page_title: Robert Fuller (actor)
section_title: Emergency!
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Fuller (actor) / Career / Emergency!
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the cast of the television program Emergency!. From left: Kevin Tighe, Robert Fuller, Julie London, Bobby Troup and Randolph Mantooth.
context_page_description: Robert Fuller is an American horse rancher and retired actor. He began his career on television, guest-starring primarily on Western programs, while appearing in several movies, including: The Brain from Planet Arous; Teenage Thunder; Return of the Seven; Incident at Phantom Hill; and The Hard Ride.
  In his five decades of television, Fuller was known for his deep, raspy voice and was familiar to television viewers throughout the 1960s and 1969 from his co-starring roles as Jess Harper and Cooper Smith on the popular 1960s Western series Laramie and Wagon Train, and was also well known for his starring role as Dr. Kelly Brackett in the 1970s medical/action drama Emergency!
context_section_description: After producer Jack Webb saw Fuller in the 1971 movie The Hard Ride, he insisted Fuller star in his new NBC medical drama, Emergency! Webb had already signed his own ex-wife, 1950s/1960s singer and B-movie actress Julie London, as Nurse Dixie McCall alongside her by-then real-life husband, Bobby Troup, as Dr. Joe Early. Fuller was reluctant to play a doctor, especially in a series with a contemporary urban setting, but the persistent Webb convinced him to accept the role of Dr. Kelly Brackett, Chief of Emergency Medicine at the fictitious Rampart General Hospital. In the aforementioned 2009 interview with On Screen and Beyond, Fuller said that he had twice, politely, rejected the role of Brackett. Webb then reminded Fuller, much less politely, that Western shows had been repeatedly cancelled over the previous five years and that the genre was on the decline.
  Fuller's and London's co-stars on Emergency! were previously unknown actors Randolph Mantooth as John Roderick "Johnny" Gage and Kevin Tighe as Roy DeSoto, both playing paramedics. The other cast members got along very well with both Fuller and London, who herself, became a surrogate mother to both of the guys. During its first season, as a mid-season replacement in the 1971–1972 season and despite the especially fierce and vigorous competition of CBS's All in the Family, Emergency! became a hit, and NBC renewed the show for the 1972-1973 season. It remained on the air for the next five years. In the sixth season of Emergency! in 1976 and 1977, Fuller's on-screen appearances were reduced because he had grown unhappy with the direction the show was taking, after feuding with one of the producers, off-camera, while at the same time, he was looking for Westerns. In 1977, after a six-season run, Emergency! was put on hiatus, despite good ratings, and eventually canceled in 1979, after eight and a half seasons and 134 episodes. In 1986, the entire Emergency! cast (with the exception of series star, Julie London) appeared on ABC's Good Morning America.
caption: Cast of TV's Emergency! (1973), L-R: Kevin Tighe, Robert Fuller, Julie London, Bobby Troup and Randolph Mantooth
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