical environment.In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and, more often than not, are set in a hospital. Most current medical Dramatic programming go beyond the...
series which ran on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *
Asterisk
An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star...
, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (actor)
Sam Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur and The Day the Earth Stood Still...
intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph Ransohoff
Joseph Ransohoff
Dr. Joseph 'Joe' Ransohoff, II was a member of the Ransohoff family and a pioneer in the field of neurosurgery. In addition to training numerous neurosurgeons, his "ingenuity in adapting advanced technologies" saved many lives and even influenced the television program Ben Casey...
was a medical consultant for the show and may have influenced the personality of the title character.
Synopsis
The series stars Vince EdwardsVince Edwards
Vince Edwards was an American actor, director, and singer, best known for the roles of TV doctor "Ben Casey", and Maj. Cliff Bricker in the 1968 war film The Devil's Brigade.-Early life:...
as medical doctor
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
Ben Casey, a young, intense but idealistic surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
at County General Hospital. His mentor
Mentor
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcimus or Anchialus. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus' foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus' palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.When Athena visited Telemachus she...
was Doctor David Zorba, played by Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (actor)
Sam Jaffe was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur and The Day the Earth Stood Still...
. At the beginning of the 1965 season, Jaffe left the show and Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty and many other films through the 1960s...
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
Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens Stella Stevens Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1938 is an American film, television and stage actress, who began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as The Nutty Professor, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue and The...
), who had just emerged from a coma after thirteen years.
Reception and broadcast history
In its early run, Ben Casey dominated its time slot. In the 1962-1963 season, it swamped Loretta YoungLoretta Young
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...
's return to weekly television in her family sitcom The New Loretta Young Show
The New Loretta Young Show
The New Loretta Young Show, which aired for twenty-six weekly episodes on CBS television from September 24, 1962 to March 18, 1963, featured Loretta Young in a combination drama and situation comedy about a free-lance writer in suburban Connecticut named Christine Massey, the widowed mother of...
on CBS. In 1963, it moved to Wednesdays as the preceding program for ABC's drama about college life, Channing
Channing (TV series)
Channing is an American drama series that aired on American Broadcasting Company from September 18, 1963 to April 8, 1964...
.
However, due to the combination of CBS' The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....
and The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show is an American television sitcom that initially aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from October 3, 1961, until June 1, 1966. The show was created by Carl Reiner and starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff....
, 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.
Production notes
Ben Casey had several directors including Irvin KershnerIrvin Kershner
Irvin Kershner was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing quirky, independent films early in his career, and then Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. -Background:...
and Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where he later taught acting...
. Its theme song was written by David Raksin
David Raksin
David Raksin was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With over 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score...
; a version performed by pianist Valjean
Valjean
Valjean Johns , who typically recorded under his first name only, was an American pianist best known for his recording of the theme song from the TV show Ben Casey....
was a Top 40 hit in the United States.
Filmed at the Desilu Studios, the series was produced by Bing Crosby Productions.
Adaptations
There was both a comic stripComic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
and a comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
based on the television series. The strip was written and drawn by Neal Adams
Neal Adams
Neal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...
. The daily strip
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
began on November 26, 1962 and the Sunday strip
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
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
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...
for 10 issues from 1962 to 1964. All had photocovers, except for the final issue which was drawn by John Tartaglione
John Tartaglione
John Tartaglione , a.k.a. '"John Tartag." and other pseudonyms, was an American comic book artist best known as a 1950s romance-comics artist; a Marvel Comics inker during the Silver Age of comic books; and the illustrator of the Marvel biographies The Life of Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa...
.
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
John D. Loudermilk
John D. Loudermilk is an American singer and songwriter.-Biography:Born in Durham, North Carolina, Loudermilk grew up in a family who were members of the Salvation Army faith and was influenced by the church singing. His cousins Ira and Charlie Loudermilk were known professionally as the Louvin...
. 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
Lancer Books
Lancer Books was a series of paperback books published from 1961 through 1973 by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the...
also issued four original novels based on the series. They were Ben Casey by William Johnston
William Johnston
William Johnston may refer to:*William Johnston , U.S. Representative from Ohio*William Johnston , Irish politician and Orangeman...
, A Rage for Justice by Norman Daniels
Norman Daniels
Prof. Norman Daniels, PhD, is an American philosopher, ethicist, and bioethicist at Harvard. Currently, Norman Daniels is in the of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston....
, 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
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
. The pilot was not picked up by the major networks to bring the series back.
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.