First came the alarm tones. Then the dispatcher’s calm voice sent Squad 51 rolling out of the station, and Nelson Riddle’s theme carried the paramedics across Los Angeles County to whatever was waiting for them. Emergency! premiered on NBC on January 15, 1972. Six seasons followed, plus a run of TV movies that kept Station 51 on the air until 1979.
The show did more than entertain. When it began, very few American cities had paramedics at all, and the family of star Randolph Mantooth later said the series “helped introduce the public to paramedics and emergency medicine.” It also inspired a lot of young viewers to sign up for the job themselves. So who from Station 51 and Rampart General is still with us? Here is where the Emergency! cast stands today.
Is Bobby Troup Still Alive?
Bobby Troup played Dr. Joe Early, the soft-spoken neurosurgeon at Rampart who could calm a frantic patient with a few quiet words. Viewers who only knew him as a doctor may not have realized he had already written one of the most famous songs in America. Troup wrote “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” which became a hit for Nat King Cole in 1946.
He acted on the side for years, playing Tommy Dorsey in The Gene Krupa Story and Sgt. Gorman in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. Jack Webb, who produced Emergency!, cast him as Dr. Early in 1972, opposite his real-life wife, Julie London. Troup died of a heart attack on February 7, 1999, in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 80.
Is Dick Hammer Still Alive?
Station 51’s first captain was played by a man who knew the job for real. Dick Hammer was a working Los Angeles County firefighter, a former USC basketball player and a member of the U.S. volleyball team at the 1964 Summer Olympics. He was also one of the rugged faces of the Marlboro print ads of the 1970s.
Hammer played Captain Dick Hammer for ten episodes of the first season, then went back to the fire service and served until he retired in 1983. NFL quarterback Sam Darnold is his grandson. Hammer died of cancer in Long Beach, California, on October 18, 1999. He was 69.
Is Julie London Still Alive?
As head nurse Dixie McCall, Julie London ran Rampart’s emergency room with steady warmth and no nonsense. Long before the show, she was one of the great torch singers of the 1950s. Her 1955 recording of “Cry Me a River” sold more than a million copies and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001.
Emergency! had an unusual family connection behind the camera. London had been married to Jack Webb from 1947 to 1954, and the two stayed friendly enough that he built a role for her. She married Bobby Troup in 1959, and they worked side by side at Rampart for the whole run.
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London suffered a stroke in 1995 and spent her last five years in poor health. She died on October 18, 2000, at age 74. It would have been Troup’s 82nd birthday.
Is Tim Donnelly Still Alive?
Tim Donnelly played Chet Kelly, the Engine 51 prankster who never stopped needling Johnny Gage. He had grown up in front of the camera, starting with a role in Baby Face Nelson in 1957, and Jack Webb mentored him on Dragnet before casting him on Emergency! without an audition.
After the series, Donnelly made a few films, including The Toolbox Murders, and retired from acting in 1984 after an episode of The A-Team. The Los Angeles County Fire Museum announced his sudden passing in September 2021, according to TheWrap. He died on September 17, 2021, at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was 77, and he was survived by his daughter, Ashley, and two grandsons.
Is Michael Norell Still Alive?
When Dick Hammer returned to the real fire service, Michael Norell took over the station as Captain Hank Stanley. He kept that role for the rest of the series. Norell had served in the U.S. Army before acting, and he was also a writer, which he put to use by scripting episodes of Emergency! itself.
Writing became his second career. According to Legacy.com, he went on to write 12 episodes of The Love Boat and six episodes of Nash Bridges, along with several TV movies. Norell died on May 12, 2023, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He was 85.
Is Randolph Mantooth Still Alive?
Randolph Mantooth was Johnny Gage, the eager young paramedic who usually rode shotgun in Squad 51. The Sacramento native, who was of Seminole descent, had won a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before Hollywood found him. He also directed episodes of the show he starred in.
After Emergency!, Mantooth spent about two decades in daytime drama, most memorably on Loving and its follow-up, The City. He later turned up on As the World Turns, One Life to Live and General Hospital. Stage work at Michigan’s Purple Rose Theatre kept him busy in later years, and he never stopped speaking up for firefighters and paramedics.
