‘He should never have been allowed to operate’: Christian Slater on the real-life horror story of Dr Death
After listening to almost two weeks of evidence against disgraced neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch, the jury in Dallas, Texas, reportedly took just a few hours to find him guilty of maiming patients.
Following at least a year of botched surgeries, which resulted in the deaths of two patients and left dozens of others paralysed or seriously injured, he was sentenced to life in prison in February 2017.
The conviction was based on one victim but Duntsch had been accused of wide-ranging malpractice that included improper placement of screws and plates along patients’ spines, a sponge left in another patient and a major vein cut in another, according to an Associated Press report from the time. Records also showed that he operated on the wrong part of a patient’s spine, damaged nerves, and left one woman with chronic pain and dependent on a wheelchair.
Former neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was jailed in 2017. Pic: Dallas County Sheriff’s Department via AP
The story of “Dr Death” and how he was able to continue his work before his licence was finally revoked is the stuff of nightmares. When a patient is lying on an operating table, they are putting their life in a medical team’s hands; the surgeon in charge is not supposed to make mistakes.
But Duntsch did, over and over and over, and the story of how he was able to continue working has now been dramatised in a series starring The Affair and Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson as the titular Dr Death, and Christian Slater and Alec Baldwin as two physicians who fought to expose him.
Christian Slater plays Dr Randall Kirby, one of the good guys, in Dr Death. Pic: Barbara Nitke/Peacock/StarzPlay
Slater – known for films including True Romance, Heathers, Pump Up The Volume and Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and more recently in TV series such as Mr Robot and Dirty John – plays one of those real-life doctors; vascular surgeon Randall Kirby, who he met after shooting on the show had finished.
“It’s a horrifying story,” Slater tells Sky News. “[It’s] very scary that someone like this could get away with what he was doing for so long. He’s a real performer, was able to kind of play the part but lacked all the skills necessary in order to really perform those surgeries.
“[Dr Kirby] said that Dr Christopher Duntsch, he shouldn’t have moved beyond operating on mice. That should have been where his career stopped, he never should have been allowed to operate on human beings.”
Over eight episodes, Dr Death tells the story of a rising star in the Dallas medical community, a man who promised to change the lives of patients suffering from spinal issues. A man who thought he could play God. At best he was woefully inept but arrogant and completely misguided; at worst he was evil.
It was “incompetence mixed with ego, narcissism – a sociopath”, says Slater, based on his conversations with Dr Kirby. “He [Kirby] saw him in that regard. He got to witness Christopher Duntsch at work. He stood over a body and watched him perform with such ineptitude that it horrified him and scared him. Those are the moments within the show that are horrifyingly true and as accurate as we could possibly make them.”
Joshua Jackson plays Duntsch, the titular Dr Death. Pic: Peacock/ Starzplay
As a viewer, it is not just what you see on screen but what you can hear that makes the show so terrifying, and gruesome. “The sounds… they stayed with me after we would finish shooting the scenes, they’re still in my brain,” says Slater. Fortunately, behind their surgeons masks, they were able to keep the mood light. “Of course, we take it seriously, but there is an element of humour that comes along with it because both Josh and I are so inept at being doctors that, you know, behind our masks we’d be laughing quite a bit.”
As well as examining Duntsch and his catalogue of horrors, the series also looks at the American healthcare system and how the malpractice was able to continue; how he moved between clinics, which enabled him to work for longer, and how profit was put above patients.
“Our healthcare system is one that has been examined and questioned for such a long time now and it’s one that is in desperate need of revisions,” says Slater. “The scary thing is Christopher Duntsch was able to take advantage of a part of the healthcare system that is not only designed to protect the patients, but also the doctors. And with that, he was able to kind of skirt through the system, and the system just kept kicking the can down the road, and he was able to continue to be enabled and get away with what he got away with for so long.”
Slater’s Dr Kirby teams up with Alec Baldwin’s Dr Robert Henderson to expose Duntsch. Pic: Peacock/ Starzplay
People put medics “on pedestals and we treat doctors as gods and forget that they’re human beings and, you know, they are fallible and they will make mistakes”, he adds. Duntsch was an extreme case of that.
