By Eric Bieze
Although we hate to admit it, California is where a number of Wold Newton lineages eventually ended up intersecting: the Walshes, Taylors, Browns, Silvers, Martins, and McKays. This convergence of Wold Newton family lines occurred in Beverly Hills during the 1990’s and can be considered a minor Wold-Newton crossroads.
The Walshes:
The Walshes were originally from Minnesota. James Walsh was born in 1948; the son of a marine, he accepted a lucrative job offer and moved his family consisting of his wife, Cindy and two teenage children, Brenda and Brandon to Beverly Hills, California.
James actually accepted the job offer because he had family connections in nearby Sunnydale, California. James’ cousin by marriage, Maggie Walsh, was teaching at a small community college there, and was also the head research scientist of secret government project called "The Initiative". Maggie functioned in both roles until 1999, when she was murdered by Adam, a demon/human/cyborg of her own creation.
James had a brother named Irving who moved to the Oregon coast to take a job as curator of a museum. Irving would marry a woman named Harriet and they would have two sons, Michael and Brandon. The boys and their friends would discover the treasure of the pirate, "One-eyed Willie".
James’ wife, Cindy, was also born in 1948 and met James during college. The couple eventually wed in 1973. A pair of twins, Brandon and Brenda, was born to James and Cindy in 1975. Cindy had a sister, Shelia who died of breast cancer. Shelia had a son named, Bobby who was severely injured during a skiing accident. He would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
In 1993 Brandon and Brenda started college at California University. Brandon met another student on campus named, Zack Morris. The two did not get along. This friction was mostly due to Zack’s prankish behavior involving Dean of students, Susan McMann and Hall Director, Michael Rogers.
James and Cindy left Beverly Hills in 1995 when James received a promotion and relocated to Hong Kong. Brenda Walsh moved to the United Kingdom in 1994 to study acting. Brandon Walsh moved to Washington 1998 to take a job as a reporter. It is unknown if either married.
The Taylors:
William Taylor was born in 1936, the nephew of Beatrice "Aunt Bee" Taylor and cousin to Sheriff Andrew Taylor. When William was only a boy his family moved to from Mayberry, North Carolina to Los Angeles, California.
William entered the world of business and married a woman named Jaclyn. Jaclyn, who worked as a model, had been born in 1951. She was the daughter of a man named Edward, who died in 1998. In 1975 William and Jaclyn Taylor had a daughter, whom they named Kelly.
William had two brothers. George, the older Taylor brother, was born in 1924. This Taylor moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana; ascended to the rank of Colonel and became an astronaut. He launched from Kennedy Space Center in 1972 aboard an experimental spacecraft, which entered a dimensional wormhole and crash-landed on an alternate earth where apes ruled the planet. William’s other brother Joseph grew up to become a police lieutenant, and worked closely with the detective Barnaby Jones
William and Jaclyn were divorced in 1979, when Kelly was three and a half years old. One of the reasons for this was William’s affair with a woman and the birth of Kelly’s half sister, Joy Taylor. Jaclyn and William hid Joy’s existence from Kelly until the mid 1990’s.
Jaclyn Taylor became involved with Mel Silver in 1991. In 1992 Jaclyn became pregnant, and the couple eventually married that same year, much to the displeasure of Jaclyn’s daughter, Kelly. The couple gave birth to Erin Silver in 1993. Mel Silver promptly cheated on Jaclyn in 1993, and the couple separated. When his father moved out, David chose to stay with Jaclyn, Erin and Kelly. Jaclyn won full custody of Erin when the couple divorced in 1993. Mel and Jaclyn did reconcile in 1995, but never remarried, electing only to live together. They separated again in 1999.
William Taylor was sent to jail for embezzlement in 1996, and released in 1998. Upon his release, he immediately became engaged to Abby Malone, only to back out of the wedding at the last moment.
Brandon Walsh and Kelly almost got married in 1998, but mutually agreed to call it off. Kelly Taylor later developed a long lasting but tempestuous relationship with Dylan McKay. It is uncertain whether or not they are still together.
