St. Elsewhere

The writers of St. Elsewhere shared a building and a photocopier at MTM with the writers of Hill Street Blues (1981). When they needed inspiration, they would look at a Hill Street Blues (1981) script, which always pushed them to do better.

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Actor William Daniels said that when he was offered the role of Dr. Mark Craig, he was not given only the pilot script to read but also the first three scripts. He said the producers did this to show that his character was prominent in some episodes and not in others. Daniels said this gave him a sense of the series' ensemble nature.

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Norman Lloyd got one of the lead roles, Dr. Daniel Auschlander, because he was a lifelong friend of Bruce Paltrow's family. He was supposed to appear as a guest actor in only 4 episodes, but due to his connection to the series and some reaction from viewers, he stayed until the end of the series.

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The series never earned high ratings, but it lasted six seasons on NBC because it appealed to the educated 18-49 demographic that was desired (by advertisers).

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The series was known for its inside jokes. The writers named characters after series staff members and wrote lines referencing other series, films, plays and books.

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The series was about to be cancelled after its sixth season when staff writer Tom Fontana put forward various ideas to end it. One of them had two doctors talking, suddenly interrupted by a nearby nuclear explosion that supposedly killed everyone; in another, a doctor confessed to being the second gunman in the JFK assassination and then aimed the gun at his colleague. Executive producer Bruce Paltrow disliked both ideas, but accepted Fontana's proposal for a 'Snow Globe' ending, which implied that the entire series took place inside the fantasy of an autistic child. According to Fontana, half the viewers accepted the finale while the other half absolutely hated it.

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William Daniels (Dr. Mark Craig) and Bonnie Bartlett (Ellen Craig) were married in real life.

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Friends and family members of the cast and crew gave their names to doctors who were frequently paged over the PA system. In several episodes, a page is put out for Dr. Gwyneth Paltrow. Her father, Bruce Paltrow, was the series' executive producer.

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The series, resting on its ending, forms the center of the model known as the "Tommy Westphall Universe." There was a crossover with Cheers (1982), and several characters appeared in Homicide: Life on the Street (1993). Through these connections, the show can be linked to at least 280 non-animated shows, from I Love Lucy (1951) to CSI: NY (2004) (as of 2007). Tom Fontana, one of the series' writers, said in 2003, "Somebody did the math once and 90% of all American television takes place in Tommy Westphall's mind. God bless him."

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The facade of St. Eligius hospital is Franklin House on East Newton Street in Boston. The building provides affordable housing for residents of Boston's South End. From the early 1900s to the 1970s, the building was the Franklin Square Women's Hotel. It provided apartments for young women working in Boston. In the early 1960s, Faye Dunaway lived there for several months after graduating from Boston University.

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In one episode, Dr. Axelrod and P.A. Luther Hawkins try to cheer up the shot Dr. Fiscus. Among the things they try are inflating plastic surgery gloves and then placing them on their heads, but without success, prompting Axelrod (Stephen Furst) to comment on the man who laughed loudly while doing this on television — Howie Mandel, who played Dr. Fiscus.

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At the memorial service for Dr. Caldwell ('Mark Harmon'), who died of AIDS, Nurse Rosenthal said she always thought Caldwell was the sexiest man alive, a reference to Mark Harmon being named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 1986.

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Ed Flanders's temper, combined with his drinking problems, led to unprofessional relationships with his co-stars and ultimately to his being fired from St. Elsewhere (1982) at the end of the fifth season. He returned for the first two episodes of the final season and the finale.

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William Daniels (Dr. Mark Craig) recorded his lines as K.I.T.T. on Knight Rider (1982) on his days off from St. Elsewhere (1982). Knight Rider (1982) and St. Elsewhere (1982) both aired on NBC from 1982 to 1986.

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Saint Eligius (the name of the hospital in the series) is the patron saint of veterinarians, sick horses, metalworkers and carters.

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The setting was based on Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center) in Boston's South End.

