16 Facts About Medical Center’s Dr. Gannon, Chad Everett
How much do you know about the man Hollywood left behind?
All the early signs suggested a man who wouldn’t find fame. All the later disasters suggest a man who threw it all away. But the life of Chad Everett, best known as the handsome, headstrong Dr. Joe Gannon from the hit ’60s drama Medical Center, is not an easy one to label. By the end of his career, there was nothing in acting that Chad Everett hadn’t done.
But who was he, really, and what happened to make him the forgotten leading man of classic TV?
The Vital Statistics:
Born: June 11, 1937
Height: 6' 1½"
Years in the Business: 51
Marriages: 1 (Actress Shelby Grant, from 1966 until her death in 2011)
Golden Globe Nominations: 2 (1971 and 1973, both for Best TV Actor — Drama)
Films/Shows: 97 (as Actor)
The Early Years: “Raymon-no-D, Cramton-no-P”
1. Chad Everett was born Raymon Lee Cramton to blue collar parents in South Bend, Indiana.
2. Raised in Dearborn, Michigan, he started acting in school plays at the age of 14, and played football in high school.
3. During his junior year at Wayne State University, he became part of a state-sponsored acting troupe that went to India.
4. At the behest of his agent, Cramton changed his name to Chad Everett, which he didn’t mind because he was tired of explaining, “Raymon-no-D, Cramton-no-P.”
The Middle Years: False Starts, and Hitting it Big
5. Everett soon started taking small roles in television series. After an acting debut on the classic Maverick in 1961, Everett worked in various character roles on several series. He would finally land a significant role in The Dakotas, a story of a lawman and his deputies working to keep the peace in the Badlands of Dakota.
6. However, it was a false dawn: after gathering a dedicated fan base, The Dakotas busted within a year. Everett, playing a deputy alongside actors like Larry Ward and Jack Elam, would star in all 20 episodes and gain a following. With roles in dramas and films like The FBI and The Impossible Years, his popularity held.
7. During this time, Everett met his future wife, actress Shelby Grant. They married in 1966, and remained so until 2011, when Grant died from a brain aneurysm. Of Everett, Grant mentioned that he was romantic and sent her so many flowers when trying to impress her that her balcony “looked like a burial ground.”
8. And that’s when the big role came. Chad Everett was cast as youthful doctor Joe Gannon in the medical drama, Medical Center. The series, focusing on himself and the tension between his senior fellow surgeon at a university hospital in Los Angeles, would prove to be the defining role in Chad Everett’s career.
9. Everett himself would try his hand at every type of artistic endeavor during this time, including poetry, recording, costume design, directing, historical documentaries, and even voice acting for animation.
The Later Years: The Dark Side of Hollywood
The second half of the story, unfortunately, is not as rosy, but perhaps a lot more inspirational.
10. After a run with Medical Center that lasted for nearly seven years and earned him two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor, Everett’s graph fell. Movie roles worthy of an established actor became hard to come by, and no other television role lasted nearly as long as his run as Joe Gannon. Everett could not leverage his popularity into a career of further significance, and started drifting into obscurity.
11. The troubles were compounded by an ongoing paternity battle with actress Sheila Scott, who claimed her son Dale (born 1973) was Everett’s.
12. As the calls for roles dried up, the social drinker Chad Everett turned heavily to alcohol. His wife, actress Shelby Grant, told him he had a problem. He saw himself on video, and agreed. He told his daughters, “I am addicted to alcohol, and I am not going away to detox. I am going to do it here so that you can see what happens to someone if you let a substance take control of you.”
13. Everett then attended his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and finally quit. He attributed his Christian faith with keeping him alive and going on the disciplined path.
The Last Phase:
14. Once he finally quit drinking in 1986, Everett would continue to star in nearly four dozen roles in film and television, but nothing that could reclaim the level of success he enjoyed earlier in his career.
15. His paternity battle with Scott had officially ended in 1984 after the court ruled in Everett’s favor in spite of a “94.67 percent probability of paternity,” but Scott was persistent. The matter was decisively put to an end when, in 1991, Scott was sentenced to probation for “harassing” Everett and his wife, and ordered to never publicly claim Dale was Everett’s son.
