MORE MARA III: THE BODIE BOOKENDS
Having gone through all of Adele Mara's appearances on 'Maverick' and provided a reasonable splainin (in my opinion, anyhoo) for all three characters to be the same person, I turned my attention to the list of other TV Westerns she made - in order to see if they could be added to the mix as well.
I found two of her guest roles on 'Cheyenne' at Netflix and was able to watch them online: "Star In The Dust" and "Border Showdown". Both of them not only could be splained away to be the same woman she played in the three 'Maverick' episodes (using an alias, of course), but they could serve as bookends to 'Maverick', and to her life story....
In 'Star In The Dust', Ms. Mara played Claire Du Pas, originally from New Orleans where she grew up in the paper shacks in the poorest quarter of the city. At least that's what she told Cheyenne Bodie. To fit the Toobworld scenario, she was in New Orleans when John Clements came to town in search of a bride. She assumed the name of Claire Du Pas in order to sell the vision of a New Orleans beauty, but she may have already been known by the name of Lily Nightingale. Once back in Clements' hometown out West, she refused to marry him, instead turning her attentions to Clements' ne'er-do-well son Jimmy.
When the town's bank was robbed of $55,000, Garth was able to catch up to the robber who was carrying the money. As they slugged it out, the robber fell and cracked his head on a rock. Giving in to temptation, Garth decided to keep the money for himself, figuring it was the only way he could make Claire his woman.
"Miss Du Pas" was willing to go along with the idea at first, but she still didn't have any feelings for the stolid and rather dull lawman. Instead, no sooner was Jimmy Clements dead, but she had already turned her attentions to Cheyenne, who was now the deputy to Sheriff Garth. (It was hinted that Cheyenne did sleep with her, not the first time that's happened with the women in this show - even with the married ones!)
Once Bodie's suspicions were raised as to what happened to the money, Claire told him the truth ... and that she was willing to betray Wes Garth in order for Cheyenne to be the one to run away with her and the money.
Cheyenne confronted the sheriff with his suspicions and offered him the chance to give the money back and it could all be forgotten. But Garth never accepted the truth of this situation and he died trying to draw against Cheyenne.
That's where the episode ended, but we can assume that Claire didn't stay much longer in town. First off, knowing that she was partially connected to Garth's plan, the townsfolk would have shunned her. So she may have moved on to Tombstone where she began her dancing career as Lily Nightingale.
Sarita had thrown her lot in with Thompson, but she soon realized that he had no plans to run off with her as she wanted. If he was going to run, his only concern was that it would be with the bank money he and his gang had stolen. So Sarita switched sides and betrayed Thompson to Cheyenne; she also helped stir up the men in the town to finally take up arms against the intruders.
I mentioned in the previous post about her 'Maverick' episodes that we could squeeze in more of Adele Mara's TV Western characters if we build a history for her in which the government put "June Collins" to work as an undercover agent. But it would have to be on a case by case basis dependent on the script's demands. In such a scenario, "Border Showdown" would always have to be the last one......
It could be that she was sent to spy on Carl Thompson because she was already familiar with the situation - Thompson must have been the identical half-brother to her former lover and bank robbing partner Jim Mundy. (This claim is based on the fact that Myron Healey played both roles.)
Mundy had a ranch near the border to Mexico, which could be why Thompson set up his operations just over the border - he could always use his half-brother's property as a relay stop or as a short-cut back to the safety of Mexico.
And this doesn't necessarily mean the end of this character. The shooting of Sarita was definitely terminal; it wasn't as though she'd recuperate off-screen. But it was only final in this timeline....
A major premise of Toobworld is that whatever happens in any given show, it affects every other TV series since they should be (for the most part) sharing the same dimension. Usually, this doesn't come into play; they all operate safely within their own boundaries.
But then you get a show like 'Primeval', in which somehow Nick Cutter and his estranged wife Helen altered history back in prehistoric times. And Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent got involved in the lives of the cavemen and they altered history as well (as seen in 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'). For one thing, they corrupted the programming of the super-computer known as Earth, rendering it "mostly harmless" and thus not to be destroyed by the Vogon Constructor Fleet under the excuse of a hyperspace bypass.
It may seem strange that such sci-fi fare should be blended with a classic TV Western, but that's the Toobworld concept for you! And in the rebooted timeline, maybe "Sarita" didn't get killed by Carl Thompson and Cheyenne still got his man. So we can keep the 'Cheyenne' episode in the original timeline and some new scenario from another Western guest-starring Adele Mara in the new one.
But until I get a chance to see those shows, this will have to stand as the official arc for those Adele Mara aliases.
BCnU!