95 Fun Facts About ER

Which best-selling author created ER, based on a script he had written in 1974?

Michael Crichton, a Harvard-trained doctor, wrote the ER pilot script in 1974 drawing on his own training; it sat unproduced for twenty years before NBC picked it up.

Which film director developed ER as a movie before co-producing it as a television series?

Steven Spielberg. He started developing the script as a feature film, was sidetracked by another project, and left it on the shelf for years.

Which long-running NBC sitcom premiered three days after ER in 1994?

Friends. George Clooney and Noah Wyle guest-starred on it in 1995 as two doctors who date Monica and Rachel, though not as their ER characters.

Which ER character was played by William H. Macy?

Dr. David Morgenstern. In the pilot he tells Greene, 'You set the tone', and in season 8 a dying Greene hands the same words on to Carter.

ER is set in the emergency room of which fictional Chicago hospital?

County General. It was modelled on Chicago's real Cook County Hospital, yet most scenes were shot on a soundstage in Burbank, with cast and crew flying in about four times a year.

Which actor played Dr. Mark Greene, the lead of ER's first eight seasons?

Anthony Edwards played Dr. Mark Greene, the steady centre of the show's first eight seasons, and left in 2002 when Greene died of a brain tumour.

George Clooney's character Doug Ross was a doctor in which specialty?

Paediatrics. Ross bent the rules for young patients once too often: he resigned after showing a mother how to override the pump dosing painkiller to her terminally ill son.

After leaving Chicago, George Clooney's Doug Ross turns up in which city in ER's sixth and final seasons?

Seattle. In 2009's 'Old Times' Ross and his wife secure a donor kidney there without ever learning that it is flown to Chicago for their old colleague Carter.

Which ER nurse did Julianna Margulies play?

Carol Hathaway. Her overdose in the pilot was written to kill her off, but the producers changed course and brought her back as a regular.

Noah Wyle's John Carter starts ER as what?

A third-year medical student. The finale closes the circle: Carter, now the veteran, waves Mark Greene's daughter Rachel into a trauma with 'Dr. Greene, you coming?'

On which holiday does a patient stab Carter and medical student Lucy Knight in ER's sixth season?

Valentine's Day. The patient, a law student with schizophrenia, grabs the knife meant for the staff's holiday cake; Carter survives, but Lucy dies after surgery in the next episode.

Which actress played the ill-fated medical student Lucy Knight?

Kellie Martin. She has said her sister died of lupus a week before she started, so working on a hospital set was hard and being written out came as a relief.

In ER, which country did Carter travel to for relief work, where he met Kem Likasu?

The Congo. Carter first went to work beside Luka Kovac, then flew back when Kovac was reported killed, only to find him alive in a refugee camp, half-dead from malaria.

ER's live season 4 premiere, 'Ambush', was framed as what?

A PBS documentary crew filming the ER. The cast performed the whole episode live twice in one night, once for the East Coast and again three hours later for the West.

Which five-Emmy ER episode from season 1 sees Greene lose a mother during an emergency delivery?

Love's Labor Lost. With no obstetrician free, Greene tries to deliver the baby himself; the loss sends him into a depression and before a medical review of his own misdiagnosis.

Which condition did Greene miss in the pregnant patient in ER's Emmy-winning season 1 delivery episode?

Greene treated Jodi O'Brien for a urinary tract infection and missed her pre-eclampsia; she seized with eclampsia, and an emergency caesarean could not save her.

How did ER's Robert Romano lose his arm in season 9's premiere?

A helicopter rotor severed it as Romano bent to grab a chart blown across the rooftop helipad in 'Chaos Theory'; a year later, in 'Freefall', a falling helicopter killed him.

Which actor played ER's abrasive Dr. Robert Romano?

Paul McCrane. He came in for a guest spot that grew, to his surprise, into a regular role, and he went on to direct episodes of the show as well.

Eriq La Salle played which ambitious ER surgeon, who left in season 8?

Peter Benton. A custody fight over his deaf son Reese turned on his long hours, so he quit for a job with a fixed schedule, and he came back in season 15 to watch over Carter's transplant.

Which Croatian actor played ER's Dr. Luka Kovac, whose family was killed in the Balkan war?

Goran Visnjic. He had played Hamlet on the Croatian stage for years, and the show later let Kovac recite 'To be, or not to be' in Croatian.

