Taken from the CBS Chicago Hope page.

At the beginning of the season we had a chance to talk with Hector Elizondo.

Q: Congratulations on surviving this long on the cast.

Elizondo: A resilient chin is what Chicago Hope has, and of course I've been with it since the beginning.

Q: You must be pleased that CBS still has confidence in the show.

Elizondo: We are very excited, because we're approaching it as a totally new show. It's going to be put back on the rail that it started on. It's going to be about the hospital and it's going to be truly an ensemble experience, so we're excited too.

Q: Of all the episodes you've done, you guys must have done -

Elizondo: Over 100, yes.

Q: Are there a few that stand out in your mind as particular favorites?

Elizondo: Yeah, yes, I remember the quarantine show with E.G. Marshall. [That] was a very special show. It was a Christmas show, and I remember another one, the wonderful flashbacks. Adam's dream - the dance sequences were wonderful. The Alfred Hitchcock black-and-white show that I did with Rocky Carrol. That was our homage to Alfred Hitchcock. That was terrific, I remember those vividly.

Q: Over the summer, the NAACP came out with a report criticizing network television for the lack of diversity in casting. Do you have any thoughts on the issue?

Elizondo: Well, there certainly is an under-representation of - how should we say "exotics," that's an old term isn't it? I went to a hospital recently, visited a friend of mine who unfortunately was not doing very well, and everybody there, almost everyone was, for example, Filipino. I would like to see that demographic reflected a little more on our show...

On the other hand, I think the networks would love to develop a show that reflects what is called a minority family, and there's one group in particular which will soon be a majority, which are the Latin/Hispanic group. If they have the right package and it's a quality show ...This is a business after all, and I suppose they're aware of the huge market out there. This is a giant market, it's a multi-billion dollar market sitting there, waiting to be tapped.

Of course, I myself am not a person of color. I'm of Latin background, but one of the confusing issues is that it's a multi-racial group of peoples, since they're all people who were colonized by Spain. So, the only thing we have in common is the language. Other than that, we're like Americans.

Q: You were involved with AKA Pablo. That was an early attempt at a show which featured mostly non-white actors.
[ed. note: AKA Pablo was a 1984 sitcom that starred comedian Paul Rodriguez.]

Elizondo: [That was as an] early attempt, an early attempt by a wonderful man Norman Lear. That's where I also directed for the first time on television. AKA Pablo, that was an ill-fated attempt - it was an attempt, thank goodness - but it also suffered from some of the cliches. The casting was wrong, the writing could have been better, hadn't been thought out too careful.

Q: I have a little quiz for you, a few medical terms that have been used on Chicago Hope. I'm curious to see if you really know the definitions. Aorta?

Elizondo: Aorta - a main vessel, let's say that's the main river of you body.

Q: Correct. Do you know what a V-tach is?

Elizondo: A V-tach is the....that has to do with your heart rhythm, that's, that's a tachometer I think. I think it has to do with fibrillation.

Q: That's a very complicated definition but, yes. Thready?

Elizondo: That's when the heart wants to go off sinus rhythm. It's just a little weak, doesn't have a strong pulse. That's a thready heart.

Q: Your doing perfect. Lactated ringers?

Elizondo: Gee, I knew that and I forgot.

Q: A type of IV fluid often used in trauma situations.

Elizondo: Oh yes, yes, yes, that's right.

Q: That's enough with that. I found a rather extensive bio on you, and it mentioned an early encounter with W.C. Handy. Can you talk about that a bit?

Elizondo: W.C. Handy, the father of the blues....Okay, here's the story.

I was 10 years old, and I was appearing in a school play, a little school play. I was the school singer, right, and the song that I was singing was - now this was an inappropriate song for a 10 year old to sing - it was "St. Louis Blues." Why I was singing that song, I forget, but I was singing it. Now, the thing is - I had chops always before jazz, ever since I was a kid. I could scat when I was 10 or 12 years old, I don't know how that happened but I could do it.

I'm singing "St. Louis Blues," in my starched little outfit and my parents were in the audience. And who was in that audience that day, much to my surprise, I find out later it was W.C. Handy, a blind old gentleman. I sang "St. Louie Blues" twice. I had to - it was a great reception to my music.

So, my teacher, my sixth grade teacher Mrs. Donahue - who had this great chin with a mole on it, she was the bain of my existence - takes me by the hand and says we're going to meet the songwriter...And she marches me off to the gentlemen... This kind old man shakes my hand he says, "Son, talent is God's gift to you; developing it is your gift to him...You have swing son, you have swing."

...Next thing I know, a few days later I'm off to an audition...There was some information exchanged, and he suggested that I go see someone. I'm not from a showbiz family, just the working class family. I go to the audition and I get a job on the Oky Doky Ranch House with Wendy Barrie, which is early, early television, It's about 1948.

[ed. note: The actual title of the program was The Adventures of Oky Doky. It aired from 1948-49.]

And I'm about 10, 11 years old, and that's how it started. I did that for a little while after school. I'd go to rehearsals, and I stopped doing it almost immediately because I didn't want to go to rehearsal. I wanted to play ball and run around and be a jerky kid you know, and have a lot of fun, which is what I did.

I didn't get back into this business until my mid 20s. So I guess if you believe in the proverb - the Chinese proverb that you often find your destiny on the path that you take to avoid it - mine was that proverb.