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That Beguiling Darlene Carr
The Waltons
That Beguiling
Darlene Carr
From Episode #68: The Beguiled
(Third Season)
When John-Boy
Walton entered Boatwright University in the third season, he instantly became a
babe magnet. It seems like he met a beautiful young woman in almost
every episode during his freshman year at Boatwright (fictional "Boatwright"
was, in real
life, the University of Richmond, which Walton's creator Earl Hamner
attended starting in 1940 -- although I don't know if Earl shared John-Boy's
ability to attract luscious coeds).
Yeah, it was a tough job, but I'm sure Richard Thomas didn't complain.
In episode #68, The
Beguiled, Darlene
Carr stars as a Boatwright University student who becomes John-Boy's
beautiful-but-conniving temptress, wrapping the blissfully-ignorant
John-Boy around her finger -- and then secretly taking
his chemistry notebook. John-Boy finally wakes up, though, and gives
her the heave-ho.
Interestingly,
Darlene was the younger sister of
actress Charmian Carr, the "When-you're-16-going-on-17" Liesl von Trapp, in the
1964 movie The Sound of Music, an actress who made an impression on every American male in the 1960s and quite possibly the source of
the phrase, "Please don't squeeze the Charmian." Darlene Carr made her own
impressions and is perhaps best known for her work in the early 1970’s TV
series The Streets of San Francisco, in which, as Jeannie Stone,
she played police detective Karl Malden’s daughter. Michael Douglas
co-starred in this series and, as I recall, had a romantic interest in
Jeannie. Of course, any guy who ever saw Darlene Carr had a romantic interest in her
including me, and I was only 14 then.
In 1971, a year before
The Waltons was created, Darlene Carr had co-starred in a film that was also
called, ironically, The Beguiled. The movie starred Clint
Eastwood as an injured Union soldier in the Civil War who was nursed back
to health by several pretty young women in
a Confederate seminary who were each attracted to
him, and who each conspired against the others to win Clint's favors --
altogether a rather dark and creepy film. Thus, Darlene Carr is, I'm
sure, the only actress to ever star in two completely separate productions
called The Beguiled. Jeez, talk about being type-cast!
Darlene's name in this Waltons episode was Sis Bradford,
possibly a nod to being Charmian's "Sis."
And speaking of Bradfords, two years later, in 1976, another co-star in this same
episode, Willie Aames, starred as Tommy Bradford in the television series,
Eight is Enough, with Dick van Patten. Whoa... there are enough coincidences in this
episode to make your head spin. But then Darlene made
everyone's head spin.
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Trivia questions for this
episode (answers
below):
1). How do John-Boy
and Sis Bradford meet?
2). What irritating
talent does Jim-Bob's friend, Danny (Willie Aames) have?
3). Jim-Bob gets
caught shoplifting by Ike Godsey. What did he take?
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Above left: Shortly after John-Boy meets Sis, she begins spinning her
web.
Above center:
Here's Darlene's sister, Charmian, going on 17... or maybe 22.
Please don't squeeze her.
Above right: Darlene in her
Carr. Near the end of
the episode, John-Boy gives Sis the brush off. Serves her right,
huh?
Answers: 1).
Their cars nearly collide. 2). He practices sleight-of-hand. 3).
An onion. Yes, an onion.
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