How does Mekhi Phifer's Dr. Greg Pratt die in ER's season 15 premiere?

Injuries from an ambulance explosion. The blast ended season 14 as a cliffhanger with either Pratt or nurse Sam Taggart aboard, and the premiere reveals that it was Pratt.

Laura Innes played which crutch-using ER chief who appeared from season 2 to season 13?

Kerry Weaver. Her limp went unexplained for a decade, until a season 11 episode in which she meets her birth mother revealed a hip defect she had been born with.

Which diagnosis did ER's Jeanie Boulet, played by Gloria Reuben, at first hide from her bosses?

HIV. Her unfaithful husband Al passed it on, and she kept it from the hospital at first; she left in season 6 after adopting a baby boy who was also HIV-positive.

Which Full House star joined ER in its later seasons as paramedic-turned-doctor Tony Gates?

John Stamos. He first turned up in 2005 as a paramedic who was quietly finishing medical school, and came back the next season as one of the hospital's new interns.

Which drama passed ER's record 124 Emmy nominations in 2018?

Game of Thrones. It sat out the 2017 Emmys because its seventh season aired too late to qualify, then returned with 22 nominations to pass a total ER had built over fifteen seasons.

Which actress played ER's Dr. Jing-Mei 'Deb' Chen?

Ming-Na Wen. She left after season 1, voiced Disney's Mulan while she was away, and returned to the hospital in season 6 as a resident.

Which actor played desk clerk Jerry Markovic?

Abraham Benrubi. Jerry's mishaps ran for years: in season 4 he is sent on leave after accidentally firing a weapon in the ER, and in season 13 he survives a bullet that nicks his heart.

What was the title of ER's two-hour series finale on 2 April 2009?

And in the End... Rod Holcomb, who directed the 1994 pilot, came back to direct it, and its last shot pulls back to show the whole hospital for the first and only time.

Which Hollywood veteran earned an Emmy nomination for playing a dying woman's husband in the ER finale?

Ernest Borgnine. His character, Paul Manning, cannot bring himself to let his dying wife go until Dr. Gates gently helps him accept that it is time.

Which fellow John Wells series crossed over with ER in a 2002 storyline about Susan Lewis's missing niece?

Third Watch. Lewis turns to two of its cops, Bosco and Yokas, who help her track down her drug-addicted sister and the missing girl; the story starts on one show and ends on the other.

What was the title of ER's pilot episode?

24 Hours. The pilot runs from one wake-up call to the next for a napping Greene, and was shot in a disused Los Angeles hospital because there was no time or money to build a set.

Which ER doctor was killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq?

Dr. Michael Gallant, played by Sharif Atkins, was serving as an Army doctor in Iraq when a roadside bomb killed him in season 12, shortly after marrying Neela.

Which actress played nurse Sam Taggart in ER's later seasons?

Linda Cardellini. Sam arrives as a single mother who had her son Alex in her teens, and takes over the nurses' desk when Abby Lockhart gives up nursing to become a doctor.

Which Bend It Like Beckham actress played ER's Dr. Neela Rasgotra?

Parminder Nagra. Neela's story ends with a leap: late in the final season she leaves Chicago for a hospital in Louisiana, where Ray Barnett is working in a rehab centre.

In ER's 'Hell and High Water', where is the boy trapped when Doug Ross fights to save him?

A storm drain. Local TV news broadcast Ross's rescue live, and the publicity saved his job: he had just been told that his contract would not be renewed.

Which Oscar-winning actress played Abby Lockhart's bipolar mother Maggie on ER?

Sally Field. Maggie turns up unannounced and refuses to leave until her daughter will talk to her; the performance won Field an Emmy in 2001, and she came back to the role twice.

Which actress played nurse-turned-doctor Abby Lockhart from season 6 to season 15?

Maura Tierney played Abby Lockhart from 1999 to 2008, an obstetrics nurse who worked the ER and returned to medical school to become a doctor; she married Luka Kovac and had son Joe.

Which streaming service struck a 2018 deal to carry all 15 seasons of ER?

Hulu. Until that deal ER had been conspicuously missing from streaming, nine years after its finale, while other vintage hits found new audiences on demand.

Which CBS medical drama launched a day before ER and was constantly compared to it?

