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Fictional character
the pulp fiction, film, radio, comic and television character

Dr. James Kildare is a fictional American medical doctor, 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, starring Joel McCrea as Jimmie Kildare. 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 these films were co written by Faust (as Max Brand), who also continued to write magazine stories and novels about the character until the early 1940s. Kildare was portrayed by Lew Ayres in nine MGM films. (Ayres was drafted in 1942 and served as a non combatant medic until 1946.) Later films set in the same hospital featured Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore). Ayres returned to voice the Kildare character in an early 1950s radio series. The 1961–1966 Dr. Kildare television series made a star of Richard Chamberlain and gave birth to a comic book and comic strip based on the show. A short lived reboot of the TV series, Young Doctor Kildare, debuted in 1972 and ran for 24 episodes.

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 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 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. After The People vs. Dr. Kildare, Faust and MGM parted ways. Faust was not involved in Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day, Dr. Kildare's Victory, or any of the subsequent films featuring Dr. Gillespie, although Faust (as Brand) continued to receive a credit for creating the characters. Faust's last two Kildare stories, "Dr. Kildare's Hardest Case" (published in 1942) and the unfinished story "Dr. Kildare's Dilemma" (posthumously published in the early 1970s), were not made into films. In 1944, Faust was killed in Italy while working as a war correspondent.

The character of Dr. Kildare first appeared on film in the 1937 Paramount film, Internes Can't Take Money, based on Max Brand's previously published short story of the same name and starring Joel McCrea as Dr. Kildare. The plot focuses on Dr. Kildare's attempt to help a young female ex convict (played by Barbara Stanwyck) locate her child. Paramount did not plan any further Kildare films, probably because box office returns did not meet expectations. The resulting negative publicity caused MGM to cut Ayres from the film, eliminate the character of Kildare, and change the film's focus to Barrymore's character Gillespie, eventually releasing the revamped film as Calling Dr. Gillespie (1942). Dr. Kildare simply vanished from the series, without explanation, and for Calling Dr. Gillespie the character of a young doctor mentored by the experienced Dr. Gillespie was played by Philip Dorn (as Dr. John Hunter Gerniede). MGM made several more films featuring the Dr. Gillespie character mentoring various young doctors played by Van Johnson (as Dr. Randall "Red" Adams), Keye Luke (as Dr. Lee Wong How), and James Craig (as Dr. Tommy Coalt). After leaving the series, the character of Kildare was never seen, heard or so much as mentioned in any of the subsequent films.

Young Dr. Kildare (1938), which introduced Lew Ayres as Dr. Kildare and Lionel Barrymore as Dr. Gillespie
Calling Dr. Kildare (1939)
The Secret of Dr. Kildare (1939)
Dr. Kildare's Strange Case (1940)
Dr. Kildare Goes Home (1940)
Dr. Kildare's Crisis (1940)
The People vs. Dr. Kildare (1941) – the last film made with the collaboration of series creator Frederick Schiller Faust (Max Brand) Roan Archival Group, FilmRise and Genius Entertainment. Warner Bros. also released the complete set of Dr. Gillespie films on DVD as the "Dr. Gillespie Movie Collection" via Warner Archive Collection in November 2014. The single Paramount Kildare film, Internes Can't Take Money, was released on DVD by Universal as part of "The Barbara Stanwyck Collection" in April 2010.

The Kildare character first appeared on radio on October 13, 1938, when Lionel Barrymore and Lew Ayres performed a scene from their soon to be released film, Young Dr. Kildare, on MGM's Good News of 1939 radio program. In the summer of 1949, MGM reunited Lew Ayres and Lionel Barrymore to record the radio series, The Story of Dr. Kildare, which used the concept and characters of the earlier Young Dr. Kildare story and did not include any of the young doctors who had replaced Kildare in the later films featuring Dr. Gillespie. By this time, Ayres had returned to public favor after serving in WWII as a medical corpsman. Episodes were scripted by James Moser, Jean Holloway, Les Crutchfield, E. Jack Neuman, John Michael Hayes, Joel Murcott, and others. The medical information presented was up to date for its time, and sometimes taken from real life; for example, an episode in which Dr. Kildare is forced to perform an emergency appendectomy on himself was based on a news story. In addition to airing on the MGM affiliated New York station WMGM, The Story of Dr. Kildare was originally syndicated to over 200 outlets in the U. S. and Canada, mostly Mutual Broadcasting System stations. The earliest known broadcast of the program took place on September 27, 1949, on Mutual station WGN in Chicago, prior to the WMGM premiere episode on October 12, 1949. However, starting in 1952, stations began to lose interest in such packages, preferring to develop their own local programming to better compete with television.

Lew Ayres reprised his role as Dr. Kildare in an unsold and unaired 1960 TV pilot directed by John Newland (with Joe Cronin as Dr. Grayson)

The second attempt at a Kildare TV show premiered on September 28, 1961. The series was a top 10 hit with audiences and ran until April 5, 1966, for a total of 191 episodes in five seasons. The first two seasons told the story of Dr. James Kildare (Richard Chamberlain), working in a fictional large metropolitan hospital while trying to learn his profession, deal with his patients' problems, and earn the respect of the senior Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Raymond Massey). In the third season, Dr. Kildare was promoted to resident and the series began to focus more on the stories of the patients and their families. The success of the show (along with ABC's contemporaneous medical drama Ben Casey) inspired the launch of numerous other television medical dramas in the ensuing years.

In 1972, MGM Television created a short lived syndicated drama series called Young Dr. Kildare, starring Mark Jenkins as Dr. James Kildare and Gary Merrill as Dr. Leonard Gillespie. The series was not a success, and only 24 episodes were produced.

From 1962 to 1965, Dell Comics published a Dr. Kildare comic book based on the 1960s Dr. Kildare television series. The first issue was released April 2, 1962, as No. 1337 in Dell's Four Color Comics line, and featured a story involving a gambler checking into Dr. Kildare's hospital to hide from a hit man. Dell subsequently continued the comic book for a total of nine issues, with the final issue appearing in April 1965. All issues had photo covers featuring Chamberlain, the star of the TV series. A Dr. Kildare daily comic strip based on the 1960s television series, distributed by King Features Syndicate, and drawn by Ken Bald also premiered on October 15, 1962.

The underlying rights to the Kildare film and television franchise are owned by Warner Bros. (via Turner Entertainment Co.), with the exception of the 1937 film Internes Can't Take Money, currently owned by EMKA, Ltd./Universal Television, keeper of Paramount Pictures' pre 1950 sound library.