Doctor Kildare

Dr. James Kildare
Original cover of first Dr. Kildare novel by Max Brand, Young Dr. Kildare (1938)
First appearance	"Internes Can't Take Money", short story by Max Brand published in Cosmopolitan magazine, Mar. 1936
Created by	Frederick Schiller Faust (as Max Brand)
Portrayed by	(1) Joel McCrea (Internes Can't Take Money, 1937 Paramount film) (2) Lew Ayres (1930s–1940s MGM film series and 1950s radio series) (3) Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare, 1961–1966 NBC TV series) (4) Mark Jenkins (Young Dr. Kildare, 1972–1973 syndicated TV series)
Information
Nickname(s)	"Jimmy" Kildare
Gender	Male
Occupation	Physician
Title	Doctor
Family	Dr Stephen Kildare (father) Martha Kildare (mother
Significant other(s)	Nurse Mary Lamont
Nationality	American

Dr. James Kildare is a fictional American medical doctor character, originally created in the 1930s by the author Frederick Schiller Faust under the pen name Max Brand. Shortly after the character's first appearance in a magazine story, Paramount Pictures used the story and character as the basis for the 1937 film Internes Can't Take Money. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) subsequently acquired the rights and featured Kildare as the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s, several of which were co-written by Faust (as Max Brand), who also continued to write magazine stories and novels about the character until the early 1940s. The Kildare character was later featured in an early 1950s radio series, a 1960s television series, a comic book and comic strip based on the 1960s TV show, and a short-lived second 1970s television series.

The author Frederick Schiller Faust, writing as Max Brand, created the character of "Dr. James Kildare" as a fictionalized version of his college friend, Dr. George Winthrop "Dixie" Fish, a New York surgeon. He first introduced the character in a pulp fiction short story, "Internes Can't Take Money", that appeared in the March 1936 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. A second Kildare story, "Whiskey Sour", was published in Cosmopolitan in April 1938. In these early stories, Dr. James "Jimmy" Kildare is an aspiring surgeon who leaves his parents' farm to practice at a fictional big city hospital, and through his work, comes into contact with underworld criminals. The first Kildare film, Internes Can't Take Money (1937), based on the short story of the same title and made by Paramount, followed this version of the character.

In 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) contracted with Faust to acquire the rights to the Kildare character along with Faust's services as a film story writer. Faust then made major changes to the character to fit MGM's idea for a new movie series, including changing Kildare's specialty to diagnostics rather than surgery, introducing the character of Kildare's superior "Dr. Leonard Gillespie", de-emphasizing the criminal elements, and restarting the story from Kildare's first arrival at the city hospital. Faust (as Max Brand) collaborated with MGM on its Kildare film series starting with the first MGM series release, Young Dr. Kildare (1938) and continuing through The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1941). During this time, Faust wrote several original Kildare stories which were first published in magazines, later republished in novel form, and made into films by MGM. The stories were written prior to the films being made, and were not published as movie tie-ins.