Chicago Hope. CBS put it directly against ER on Thursdays at ten, and ER won so clearly that CBS soon moved its rival to another time slot.

Which actor played the slacker-turned-attending Dr. Archie Morris in ER's later seasons?

Scott Grimes. He recurred for two seasons before joining the main cast in season 12, and the finale's closing shot leaves Morris running triage as the casualties arrive.

ER's two-hour pilot aired opposite which ABC broadcast before its move to Thursdays?

Monday Night Football. NBC previewed the pilot against the NFL and it did surprisingly well; it was the only one of ER's 331 episodes that did not air on a Thursday.

Which original ER cast member was the first to quit, walking away early in season 3?

Sherry Stringfield. She walked away with more than two years left on her contract while stunned producers tried to talk her out of it, then came back as Susan Lewis from 2001 to 2005.

What does ER's Ray Barnett lose after a truck hits him late in season 13?

His legs. Shane West's Ray loses both, goes home to Baton Rouge to recover, and returns in three episodes of the final season, where he and Neela reunite.

When ER's Abby and Luka left Chicago in season 15, which city were they headed to?

Boston. Abby tries to slip away quietly, but a veteran nurse shows her a hidden wall where years of departing staff have left their locker name tags before she goes.

'Urgentni centar', a 246-episode licensed remake of ER, was made in which country?

Serbia. Warner Bros. only put ER's format up for sale abroad in 2012, three years after the finale; the Serbian version was announced the next year and launched on TV Prva in 2014.

Which film director took charge of ER's episode 'Motherhood' after George Clooney gave him the idea?

Quentin Tarantino said yes after George Clooney, newly cast in From Dusk till Dawn, floated the idea. Writer Lydia Woodward made the script gorier once she knew who was directing.

Which tennis champion guest-starred in ER's 2005 plane-crash episode 'Two Ships' as Alice Watson?

Serena Williams turned up as Alice Watson in the episode where a plane crashes into an apartment building and floods the ER with victims.

Which ABC series overtook ER as American television's longest-running primetime medical drama?

Grey's Anatomy took the record from ER, whose 331 episodes across 15 seasons rank second among American primetime medical dramas.

Which Scottish actor earned an Emmy nomination as a robber in ER's 'The Long Way Around'?

Ewan McGregor played one of two robbers whose convenience-store holdup turns into a hostage standoff, a year after Trainspotting made him famous.

After leaving ER, Gloria Reuben sang backing vocals on a 2000 tour for which rock legend?

Tina Turner took her on the road for the Twenty Four Seven Tour. Reuben had just finished her run as physician assistant Jeanie Boulet, a role that earned her two Emmy nominations.

Which superhero did George Clooney play on the big screen in 1997 while still starring in ER?

Batman was Clooney's role in Batman & Robin, a critical failure he says he always apologizes for. He stayed on ER for two more years before leaving for films.

Which NBC sitcom was the only show to draw more viewers than ER during the 1994–95 season?

Seinfeld edged it out, leaving ER second with about 19 million viewers an episode. ER then took the top spot for the next two seasons.

Six years before ER, Eriq La Salle played Darryl Jenks in which Eddie Murphy comedy?

Coming to America cast La Salle as Darryl Jenks, the obnoxious boyfriend whose family owns the Soul Glo hair-care brand. He went on to play ER's ambitious surgeon for eight seasons.

Which M*A*S*H star guested on ER as Gabriel Lawrence, a veteran doctor with early Alzheimer's?

Alan Alda played the respected mentor for five episodes before the diagnosis ends his career, and the role brought him an Emmy nomination.

Which 2025 hospital drama reunited Noah Wyle with ER producer John Wells?

The Pitt put Wyle back in scrubs as a Pittsburgh emergency doctor and won the Emmy for best drama series. The estate of ER's creator sued, calling it an unauthorized remake.

Which Goodfellas star won an Emmy as a dying ex-con in ER's real-time episode 'Time of Death'?

Ray Liotta won the guest-actor Emmy as Charlie Metcalf, an alcoholic whose final minutes fill the whole episode in real time. He later spoofed the win in Bee Movie.

ER is set in Chicago, but in which city was its pilot filmed inside a disused hospital?

Los Angeles supplied a hospital that had stood empty since 1990, because there was neither time nor money to build a set. Chicago location shoots later added the famous L platforms.