The Silvers:
The Silver clan is descended from Silverhorns Silver. Silverhorns’ great, grandson, Henry Silver, was born in 1926. He settled in Palm Springs and married a woman named Adele, who was a year younger than himself. The couple had a son named Mel in 1950.
Mel Silver became a very successful dentist and settle in Beverly Hills. He married a woman named Shelia who was born in 1947. They had one son, named David, in 1975. Shelia suffered serious mental problems in later years and eventually had to be hospitalized after an attempted suicide. David inherited his mother’s mental fragility. Mel and Shelia divorced in 1990.
In 1991 Mel became involved with Jaclyn Taylor, as described under "The Taylors" above. David’s grandfather died in of a heart attack in 1996 and left David a small fortune. David married longtime girlfriend Donna Martin in 2000.
The Martins:
A woman named Celia was born in 1926 in San Luis Obispo. She married a man whose last name was Martin who died in World War II. This man is the son of Henry and Elizabeth Martin. He was the brother of Henry Jr., Jane, and Daniel Martin. They were the grandparents of Donna Martin.
Henry Martin moved to Pine Valley, California. He married Kate and had two sons, Joe and Paul. Jane Martin and Steve Andrews would encounter a gelatinous extra-terrestrial. Jane even rescues Daniel from the Alien. Jane and Steve married in later years.
Celia’s son John Martin was born in 1943, and died in 1993. John became a successful doctor and moved to Beverly Hills. John met and fell in love with Felice Nancy Martin, who was born in 1953. John and Felice got married in 1973.
The couple had a daughter, whom they named Donna, in 1974. John Martin also had an affair in the late 1970’s with Felice’s sister, and she gave birth to Gina Kincaid, Donna’s sister/cousin. This secret did not surface until the late 1990’s.
Felice and John separated in 1999. John suffered a series of strokes, the last of which caused his death in 2000. That same year, Donna married David Silver, her long-time boyfriend.
The Browns:
Douglas "Dawg" Brown was born in 1623. He was the son of a female pirate named Addams, who had "wandering ways" like her husband. Douglas was the half-brother of the Addams brothers; Harry "Black Harry," Mordachai "Fingers", and Richard Addams. Known as a particularly sadistic pirate, Douglas died in 1668 while battling his niece, Morgan Addams for a Spanish treasure.
Douglas had a brother that was a master blacksmith and drunk in Port Royale. This man was the master of Will Turner, later an associate of the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow.
While Douglas lost the battle with Morgan Addams, he did have other caches of treasure scattered throughout the Caribbean. He was also quite virile and left many offspring across the Caribbean as well. One of these sons was born on the Gulf Coast, and took his father’s surname. Over the years, as the fortune dwindled, the Browns migrated and eventually settled in Arizona.
One of Douglas Brown’s descendents, Al Brown, who was born in 1919, operated a diner in a small Arizona town, and secreted away the rest of the pirate fortune. Al would leave the fortune to his grandson, Steve, after his death. Al had one daughter, named Karen Brown. Karen Brown was quite young when she met Rush Sanders, who was born in 1943.
Rush was visiting the Arizona town, and was away from his wife, Samantha Sanders, who was born in 1949. Rush and Karen had an affair and Karen gave birth to Steven Brown in 1975. Rush discovered this and adopted the child, because he and Samantha could not have children. Karen went on to marry a man named Mulligan, before she was killed in an auto accident in the late 1980’s.
Rush and Samantha could not reconcile their relationship, and got divorced in 1980. One of the reasons might have been that Samantha was secretly gay and she had no romantic feelings for Rush. Rush did not discover the truth until the late 1990’s.
Samantha retained custody of Steve, while Rush went on to get remarried, and had two more sons, Ryan and Austin.
In 1997, Rush gave Steve his defunct newspaper business to run. Steven had an affair with a co-worker, Janet Sonsa, and she became pregnant in 1998. The couple married in 1999, and their daughter, Madeline Sanders, was born during the honeymoon.