Sadly, Mantooth is no longer with us. He died on July 9, 2026, in hospice care in Ventura, California, at age 80. His family told NBC News he died “after a long illness,” and later reports cited complications from pneumonia. “Randolph Mantooth was the face of the Los Angeles County Fire Department for an entire generation,” Fire Capt. Aaron Katon told the outlet.
Is Ron Pinkard Still Alive?
Ron Pinkard played Dr. Mike Morton, the young intern at Rampart who was always a step behind Dr. Brackett. In the earliest episodes, the character was called Dr. Thomas Gray. Pinkard had real medical training to draw on. He spent four years as a Navy hospital corpsman after high school, and he later served in the Navy Reserve, retiring as a full commander.
He kept acting into the early 1990s, with guest spots on Ironside, Adam-12 and Knight Rider. He also worked as a technical advisor on Flight of the Intruder. Then he went home to Colorado, where he headed the Denver Film Commission from 1991 until 2003.
Yes, Ron Pinkard is still alive. Born January 22, 1941, in Denver, he is 85 years old.
Is Mike Stoker Still Alive?
Mike Stoker is the rare TV firefighter who never had to pretend. He was an actual Los Angeles County Fire Department engineer when the show began. The department required one of its own qualified engineers to drive and run the pumper used in filming, and Stoker already had a Screen Actors Guild card. He got the part and played a character named after himself.
For a while he did both jobs at once. In a 1974 interview with the Lansing State Journal, recounted by MeTV, he described coming off a fire shift and heading to the studio: “I reported for work at Universal, cleaned up and did one scene, then went home and caved in.” When the series ended, he stayed with the county fire department and later retired from it.
Mike Stoker is still with us. Born June 25, 1941, in San Francisco, he is 85.
Is Marco Lopez Still Alive?
Marco Lopez played firefighter Marco Lopez, who sometimes translated for Spanish-speaking patients and bystanders. Because he used his real name, many viewers assumed he was a real county firefighter like Stoker. He was not. He was a working actor who had appeared on Jack Webb’s Dragnet and Adam-12, and he served as Webb’s stand-in for long shots.
After Station 51, Lopez worked on MacGyver, Murder, She Wrote and The New Adam-12. His last film credit was an uncredited bit in America’s Sweethearts in 2001. Since then he has kept a private life. Marco Lopez is still alive, and at 91 (he was born September 10, 1935, in Los Angeles) he is one of the two oldest surviving members of the cast.
Is Robert Fuller Still Alive?
Robert Fuller was already a TV star when he took the role of Dr. Kelly Brackett, Rampart’s demanding chief of emergency medicine. Western fans knew him as Jess Harper on Laramie and as Cooper Smith on Wagon Train. He was reluctant to play a doctor and turned the part down more than once before Jack Webb talked him into it.
By the final season, Fuller wanted to get back to Westerns, and his screen time was cut back. He guest-starred on shows like Murder, She Wrote and JAG and had a recurring role on Walker, Texas Ranger before stepping away from acting around 2001. That same year he married actress Jennifer Savidge, known as Nurse Lucy on St. Elsewhere.
Robert Fuller is still alive. Born July 29, 1933, in Troy, New York, he is 93, the oldest surviving member of the cast. In 2004 he and Savidge left Los Angeles for a ranch in Cooke County, Texas, where they have raised horses.
Is Kevin Tighe Still Alive?
Kevin Tighe was Roy DeSoto, the steady family man who balanced Johnny’s restless energy in Squad 51. The partnership lasted well beyond the show. Tighe stood up as best man at Mantooth’s wedding in 2002, and the two stayed close for the rest of Mantooth’s life.
Tighe built one of the busiest character-actor careers of any Emergency! alum. He appeared in Matewan, Eight Men Out, Road House and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and a new generation met him as Anthony Cooper on Lost. He also taught drama at USC and made his Broadway debut in Open Admissions.
In 2025, Tighe revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014 and had stepped back from acting. He returned anyway, after nearly a decade away, for a single memorable scene in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. “I never wanted celebrity, I just wanted to be regarded as a good character actor,” he told USA Today.
Yes, Kevin Tighe is still alive. Born August 13, 1944, in Los Angeles, he is 82 and married to artist Rebecca Fletcher. His partner’s passing this summer leaves Roy DeSoto as the last member of Squad 51, and five of the men who rode out of Station 51 or worked the halls of Rampart are still here to remember it.