Which illness kills ER's Mark Greene in season 8, after surgery in New York bought him more time?

A brain tumor, first judged inoperable, is what kills him; near the end Greene halts chemotherapy, preferring three months lived well to twice as long spent suffering.

After six seasons as an ER nurse, Julianna Margulies took the lead in which CBS legal drama in 2009?

The Good Wife cast her as Alicia Florrick, a lawyer rebuilding her career after her husband's scandal, and won her a lead-actress Emmy in 2014.

Mekhi Phifer joined ER as Greg Pratt in 2002, the same year he co-starred in which hit film?

8 Mile, Curtis Hanson's Detroit rap-battle drama, reached cinemas months after Phifer's first ER episodes. He played Greg Pratt until 2008.

Which future Law & Order: SVU star played Cynthia Hooper, the ER desk clerk who dates Mark Greene?

Mariska Hargitay spent ER's fourth season as the inept clerk, two years before she began her record-setting run as Olivia Benson.

Which organ does a secretly ill John Carter need replaced when he returns in ER's final season?

A kidney is what he needs after a parasitic disease destroys his remaining one, and the donor organ is arranged by old colleagues who never learn it is for him.

ER's creator based the pilot on his own training at which Ivy League university's medical school?

Harvard awarded him an MD in 1969, but he never practiced medicine and chose to write instead. A script drawn from his hospital shifts went unsold for two decades before it became ER.

Which tech pioneer did ER's Noah Wyle portray in the 1999 TV film Pirates of Silicon Valley?

Steve Jobs liked the performance enough to invite Wyle on stage, in character, at the 1999 Macworld Expo. The film was shot while ER was still in production.

Which Devil Wears Prada actor earned an Emmy nomination as ER's short-lived chief Kevin Moretti?

Stanley Tucci arrived in 2007 as the abrasive new boss who changes how patients are seen, then makes a swift exit in season 14. The arc brought him a guest-actor Emmy nomination.

Which 1990s child star had a recurring ER role in season 3 as teenage runaway Charlie Chiemingo?

Kirsten Dunst had the recurring part in 1996–97, two years after her breakout as the child vampire in Interview with the Vampire.

On which Hollywood studio's Burbank lot was ER's permanent hospital set built after the pilot?

Warner Bros. built the set in Burbank, California, modelling it on a real big-city emergency room, and its television arm co-produced all 15 seasons.

ER showrunner John Wells stepped back after four seasons to help launch which White House drama?

The West Wing was among the series Wells developed while a colleague ran ER, and it went on to win the best-drama Emmy four years in a row.

Which song does Rachel play on headphones for her dying father Mark Greene in ER's 'On the Beach'?

Over the Rainbow is the lullaby she remembers him singing when she was a baby, so she slips the headphones onto him and he drifts back to sleep smiling.

Which Oscar winner played Curtis Ames, the stroke patient who sues Luka Kovac on ER?

Forest Whitaker began the arc in autumn 2006, months before his Oscar for The Last King of Scotland, and it brought him an Emmy nomination.

Which Romeo + Juliet and Ice Age actor spent ER's twelfth season as attending Victor Clemente?

John Leguizamo played the emotionally disturbed newcomer, keen on cutting-edge technology, who is fired near the end of the season.

Which future House star played ER surgical intern Dennis Gant, who dies under a train in season 3?

Omar Epps made his network television debut as Gant, an intern struggling with depression. He returned to hospital drama in 2004 as House's neurologist Eric Foreman.

Which feared disease, suspected in two sick children, forces a quarantine in ER's 'Lockdown'?

Smallpox is the fear when Carter seals the doors with staff and patients inside, but tests later identify a variant of monkeypox.

To which Arizona city does ER's Susan Lewis move in season 3 to be near her sister and niece?

Phoenix is where her sister Chloe had taken baby Susie, the niece Susan had been raising. Mark Greene races to the station to confess his feelings before her train leaves.

Which rival series beat ER to the 1995 Emmy for best drama, although ER led the nominations?

NYPD Blue took the top prize in 1995 even though ER led every show in major nominations. ER won the award the following year, its only victory in the category.

Which future CSI star played Maggie Doyle, a no-nonsense ER intern, from 1996 to 1999?

