SALOON GIRL SHOWCASE - FEELING "LUCKY"

"Then he could hitch up with that dance hall girl 

and raise himself a bunch of young-uns."

Casey

'Gunsmoke'

'GUNSMOKE'

"MULEY"

So far with my saloon girl showcases, I've focused on their male descendants, based on the men I knew they had sex with.  But the girl who called herself "Lucky" and worked in Miss Kitty's Long Branch Saloon is different; mainly because I don't think she ever had sex with Muley Proddert, the young bushwhacker who tried to gun down Marshal Matt Dillon.

However, there were plenty of female telegenetic echoes throughout 1970s "Telemerica" who could have been descended from "Lucky" and so many other men she probably slept with after the episode ended.  (Lane Bradbury, who played Lucky, was a frequent guest star in a lot of the drama series in the 1960s and 70s.)

With Lucky, she had a theoretical backstory in connection to 'Gunsmoke' that tied her into the general area of Dodge City.  She had come from somewhere close by and - despite Miss Kitty's hesitations about her age - she had decided to make a living at the Long Branch for a year before moving on to some big city.  

We don't know who her parents were, but her birth father certainly got around; couldn't keep it in his chaps.  He fathered two other girls in the area: one a member of a hillbilly clan named Merry Florene, and the other named Allie Sommers who ran with an outlaw gang.

So not all of the future Lane Bradbury characters have to be descended from Lucky.  They could be from the family trees for Merry Florene (whom I believe eventually married Newly O'Brien) or Allie Sommers (once she had been reformed.)  In fact, I think we can assume that Houston Preli from the 'Rockford Files' episode "Where's Houston?" was descended from Merry Florene and Newly (but more on that is a separate post today.)

So here is a list of characters played by Lane Bradbury who could have been descended from her character of Lucky, the dance hall girl.  Or from Merry Florene.  Or from Allie Sommers....

• Amy Nichols, 'Gemini Man'
• Sister Mary Dolores, 'Westside Medical'
• Emily Robbins, 'Doc Elliott'
• Jennifer Carter, 'MacMillan'
• Penny Hale, 'Judd For The Defense'
• Maggie Seller, 'Medical Center'
• Bella Mendoza, 'Then Came Bronson'
• Janet Kegler, 'The Fugitive'
• Sally James, 'Banacek'
• Charlene Nelley, ''The Young Lawyers"
• Cassie Howard, 'The Bold Ones: The New Doctors'
• Carol Harrington, 'McCloud'
• Carole Anne McMurdy, 'Owen Marshall, Counsellor At Law'
• Karen Gunderson, 'Mannix'
• Cindy Jeffers, 'The Mod Squad'
• Ellen Westfall, 'Mr. Novak'
• Rita Silveri, 'Doctors And Nurses'
• Miriam Halsey, 'Bracken's World'

O'BSERVATIONS:

I only chose characters played by Lane Bradbury from the mid to late 20th Century as candidates for this theory of relateeveety, and then only characters who had their last names listed in the IMDb.  I also passed over those shows, like 'The F.B.I.', in which she played more than one character in different episodes.  (Just getting too old and ornery to come up with splainins for all that.)

Ellen Westfall ('Mr. Novak' - "Love Among The Grown-Ups") may be related to the (in)famous Westphall family of 'St. Elsewhere'.  Slight name changes like that are not Zonks.

In an earlier generation, a woman named "Bunny" was somehow involved in a taxi dancer's murder.  ('Banyon' - "A Date With Death")  For alls I know, Bunny was the murdered taxi dancer.  I'll have to do more research in this.  But if Lane Bradbury as Bunny was any "taxi dancer" (taking the term to a seamier implication) in that episode, she may have been following in Grandma's line of work as well as resembling her.

I was tempted to come up with a suggestion that Cassie Howard ('The Bold Ones: The New Doctors' - "End Theme") and Carol Harrington ('McCloud' - "Give My Regrets To Broadway") or Carol Harrington and Carol Ann McMurdy ('Owen Marshall, Counselor At Law' - "Run, Carol, Run") might be the same character.  (I would have been pushing it to claim all three were one and the same.)  "Carol Harrington" could have been a stage name using Cassie Howard's initials.  Or the two Carols could have been one and the same, with "Harrington" being her married name.

'The Young Lawyers' - "Down At The House Of Truth, Visiting"

When Charlene Nelley met Aaron Silverman at David Barrett's Boston law firm, it could be that the great-granddaughter of Lucky was meeting the reincarnated soul of Muley Proddert.  It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble......

Happy trails to you!

PS

This is part one of a Two For Tuesday......