RECASTAWAYS - DELLA STREET ON 'COLUMBO'?

Salvatore De Fonte:

Della.

The Commodity speech of last week, we have a copy? 

Della:

Yes, sir, it's in the files.

Della

Do you mind bringing one in, please? Thank you.
'COLUMBO'
"IDENTITY CRISIS"

Whenever a character is recast and it's impossible for me to either use some other splainin for the change in appearance (plastic surgery, quantum leaping, alien impersonation) or to quarantine the entire show or even just the episode to another TV dimension, I do have one splainin upon which I can fall back - we are seeing the character's new look from another character's perspective (while still maintaining the "big picture" overview of the Trueniverse audience.) 

And so here we have Della, Salvatore De Fonte's secretary, played by Betsy McGuire.  (It was Vito Scotti who played De Fonte.  And of course Peter Falk is the Rumpled One.)  

No last name was given for Della.  And the only other secretary named Della whom we've ever seen before in Toobworld was Della Street, Barbara Hale's character in the 'Perry Mason' TV series and in all of those TV movie sequels that began in the 1980s.  It's not a very common first name, and the chance of it being used for another woman who's a secretary as well?  I would think they were high.

So....  What if these two Dellas were one and the same?

I'm just throwing this out there as a pozz'bility.  It's not like I'm claiming that it's written in stone for Toobworld.  But let's at least consider the case.

In the TV series, Della Street was last seen working for Perry Mason in the spring of 1966 and had been doing so since before 1957.  I think most fans agree that Della was in love with her boss, even if he sired an illegitimate child back in 1939.  (Most fans don't even know about that.  That particular theory of relateeveety is my own and I don't inflict it on anybody else.  It's merely in the realm of Toobworld.)

And I think Perry and Della acted upon that attraction, which was mutual.  They had a relationship, perhaps started even before the series ended, but I think it eventually soured and they split up (but before they ever married.)  The reasoning could be that Perry had accepted a judgeship and Della didn't want him tainted by scandal, being an old-fashioned girl.

Mason ascended the bench at some point after the series, but before 1975 (at least for the purposes of this "Recastaway" theory.)  When next we saw him, the lawyer was wearing judicial robes.  But when his former secretary Della was framed for murder in Denver, he resigned from the bench to rush to the Mile High City in order to defend her.

So after she quit working for Mason, what if Della Street found a new job, before the one with the late Mr. Gordon where she got framed for murder, working for Salvatore De Fonte?  And although not played by Barbara Hale, she was still the same woman but as seen by her boss.  We know she didn't get plastic surgery because she looked as she always did, albeit a bit older, in "Perry Mason Returns in 1985.

DELLA STREET
(As seen by Mr. De Fonte)

Like I said, it's just an idea.  No harm, no foul.

Court adjourned.....