16. Everett died from lung cancer in 2012, just one year after the passing of his wife and less than six months after his last role.
Chad Everett’s Filmography
(*=Available on Warner Archive)
1961 Maverick (TV Series)
1961 Claudelle Inglish
1961 Lawman (TV Series)
1961 Bronco (TV Series)
1962 77 Sunset Strip (TV Series)
1962 Cheyenne (TV Series)
1962 Surfside 6 (TV Series)
1962 Hawaiian Eye (TV Series)
1962 The Chapman Report
1962 Red Nightmare (Short)
1962–1963 The Dakotas (TV Series)
1963 Redigo (TV Series)
1963 Route 66 (TV Series)
1964 The Lieutenant (TV Series)
1964 Get Yourself a College Girl
1964 Grand Hotel (TV Movie)
1965 Branded (TV Series)
1965 Combat! (TV Series)
1965 The Mayor (TV Movie)
1966 Made in Paris
1966 The Singing Nun
1966 Johnny Tiger
1967 First to Fight
1967 Return of the Gunfighter*
1967 The Last Challenge
1967 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (TV Series)
1968 Journey to Midnight
1969 Journey to the Unknown (TV Series)
1969 Ironside (TV Series)
1971 The Firechasers
1971 The Red Skelton Hour (TV Series)
1969–1976 Medical Center (TV Series)*
1977 In the Glitter Palace (TV Movie)
1977 Give Me My Money
1978 Police Story (TV Series)
1979 The French Atlantic Affair (TV Mini-Series)
1978–1979 Centennial (TV Mini-Series)
1980 Hagen (TV Series)
1981 The Intruder Within (TV Movie)
1981 Mistress of Paradise (TV Movie)
1982 Airplane II: The Sequel
1983 Malibu (TV Movie)
1983 The Rousters (TV Movie)
1983–1984 The Rousters (TV Series)
1985 Fever Pitch
1986 The Love Boat (TV Series)
1987 Hotel (TV Series)
1987 Ultraman: The Adventure Begins (TV Movie)
1988 The Highwayman (TV Series)
1988 The New Yogi Bear Show (TV Series)
1989 The Jigsaw Murders
1989 Heroes Stand Alone
1989 Thunderboat Row (TV Movie)
1991 Shades of LA (TV Series)
1986–1993 Murder, She Wrote (TV Series)
1993 Official Denial (TV Movie)
1994–1995 McKenna (TV Series)
1995 Cybill (TV Series)
1996 In the Fold (TV Movie)
1997 Touched by an Angel (TV Series)
1997 Diagnosis Murder (TV Series)
1997 When Time Expires (TV Movie)
1997 Caroline in the City (TV Series)
1997 Pacific Palisades (TV Series)
1997 Just Shoot Me! (TV Series)
1998 Melrose Place (TV Series)
1998 Hard to Forget (TV Movie)
1998 The Nanny (TV Series)
1998 Psycho
1999 Mulholland Dr. (TV Movie)
1999 Free Fall
1999 Love Boat: The Next Wave (TV Series)
1999 Oh Baby (TV Series)
2000 Manhattan, AZ (TV Series)
2001 Mulholland Drive
2002 Frank McKlusky, C.I.
2003 View from the Top
2003 Tiptoes
2004 Master’s Theater (TV Series)
2004 The Mountain (TV Series)
2004 Jack & Bobby (TV Series)
2004 Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (Video)
2006 E-Ring (TV Series)
2006 Saturday Night Live (TV Series)
2006 Unspoken
2006 Cold Case (TV Series)
2007 Without a Trace (TV Series)
2008 III Break
2009 Supernatural (TV Series)
2010 No Clean Break (TV Series)
2011 Chemistry (TV Series)
2010–2012 Undercovers (TV Series)
2012 Castle (TV Series)
Here on Warner Archive, we are proud to have all seven seasons of Medical Center, as well as number offilms and series starring Everett, waiting for your in glorious HD on the all new Warner Archive, available on desktop as well as Roku, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Android. Join now and receive a *free* Roku streaming stick with your annual subscription:
