LA TRIVIATA: THE "BIONIC WOMAN" - "WAGON TRAIN" LINK

Caeric ArcLight

8/14/11

to me

Greetings,

Here's another bionic 'crossover' you may or may not be able to do anything with.

I'm still slowly going thru my 'Six Million Dollar Man' / 'Bionic Woman' DVD sets and landed on the final episode of 'The Bionic Woman''s first season, "The Ghost Hunter."

During this episode Jaime finds herself in a cemetery and as the camera pans along the marker for a "Raoul Zamora" stands out in the foreground. I thought something about the simple marker seemed out of place in that graveyard and at first wondered if that was the name of someone on the crew since it was shown so clearly and seemed kind-of an odd name to throw on a prop otherwise.

A little searching revealed it was the exact same grave marker used in a 'Wagon Train' episode, "The Estaban Zamora Story" (with Leonard Nimoy).

No idea how Raoul's grave marker traveled from wherever the wagon train was when he was killed to the cemetery in Essexville, Massachusetts but....

Here's a page giving a summary of the 'Wagon Train' episode with a small screen grab of the grave.

Ernest Borgnine (kneeling) as Estaban Zamora
Leonard Nimoy (right) as Bernabe Zamora

I can get a pic from the 'Bionic Woman' episode if you want.

Again, yours to do with what you will. If nothing else it's a great example how much Universal Studios liked to reuse/recycle props. The idea that they still had that one little marker laying around fifteen years later....

From me:

My thinking right now is that this BW appearance was connected to another member of the family, perhaps a grandson of Estaban Zamora. What nationality were the Zamoras? Spanish? Basque? Portuguese? That last one would work nicely, as there is a large Portuguese population in the fishing towns on the Massachusetts coast.

Jaime Sommars: Where is Essexville, anyway?
Oscar Goldman: Along the coast of Massachusetts, between Boston and Salem.

Perhaps a son of Manuel* was sent back East to live among relatives while he pursued an education. (Since Bernabe joined a religious order, he wouldn't have fathered any children, and Serita would have had a different last name once she reached the child-bearing stage.)

This son would have been named in honor of Raoul, even though he had become the black sheep of the family. ("Black sheep." The family were shepherds..... Sorry about that, Chief.)

Apparently, this Raoul Zamora decided to stay behind in Essexville and eventually died there. And this type of grave marking was traditional for the Zamora Family.

And so we have a TV Western crossover between 'The Bionic Woman' and 'Wagon Train'!

My thanks to Caeric for this incredible find!  (And for doing all of the heavy lifting when it came to the research!)

BCnU!

*Although the synopsis at that link has the name as "Miguel", I hear Borgnine calling his son "Manuel"......