Jorja Fox first came to prominence as Doyle, then joined CSI in 2000 as Las Vegas forensic scientist Sara Sidle.

Which future Marvel star earned an Emmy nomination as ER's Paul Nathan, a trainee with Parkinson's?

Don Cheadle played the older student in ER's ninth season, trying to overcome his disability and a senior surgeon's disapproval. Years later he became Marvel's War Machine.

What do doctors discover about Reese, the premature son of Eriq La Salle's ER surgeon?

He is deaf, possibly because of his premature birth, and his father looks into surgery to restore the boy's hearing before learning sign language instead.

Which war-torn region of Sudan do ER's John Carter and Greg Pratt work in during season 12?

Darfur gave its name to a 2006 episode following Carter's relief work there, and Pratt, ordered to go, joins him later that season. Producer John Wells said ER covered the crisis when nobody else was.

Which sitcom legend earned an Emmy nomination on ER as Ben Hollander, an architect losing his sight?

Bob Newhart played the despondent architect in three episodes in 2003, a rare dramatic role that brought his first Emmy nomination in nearly 20 years.

ER's John Carter, caught injecting painkillers, is sent to a rehab center for doctors in which city?

Atlanta is where Mark Greene's ultimatum sends him: enter an inpatient center for physicians or be fired. Carter had been using since a patient's knife attack left him badly wounded.

How does a 2002 ER episode tell the story of Luka Kovac's Christmas Eve shift?

In reverse order: 'Hindsight' runs backwards through the shift and finishes at the Christmas party that came before it.

Which camera system gave ER its signature long takes gliding through crowded trauma rooms?

Steadicam rigs, invented by Garrett Brown in the 1970s, isolate the camera from the operator's movement, which let ER shoot its long walking takes.

Which hangout across the street from ER's hospital is robbed, then burns down, in season 9?

Doc Magoo's is where three people are murdered in the holdup; Jing-Mei Chen's partial description of a suspect then leads to two of her colleagues being racially profiled.

Which 1980s series was the only medical drama above ER on TV Guide's 2002 greatest-shows list?

St. Elsewhere placed 20th, two spots above ER. An NBC executive later admitted its memory made the network nervous about returning to hospital drama.

Which disaster interrupts John Carter's farewell party in ER's 'The Show Must Go On'?

A porch collapse kills six people and sends the party guests running back to work. The writers based it on a real Chicago balcony collapse in 2003.

For which Louisiana city does ER's Neela Rasgotra leave Chicago to join Ray Barnett?

Baton Rouge is where she finds Ray helping patients at a rehabilitation center, and in the finale she tells her old colleagues about her new life there by webcam.

Which film composer, later of The Sixth Sense and The Hunger Games, wrote ER's original theme music?

James Newton Howard earned an Emmy nomination for the theme, which was replaced in 2006 and then brought back for the final episode.

Which cable channel paid a then-record $1 million an episode for four years of ER repeats?

TNT struck the deal in the late 1990s, at the height of ER's ratings, and its HD channel later reran the early seasons in widescreen.

Which police drama from producer John Wells did NBC launch one week after ER's finale in 2009?

Southland was first titled Police, and NBC extended ER's last season by three episodes as part of the deal to launch it.

Which core ER director of the early seasons went on to make The Peacemaker and Deep Impact?

Mimi Leder won Emmys for her work on ER before moving to features; Deep Impact, her comet film, reached cinemas in the same summer as its rival Armageddon.

A decade before ER, George Clooney appeared in the sitcom E/R alongside which star of the film MASH?

Elliott Gould led the 1984 comedy as a specialist moonlighting in a Chicago emergency room, with Clooney recurring as an ER technician called Ace.

Which former child actor played Paul Sobriki, the patient who stabs Lucy Knight on ER?

David Krumholtz, Bernard the elf in The Santa Clause, played the patient whose deteriorating mental state Lucy alone notices. He returned to the role in season 8.

Which ER writer finished a medical degree while on staff and later ran Law & Order: SVU?

Neal Baer completed his training by fitting electives around breaks in production. He then ran the Law & Order spin-off from its second season to its twelfth.

Six years after leaving ER, Noah Wyle returned to weekly television in which alien-invasion drama?

Falling Skies ran from 2011 to 2015 with Wyle as Tom Mason, a former history professor who becomes second-in-command of a regiment fighting the aliens.