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Emergency! stars Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe didn't always get along backstage
The Emergency! stars had their differences, but they came together to save lives on the series.
Onscreen, the duo of Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe operated side by side to save lives on the 1972 series Emergency! They were like two peas in a pod, and their onscreen chemistry helped them work together efficiently. They had to—it was literally a matter of life and death.
However, despite their onscreen chemistry, the two Emergency! stars didn’t always get along offscreen. In fact, you wouldn’t find them standing side by side—or even in the same room—unless they had to be.
According to a 1972 interview with The Boston Globe, Kevin Tighe, who played the role of paramedic Roy DeSoto, was easygoing with quick opinions on almost everything—and quick to share them, too.
Meanwhile, Mantooth, who played the role of paramedic John Gage, was more reserved and kept his opinions to himself. In other words, the two couldn’t have been more opposite.
"We disagree on many things, but that has nothing to do with our acting together and does not affect our onscreen partnership," Mantooth said.
"We avoid each other offscreen," Tighe added. "We're so involved with our work during the day that we want to forget about it when we get off set."
One thing the two did agree on, however, was their love for the Emergency! series. They acknowledged that they were up against tough competition for ratings, with one of those shows being All in the Family. All in the Family was a top-rated sitcom that aired on Saturday nights, overlapping with Emergency!’s time slot on NBC.
"I knew that if anything could beat All in the Family, a fire engine could," Mantooth said. "What kid can resist a fire engine? And aren't all people kids at heart?"
Although Emergency! never surpassed All in the Family in the Nielsen ratings, the series had a strong performance in the ratings during its original run and was often ranked among the top shows on television.
Tighe credited the series' success to its realism and the fact that it was informational. In fact, Emergency! is credited for encouraging the adoption of paramedic programs across the country.
"Of course, I would like to see a little more of the documentary and a little less of the drama in our scripts," Tighe said. "The stories are much better this year and in our second one, called 'Pressure,' we even lose a patient. That never happened before. But it's good for realism."
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