Elizabeth Corday

Elizabeth Corday, MBBS, FRCS (married name Greene) is a fictional character in the television series ER. She was played by Alex Kingston and appeared from 1997 to 2004.

Background

First appearing at the opening of season four in the episode "Ambush", Elizabeth Corday is a British surgeon who has moved to Chicago to gain more experience in trauma surgery. We learn in her first episode that she comes from a whole family of surgeons; Corday's grandfather was a surgeon, as is her father and, since there are no boys in her family, she took on that role. In a later episode we learn that her father is a Consultant surgeon at St. Thomas' Hospital, London. Corday's mother (played by Judy Parfitt) is an astrophysicist with whom she has a rather rocky relationship; Corday feels that her mother didn't spend enough time with her as a girl and that she was "raised by nannies and boarding schools", although she finds a more nuanced perspective on things once she becomes a mother herself. Though the two do seem to come to some kind of mutual agreement, the relationship is still strained. However, Elizabeth has a good relationship with her father, Charles (although he is hostile towards her mother, having been divorced over ten years prior).