1980s TV Shows: A Trip Down Memory Lane with… Barbara Whinnery (Dr. Cathy Martin in “St. Elsewhere”)

Exclusive Interview by Karen Beishuizen

“St. Elsewhere” was a medical drama series which ran for 137 episodes on NBC from 1982 to 1988. It was a gritty seedy hospital in Boston with Ed Flanders, Norman Lloyd, and William Daniels as teaching doctors. The series earned thirteen Emmy Awards for writing, directing and acting during its six years. Barbara Whinnery played pathologist Dr. Cathy Martin for 32 episodes.

KB: “St. Elsewhere”: What was the show about?

St. Eligius Hospital – a seedy hospital in Boston, “a place you wouldn’t send your Mother-in-law”. It is about the doctors and nurses that strive to do the impossible and save lives and make the best of imperfect conditions.

KB: How did you get the part as Cathy Martin?

How did I get there? I have to thank Lillian Hellman for my part on “St. Elsewhere”. Her play “Another Part of the Forest” had just closed at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown L.A. Molly Lopata, who was doing the casting, had come to see the show and I was playing Birdie in the production. When it closed, I went back to my day job at Security Pacific Bank. Halfway through the day, my agent called and told me to get over to MTM studios right away for an audition. I feigned a sudden illness and left the bank. When I walked into the waiting room, it was filled with a dozen pretty women who all had long straight blond hair.

I picked up the sides, and that is exactly how Cathy Martin was described on the page. I nearly left right then. But, as I read the dialogue, (the audition scene was the morgue scene in the pilot episode, where I seduce Wayne Fiscus), I just felt something click.

KB: Your first day on the set; what was that like?

First day on the set, they sent me to see the props master.

“Ask props for your hospital ID tag.”

When I presented myself and before I could blink, the props man asked,

“Are you the new Cathy Martin?”

I nodded. Then before I could blink, he snapped a polaroid, ripped off the face of the actress that was already on the ID tag, tossed her image into the nearby garbage can, stuck the picture of my face in its place and handed me my name tag:

St. Eligius

Dr. Cathy Martin

Until that moment, I had no idea that I was replacing an actress who had been fired the week before. It was all I could do to stop myself from fishing her face out of the garbage can to see who it had been…on eggshells I made my way to the set.

KB: Did you and the other actors get some medical training to make it look believable on screen?

Yes, they always had a doctor on set as a medical advisor who would help us with the medical terminology and the meaning of the medical language and teach us how to hold a scalpel. Also, I got permission to shadow a couple different pathologists for several days, which gave me a lot of insight into how they approached their work and how they managed to face death on a daily basis.

KB: Where was the show filmed?

The show was shot at the MTM Studio lot in Studio City. MTM – Mary Tyler Moore Studios, with the little kitty mimicking the MGM Lion, except for the roar. The kitty said, “Meow” ever so sweetly.

Now known as the Radford Studio Center, it had large sound stages where they created the interior of the hospital – the long hallways, patient rooms, operating rooms (whichever doctor was doing the surgery got to choose the music to operate to, once the patient was unconscious), the fake elevator, and the fake staircase. I always felt so foolish each time I leaned down to drink out of the drinking fountains, forgetting that they were fake too!

It was a big day when the studio built a false front of St. Eligius Hospital on the lot! The actual building in the opening sequence is located in Boston.

KB: Do you have a favorite episode where you starred in?

Oh no…do I have to pick just one??? Of course, I love the pilot, that is where the magic started to happen, and the beginning of Cathy’s relationship with Fiscus. I loved working with Howie Mandel, even though he delighted in teasing me with his practical jokes (I was and still am so gullible)!

I absolutely loved the elevator scene that the brilliant writer team, Tom Fontana and John Massius, wrote for Howie and me (Season 1, episode 3, titled: “Down’s Syndrome”). We get stuck in the elevator and Wayne has to keep me from getting hysterical.

Then there is the episode titled “Addiction”. It reveals how each character has something they are obsessed with and there is such an intense scene in the morgue in which I use every trick I can think of to seduce Fiscus and win him back from Shirley Daniels (Ellen Bry).

Oh gosh, I also loved the episode in which Dr. Cathy Martin becomes smitten with Dr. Craig (William Daniels) after he has successfully performed the heart transplant. Of course, as a pathologist, Cathy would be enamored of a heart surgeon who could defy death! All the ways William Daniels rebuked my advances were pretty hilarious. (Season 2, episode 8, titled: “All About Eve”)

Sorry, I can’t leave out Mr. Entertainment! After Cathy Martin was attacked and raped in the morgue by Peter White (Terence Knox), Mr. Entertainment (Austin Pendleton) sings to cheer her up, “The Sunny Side of the Street” (Season 2, episode 17,titled: ‘Vanity”)

KB: Looking back now, would you have played Cathy Martin differently?

No.

KB: Are you still in touch with the other actors or are there reunions?

For several years I stayed in touch with Jennifer Savidge, William Daniels, and Bonnie Bartlett as we all participated in the celebrity tennis tournaments. Ed Begley Jr. and I shared many of the same concerns about the need to protect our environment and we’d see each other at many charity events. And some years later, Ellen Bry and I reconnected in an acting class and we workshopped an adaption of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” for the stage. She is an amazing and fearless actress!

But I got involved with Foster care and adopted my daughter and that pretty much took most of my focus.

KB: How do you explain that the show is still so beloved even after 40+ years?

America has always had a great love for medical shows. I think we love seeing people saving other people, especially when it seems impossible. What I believe makes “St. Elsewhere” stand out from the others, is that the writers brilliantly wrote the absurdity of life into each and every script. Every single character had some sort of peculiarity that made them human and vulnerable. That is what we all fell in love with.

Click Here to Order Boxing Interviews Of A Lifetime By “Bad” Brad Berkwitt