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Ironically, Denzel Washington had actually studied medicine at university, which prepared him for the role of Dr. Phillip Chandler.

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Officer Warren 'Cool' Coolidge was also a character played by the same actor in The White Shadow (1978). In one episode, we see him wearing Carver High School's varsity letter. In another episode, when an actor from "Shadow" played a different role, this actor was mistakenly referred to by his name from "Shadow." The actor corrected the "mistake" on camera.

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The series was sued by Humana over the similarities between the company and "Ecumena," the company that takes over St. Eligius in the series. The series eventually dropped the name and aired a disclaimer with each episode.

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LOGO GIMMICK: In the title sequence of the final episode, the MTM cat is shown in a hospital bed with its plug pulled. The MTM cat actually died about 2 months after the series ended.

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LOGO GIMMICK: The MTM cat is shown wearing a surgeon's cap and mask.

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The elevated train seen in the opening credits is the Orange Line of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Boston's public transit system. In the final season the Orange Line was moved to an underground route and no longer ran on elevated tracks, making its appearance an anachronism.

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Before Ed Flanders was cast as Donald Westphall, the role was offered to Hal Linden, but he turned it down.

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When Mark Harmon wanted to leave the series, his character, plastic surgeon Dr. Caldwell, left the hospital because he had contracted AIDS.

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Early in the series' final season, the doctors say that the elevated orange line (seen in the opening title sequence) will be demolished. When this episode aired, the elevated orange line, actually known as the Washington Street Elevated, had already closed and begun operating its new branch known as the Southwest Corridor. The Washington Street Elevated officially ended revenue service at midnight on May 1, 1987 and was dismantled over the following few years.

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Despite providing the series' title, the derogatory nickname "St. Elsewhere" is used to refer to St. Eligius in only nine episodes: Pilot (1982), Bypass (1982), Binding Ties (1983), Playing God: Part 1 (1984), Cheers (1985), Remembrance of Things Past (1985), Where There's Hope, There's Crosby (1986), Resurrection (1987) and The Last One (1988). Of those nine episodes, Bypass (1982) is the only one that is neither a season premiere nor a season finale.

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Although the series ran for six seasons, the story spanned three years.

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Before Ed Begley Jr. and Howie Mandel were cast as Dr. Victor Ehrlich and Dr. Wayne Fiscus respectively, both were growing lifelong fans of William Daniels.

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The final scene of the last episode featured one of the most unexpected plot developments in television history. This twist was later copied by another MTM series: Newhart (1982).

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Nurse Helen Rosenthal has a Union Jack tattoo on her hip. It was a gift from her first husband.

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Bonnie Bartlett (Mrs. Craig) and Ed Flanders (Dr. Westphall) had previously played husband and wife in The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) and Salem's Lot (1979).

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At the start of the third season, the cast and crew clearly realized that Ed Flanders had begun having a drinking problem. The problem began when Mark Tinker and Bruce Paltrow tried to accommodate Ed's schedule early in the day, but by lunchtime the situation was not so good. Off camera he was very disrespectful toward the other actors (for example, when the actors realized he had been drinking), and if they had a scene with him in the morning they did not know what they would be facing. His presence was very disturbing, so it was very distressing that Flanders had no choice but to be written out of the series by the producers in 1987 after the 3rd episode of the final season. When Flanders quit drinking, he returned for the series finale.

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Arthur Taxier recurs as Dr. Morton Chegley. This was the name of Lloyd Nolan's character in Julia (1979).

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Ed Flanders and Bonnie Bartlett, both St. Elsewhere regulars, also appeared together in Salem's Lot, the 1979 Stephen King vampire miniseries.

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Because of the large cast and the very difficult production, it was impossible for Norman Lloyd to appear in nearly every episode of the series, but he became a regular in the 2nd season.

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While preparing for their roles, the actors had to study a medical dictionary in order to pronounce these medical terms.

