"Before I started making it, Vince said, I was just belligerant. I had a lot of unexpressed ambitions. There's a place to sell filet mignon and a place to sell hot dogs. Television is hot dogs. A man has to find the area he wants to live in. America is geared that way. You have to deliver the goods. I tried to deliver the goods when I settled on my characterization of Ben Casey. People liked him because he was a rebel, yet had dignity."

The show also featured Sam Jaffe as Dr. Zorba and his real life wife, Bettye Ackerman, (who died November 1st, 2006). Once Vince said, "I'm a bachelor who has urges now and then to make the big jump into matrimony. Somehow, I always shied away when I got near the starting gate. But working with Mr. and Mrs. Sam Jaffe, I've been getting a change of heart. Those two make marriage seem like the best chance for happiness in this troubled world. It's easy to see they love each other and what's more important, their love seems to spill over and touch everyone who's near them. I admire them both greatly. They are a well-read, much traveled and very cultured lady and gentleman of show business. I've never heard an unkind word leave their mouths. Each is exceptionally cooperative on the set. Their main concern is for the cast and crew, for the success of the show. Maybe when you're that happy, you stop thinking about yourself. What more can I say? I guess by now it's clear that I respect, admire and am extremely fond of these two fine people."

Vince was fascinated by the medical instruments used on the show. He enjoyed examining them and taking them apart. "Dedicated" was a word used a lot on the set. Ben Casey was dedicated and so was Vince. He said, "I am dedicated to my work. I couldn't have stuck to it for twelve years unless I had the same sort of fanaticism Ben has for medicine."

Vince soon started directing episodes of Ben Casey. He was nicknamed "The Image" on the set. Of directing, Vince said, "Why not? There's no mystery about it. It's just having a point of view and a certain amount of selection and taste". When someone asked executive producer Matthew Rapf how Vince was working out as director, he replied, "Well, I'll tell you one thing, it's a sure way to get the star to cooperate with the director".

Of his reputation for being angry all the time, he admitted, "I was never really that angry about things, I just appeared that way". No one ever accused Vince of being the world's greatest actor, but he carried 75% of the show and he carried it well. Bobby Darin said of him, "He's so great, it just makes you laugh inside to see him work. It makes you feel good." The two had worked together on the film, Too Late Blues.

When the cameras started to roll, Vince went into his Ben Casey "flat" voice. "Doctor, have you ever seen this operation performed? Well, it's quite a dramatic thing. When the affected area of the brain is neutralized, the tremors suddenly cease. But under general anesthesia, with the central area of the brain depressed, there's a chance we won't get that reaction. We have no way of knowing if the extraper ... extraperamital parimutuel ... dammit! I know that speech", Vince would say. Often times the dialogue he had to learn was pretty tough. On the seventeeth take he finally gets it. This operation wrapped at approximately 9:30 the next morning, the company came out from under the anesthesia without any ill effects, and the tremors did, indeed, cease. The series ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966.