Ego, greed, narcissism; traits that can apply to people in power in all walks of life, including Hollywood. When I ask Slater if he has come across any similar figures, and how he has dealt with them, he seems to allude to the US’s most recent former president, Donald Trump, rather than anyone in the entertainment industry.
“It’s not always easy, particularly when you have someone who is coming from a place of such delusional thinking and they’re in one of the highest offices in the land,” he says. “I feel like that’s what it’s been like for the last four or five years, that we’ve just been living in delusion land and moved so far away from honesty. Narcissism and sociopathic behaviour has been enabled for a long time now. And I can’t wait until we move through that process.”
And as something of an industry veteran, what does Slater know now that he wishes he’d known when he first started acting in the 1980s?
“I think to appreciate all the moments. I think I’ve learnt in retrospect that I’ve been very, very fortunate in my career, very, very lucky. I’ve had great opportunities to work with some pretty amazing people. And it really is only in retrospect that you realise how special some of these experiences really were. So today, I think I’ve learnt to be in the moment as much as possible and appreciate every aspect of what it is that I get to do.”
Which includes Dr Death. Slater asks how much I’ve seen; I tell him I’ve just finished episode three.
“Wait till you get to episode eight,” he says. “They get scarier and scarier.”
Dr Death is out on Starzplay in the UK from 12 September
Actress Olivia Hussey, best known for playing Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 production of Romeo and Juliet, has died aged 73.
She died peacefully at her home in California, surrounded by her loved ones on Friday, according to a post shared on her official Instagram account.
The message, posted with a sunset photo of Hussey in her youth, paid tribute to “a remarkable person whose warmth, wisdom, and pure kindness touched the lives of all who knew her”.
It went on: “Olivia lived a life full of passion, love, and dedication to the arts, spirituality, and kindness towards animals”.
Calling her a “truly special soul”, her family said while her “immense loss” was grieved, they would also “celebrate Olivia’s enduring impact on our lives and the industry”.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1951 to an Argentinian father and English mother, Hussey returned to London aged seven with her mother and studied at the Italia Conti Academy drama school.
Spotted by Italian director Zeffirelli in a stage show of The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie opposite Vanessa Redgrave, Hussey’s performance as Juliet aged just 15 made her a star and won her a Golden Globe.
Sixteen-year-old actor Leonard Whiting played her Romeo, with the pair going on to sue Paramount Pictures in 2022 for sexual abuse due to the Oscar-nominated movie’s nude scene.
(L-R) Franco Zeffirelli, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting in 1968. Pic: AP/Eustache Cardenas
The case was dismissed by a judge the following year.
Hussey would work with Zeffirelli again, playing the Virgin Mary in the 1977 TV miniseries Jesus Of Nazareth.
Appearances in horrors including Black Christmas and Psycho prequel Psycho IV: The Beginning established Hussey as a scream queen over the years.
Other notable appearances included Hercule Poirot movie Death On The Nile and Mother Teresa biography Madre Teresa.
Read more:
Andrew Garfield on baking cookies and his mum’s perfume
Disabled musicians demand greater inclusivity
Hussey was reunited with Whiting in the 2015 British film Social Suicide, which was loosely based on Shakespeare‘s Romeo and Juliet.
Her daughter, actress India Eisley, played her on-screen daughter in the movie.
It was Hussey’s final screen role, according to IMDB.
Hussey leaves behind three children, Alex, Max, and India, her husband of 35 years David Glen Eisley, and grandson, Greyson.
Andrew Garfield says he bakes cookies every year in memory of his late mother.
The double Oscar nominee‘s mother Lynn Garfield, from Essex, died in 2019 from pancreatic cancer.
In a conversation about his new film We Live In Time, he told Sky News about the special ways he likes to remember her.
“My mum had the most incredible chocolate chip cookie recipe that I will do every year on the anniversary of her birth and on the anniversary of her death.
Pic: StudioCanal
“So, I will bake them, and we will all eat them, but I’ll leave a few out for her somewhere, you know, like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus at Christmas or something.”
The English-American actor says he looks to keep the connection to his mother alive and notes that he has some of her keepsakes in his own home.
