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.

The town sheriff, Wes Garth (who may have been related to Judge Garth, seen in 'The Virginian' and who was an unseen major player in 'Alias Smith & Jones') also had fallen for "Claire" and was bound to make her his own. Although it was proven to be justified, Sheriff Garth's shooting of Jimmy Clements in a showdown - where it was three to one against the sheriff - was the first step towards his downward spiral over that woman.

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.

That would lead us first into the 'Bat Masterson' episode "Double Showdown" and then into the trio of 'Maverick' episodes in which Adele Mara appeared. And after that run of shows, we could then go back to 'Cheyenne' for the episode "Border Showdown" which would serve as the other, final, bookend.

Adele Mara played a saloon girl named Sarita in a small Mexican village, which was dominated by a bank robber and gang leader named Carl Thompson. Thompson had earlier killed a friend of Cheyenne Bodie's, which is why the cowboy and his pardner Smitty had come south of the border - to bring Thompson back to the States to face justice.
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.

Now on the run, Thompson tried to find shelter at Sarita's home where he demanded that she get the hidden money for him. Instead she tried to stab him in the heart with a knife. But he got the better of her and tried to use her as a shield in his attempt to escape the angry mob outside. Instead, Sarita tried to wrest the gun from his grasp and ended up getting shot in the stomach. She fell back into the arms of the villagers and with a plea to the padre, she died.

So what we're O'Bviously claiming is that Sarita was really Lily Nightingale, aka Luisa Ruisenor, Elena Grande, Elena de Galindas, Claire Du Pas, and June Collins/Mundy. And she was probably using the alias of Sarita in order to get close to Carl Thompson and bring him down - on orders from the government. This is why she kept urging him to run away with her; the plan was to entice him back over the border so that waiting government agents could arrest him.

Cheyenne may not have recognized "Sarita" because it had been years since he had seen "Claire Du Pas". As Sarita, she was wearing heavy make-up for her disguise as the saloon girl, with a heavy accent to boot.

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!