Wagon Train: The Widow O’Rourke Story is one of my favorites. It’s really quite different and interesting, and Robert Fuller gets to play two parts. Along with his regular role as Cooper Smith, the scout for the wagon train, in flashbacks he plays the Irish husband of the widow. He has red hair and a lot of spirit. The flashbacks
tell how O’Rourke came to marry a member of Chinese royalty. As I recall, there was a feature piece in TV Guide at the time to cover this special episode.
Carol Lawrence plays the widow, both as a commanding senior citizen and as a young woman of Chinese royalty. She plays both with precision, though it’s as the older persona where she really ...