“I have her perfume in my house that my mum used to wear when I was a kid. I have it, like, in a very special place. I’ll just like [smell it], when I need it.
“It’s like in the missing and the longing, you actually get closer to the person. It’s a weird thing. As we reach out in grief, we actually feel much closer to the person so it’s this weird conundrum”.
Pic: StudioCanal
‘Leaving a legacy behind’
Garfield stars alongside Florence Pugh in the romance film We Live In Time, which follows an up-and-coming chef and a Weetabix salesman through a decade of their love story.
Pugh says she loves playing “really strong-willed women” and says playing a woman dealing with ovarian cancer allowed her to look at the idea of creating a legacy.
“She’s constantly juggling whether she does something for herself, does something for her daughter, does something for her family and ultimately, she’s allowed to do all of those things.
“I do believe that she is trying to leave that kind of legacy behind so that her daughter is proud of her.
“Just because you are a parent and you’re a mum does not mean that your wills and wants also completely vanish and disappear and you can’t have or want them too”.
Pic: StudioCanal
‘A level of detail and care’
We Live In Time is directed by Brooklyn filmmaker John Crowley.
Having previously worked with Garfield on Boy A, the Irish director says seeing Garfield and Pugh on screen together is magic.
“All that life experience is present in his performance,” he says.
“I wouldn’t say he’s vastly different. I think the level of detail and care that he puts in the work is every bit as much as it was back then, there’s just more there now”.
We Live In Time is in cinemas on Wednesday 1 January.
Elizabeth J. Birch has been a musician for a decade, has won several awards, and loves her job. However, she continues to feel like an outsider in a competitive and precarious industry.
As a wheelchair user, she commonly experiences accessibility barriers at venues, but there’s a more pressing issue – tokenism.
Birch tells Sky News: “While it’s not explicitly stated that it’s tokenistic, it feels tokenistic because [organisations] need a certain amount of disabled people on their board.
“For example, I was once called a poster girl for inclusion.”
When asked how the experience made her feel, she pauses and reflects: “Perhaps it didn’t make me feel like an individual or it made me feel less than human because I was narrowed down to one aspect of myself.
“It’s not about trying to look inclusive, it’s about trying to be inclusive.”
A recent report by Help Musicians and the Musicians’ Union found 94% of those who have experienced discrimination based on their disability said it impacted their ability to work or advance their career progression.
Nyrobi Beckett-Messam, one half of the sister duo ALT BLK ERA, was diagnosed with multiple chronic conditions in 2021.
Out of the fear of discrimination, she wasn’t open about her hidden disability until only a few months ago.
“I didn’t feel comfortable sharing that side of me because society doesn’t accept it,” she says.
And she doesn’t regret opening up.
“I think the biggest benefit of me disclosing my disability is seeing how it’s impacted others,” she says.
“It’s really empowering, I wake up feeling every morning like the effect I’m having on the community.”
Among other key findings, the Musicians’ Census identified the following areas of concern when it comes to financial security, fair pay, and discrimination in the workplace:
• On average there is a £4,400 pay gap between disabled and non-disabled musicians
• The gap widens a further £1,700 for musicians with mental health conditions and/or neurodivergent profiles
• 27% of disabled musicians said they had experienced racism, compared with 7% of non-disabled musicians
• 73% of disabled respondents said they aren’t in receipt of any state benefits, tax credits, or support
Grace Meadows, head of engagement at Help Musicians and Music Minds Matter, said: “What this report really starkly highlights is just how much more work the industry needs to do to support disabled musicians but also to support anybody who may have a disability to speak up without fear of discrimination or disadvantage.
“And with benefits, really what we are needing to see is a change in what those systems look like so people can get the support they need when they need it.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
A government spokesperson told Sky News: “We are bringing forward proposals to reform health and disability benefits in spring as part of a proper plan to genuinely support disabled people.
“We will work closely with disabled people and their organisations, whose views will be at the heart of these plans.”
Both Birch and Beckett-Messam believe in the social model of disability which recognises that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.
For now, they are determined to stay in the industry, but that could change if it stays the same.
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