Therese Marvin (Dianne Foster) is the main antagonist in the 1966 episode ‘Caesar’s Wife’ for the TV series ‘The Big Valley’. Therese is the attractive young stepmother of the handsome Will. Therese in her past was implied to be a conspirator with another man to kill her husband (supposedly in a duel over her honour). However, later her fellow conspirator divorced her: for adultery.
Therese first appears when Will is taming a horse. She congratulates him sweetly; unbeknownst to him she is actually flirting with him. Audra Barkley comes over and Therese, being romantically interested in her stepson, is jealous. Audra is invited inside by her husband and Therese makes a veiled threat to Will about Audra’s well-being if he gets involved with her.
Audra goes round yet again to give the family some of Victoria Barkley’s homemade food and asks Will if he is definately coming over to theirs for dinner. Therese attempts to stop Will, telling him that another family are coming round to theirs on the exact same day, but Will goes round to the Barkley’s anyway.
When Will arrives home, a seductively garbed Therese is waiting for him. She apologised for trying to make him stay before kissing him passionately on the lips! Disgusted, Will pushes her away before running upstairs to the safety of his room.
After Will gets drunk in town, Heath, Jarrod and Nick bring him over to the Marvin’s large estate. Therese grabs hold of Will and brings him up to the room so she can nurse him... Upstairs, Therese is nursing a hung-up Will when she makes another seduction attempt! Will once again pushes her off him and falls her disgusting and says that she is the scum of the earth. He is also mad because she would cheat on his father in his own house! Desperate to get Will to love her, Therese reveals that Luke is actually adopted! However, he still sends an angry femme fatale out of his room.
Later, when Will has not been downstairs in hours, Therese and her husband go to check on him. There, it is revealed that he has run away! To get him not to worry (so her adultery isn’t discovered) Therese tells him that he will be fine and entices him downstairs.
Will has actually run away to the Barkley’s to seek work, believing himself to be a common orphan. Jarrod pays the Marvin’s a visit to inform them, and Therese tells her husband that it would be better for Will to come back in his own.
However, Therese then pays a visit to the Barkley ranch to ‘get rid’ of competition (Audra). When she gets there, she and Audra have a private talk, where Therese angrily blames Audra for Will going away and leaving her. Audra tells her that it isn’t true, and Therese tells her that Will loves her and doesn’t care about Audra, who is just second-hand garbage to him! Disturbed and confused, Audra goes to get Will and the wicked woman grabs a pistol and points it at her, with the intention of shooting! The two women struggle for the gun while Audra desperately falls for Will. Eventually, the gun goes off! But it is not Audra who is shot. The bad girl is hit straight in the stomach, and she falls to the floor, dead. Will finally comes in when he sees Audra standing over his beautiful stepmother’s body…
Trivia[]
- Dianne Foster appeared as Maggie Lynch in the 1965 episode "A Matter of Wife and Death" for the TV series Honey West.
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