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The back of St. Eligius was never shown in any episode; only the building's characteristic front, with its red brick and white columns, was seen. In real life the building is not a perfect rectangle, and it has an extension at the rear that wraps around a walkway. In real life the building, an apartment complex, is also directly connected to a second building of equal size on the right; the series never made clear whether this was meant to be an extension of the hospital or an unrelated second building sharing a common wall.

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The acting careers of Ed Begley Jr., Howie Mandel, David Morse, Denzel Washington, Sagan Lewis, Jennifer Savidge, Terence Knox, Mark Harmon, Chad Allen and Stephen Furst began with St. Elsewhere.

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David Paymer was originally the producers' first choice for Dr. Wayne Fiscus. They shot the pilot with him, but he was replaced by Canadian comedian Howie Mandel, which was Mandel's first and only dramatic television role.

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Long before the series began, William Daniels had known Ed Begley Jr. through Begley's real-life parents when Begley was very young. Daniels had worked with Begley Jr.'s father, Ed Begley, on live television.

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After Norman Lloyd's death on 11 May 2021, William Daniels became the oldest surviving cast member of the series.

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Mark Craig grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and spoke with the accent William Daniels has in real life, although the character was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.

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When the show was cancelled after its first season, William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett's children were away on holiday. When the family returned from the holiday, they learned that the series had renewed itself for one more season in an effort to achieve strong ratings. It didn't happen.

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When William Daniels won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, he got into a limousine while everyone was there and missed the ceremony. He got out of the limousine to watch John McEnroe play tennis. The limousine broke down and arrived late, and he barely made it to his seat.

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It was the first dramatic series whose story dealt with breast cancer. Both Tom Fontana and Christina Pickles did a great deal of research about the story Pickles was about to take on.

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Despite recovering ratings and the network's wish to renew, the studio and producers chose to end the series after its sixth season. The series' production costs were higher than what NBC paid to broadcast it, and there was little hope of recouping those costs through syndication.

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Ed Begley Jr. first auditioned for Dr. Peter White but was cast as Dr. Victor Ehrlich instead. The role had actually been given to Terence Knox.

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William Daniels took one of the lead roles, Dr. Mark Craig, because of his long-standing friendship with Bruce Paltrow and Paltrow's wife, Blythe Danner. His first encounter with them while working was when he starred in the film 1776 (1972).

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Neither Eric Laneuville nor Howie Mandel actually appeared in the pilot episode; the producers were reshooting episodes with some changes, and both of them definitely appeared in the third episode of the first season.

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In the series finale, The Last One (1988), the camera zooms in on a close-up of Tommy Westphall's (Chad Allen) snow globe, revealing only a model of St. Eligius inside it, implying that the entire six-season run was a product of an autistic child's imagination. However, creating the snow globe concept was not the writers' first call, and they did not easily propose it either.

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In the series finale, John Tinker called for a tribute to The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) (also produced by MTM Productions), in which Dr. Morrison says goodbye and everyone hugs. In the same episode, in the only place where every cast member was together, it was truly very touching for Dr. Westphall to give that speech to everyone in the cafeteria.

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Long before the series began, Ed Flanders had a history with both William Daniels and Bonnie Bartlett, and they remained friends until Flanders died in early 1995. Flanders first worked with Bartlett on the TV film The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), in which Ed played the prosecutor and Bartlett played his wife and they played many scenes together, and he had a recurring role with her on Salem's Lot (1979); Flanders first worked with Daniels in a recurring lawyer role on Salem's Lot (1979). Later on the series, both Flanders and Daniels played emergency room doctors, while Bartlett played Daniels's wife.

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Although Howie Mandel's character was unconventional and a bully towards his colleagues, Mandel was in fact the class clown on set.

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Despite being a popular member of the series, and after joining the second season, another reason it was impossible for Norman Lloyd to appear in every episode was his other professional commitments as executive producer of other series. He also had greater responsibilities off camera, which prevented him from doing so.

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