DR. KILDARE

It's "brother" show, Ben Casey, also had a popular, good looking young lead player (Vince Edwards), and my sense is that it was somewhat more highly regarded by the critics, which isn't to say Kildare was dogfood; and it did have Richard Chamberlain, who, shortly after George Maharis arrived on the scene in the Corvette, was a pioneer teen idol for a few years there.

At the end of the 1960s, Chamberlain spent a period of time in England where he played in repertory theatre and in the BBC's Portrait of a Lady adaptation, becoming recognized as a serious actor. In 1969, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the film The Madwoman of Chaillot. While in England, he took vocal coaching and in 1969 performed the title role in Hamlet for the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, becoming the first American to play the role there since John Barrymore in 1929. He received excellent notices and reprised the role for television in 1970 for the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Chamberlain later appeared in several popular television mini-series (earning him a nickname of "King of the Mini-series"),[9] including Centennial (1978–79), Shōgun (1980), and The Thorn Birds (1983) as Father Ralph de Bricassart with Rachel Ward and Barbara Stanwyck co-starring. In the 1980s, he appeared as leading man with King Solomon's Mines (1985) opposite newcomer Sharon Stone, and also played Jason Bourne/David Webb in the television film version of The Bourne Identity (1988).

When the Ben Casey television series ended, Edwards returned to acting in motion pictures with a major role in the 1968 war drama The Devil's Brigade, together with films such as Hammerhead (1968), The Desperados (1969), and The Mad Bomber (1973). In 1983, he played the main protagonist, Hawk, in the sci-fi film Space Raiders. He continued to act in film as well as in guest spots on television, including roles in The Rhinemann Exchange (1977), Evening in Byzantium (1978), and the pilot episode of Knight Rider, Knight Of The Phoenix in 1982. He directed a number of episodes in a variety of television series including the original Battlestar Galactica. Twenty-two years after the series ended, Edwards returned to television as Dr. Ben Casey in a 1988 TV movie, The Return of Ben Casey. He made his last film, The Fear, in 1995. After the filming he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.