The McKays:
The McKay family has the most interesting history of all. Jack McKay, who was born in 1943, is the elder brother, John McKay, a helicopter pilot who was born in 1946 and died in Vietnam and of the diminutive inventor, Simon "the Wizard" McKay, who was born in 1951. These three men are the great-great-grandsons of Miguelito Loveless, the arch nemesis of James West. While all the boys were supremely intelligent, they were very different physically, even at birth. Jack and John were both endowed with normal height, but Simon received a recessive gene in his DNA and was cursed with dwarfism like his great-great-grandfather. Simon compensated for his defect by becoming a renowned inventor. Jack McKay used his intelligence to great effect in the field of finance. Jack’s financial ambitions entered the illegal arena by the late seventies as he began insider trading in which he increased his fortune dramatically.
During this time Jack was married to a woman named Iris, who was born in 1953, and she gave birth to a son, Dylan, in 1976. Iris and Jack’s relationship had always been tempestuous and it eventually ended in divorce in 1982. Jack paid Iris a large sum of money to leave Dylan’s life and never return. She reluctantly accepted the money and moved to Hawaii. She would not see Dylan again for many years.
Jack was indicted for insider trading in 1991, and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. He was paroled after only two years, and returned to spend time with Dylan. Upon his release Jack also proposed to his girlfriend, Christine Pettit, but was killed before she gave her answer. Mobster Tony Marchette placed a bomb in his car which blew him to pieces in front of his son. The FBI revealed to Dylan that that Jack was released from prison as part of a deal to sting the mob boss. Christine Pettit was not his girlfriend, but actually an FBI agent assigned to protect Jack. Jack’s death was also a hoax, and Jack went into the witness protection program. Jack McKay adopted the name of Eddie Waitkus. He lived in Tolleson, Arizona with a wife and young son in the late 1990’s.
Jack, while being a financial marvel in the business world, was very lacking in the area of proper parenting skills. Jack would often leave Dylan in the care of domestic servants as he circled the globe on business deals or vacations with his numerous wives or girlfriends. It was with one of these women, Suzanne Steele, that Jack sired a daughter named, Erica.
Dylan, without proper parenting to guide him, sought various outlets and activities to occupy his time which included reading, surfing, and stealing cars. These pursuits did little to ease the boy’s loneliness and he began to seek solace through alcoholic bliss. Dylan continued this behavior until he met and began dating Brenda Walsh in the early 1990’s. It was Brenda who encouraged him to seek professional help with his addiction. The couple broke up in 1993, and Dylan began dating Kelly Taylor immediately following the break up, but the relationship does not last.
Suzanne Steele and her husband, Kevin stole Dylan’s trust fund money in 1994 and fled to Mexico with Erica. Dylan tracked down Suzanne and Erica in Mexico, and managed to take back his fortune and rescue Erica. Erica moved to Hawaii to live with Iris in 1995.
In 1995, still believing that his father is dead, Dylan learnt that Tony Marchette murdered his father, and began planning to murder him in turn. Dylan found Tony Marchette’s daughter, Antonia and befriended her in hopes of getting close to her father. Antonia and Dylan fall in love and married in 1995. However, on their wedding night, Antonia is mistakenly murdered by assassins that her father sent to kill Dylan. Dylan left Beverly Hills in 1995 and traveled to Scotland to be with Brenda. He left her in 1996. Tony Marchette, Antonia’s father, committed suicide two months after his daughter’s death.
In 1997, Erica Steele eventually ran away from Iris and becomes a hooker in Los Angeles. When Erica was found Iris transferred custody of the girl over to Dylan. Erica then went to stay with him in Europe. Dylan enrolled Erica in a private school in Europe when he returned to Beverly Hills in late 1998.
Upon returning to Beverly Hills, Dylan learnt the truth about his father’s death, and renewed his relationship with Kelly Taylor. It is unknown whether or not Kelly and Dylan remain together.
It is not clear whether or not the people listed above carried on Wold Newton lineage within Beverly Hills, or what happened to them. But obviously the Wold Newton Legacy has many other branches that will continue to grow.
Works Cited:
Books:
World Wide Web:
Film and Television:
© 2003 Eric Bieze
Special thanks to Loki Carbis for proof-reading and editing.