Wagon Train

When you think about it, Las Vegas is the one place these folks may not stand out. But they will be easy to spot at any other point along the 800-mile trail between Salt Lake City and San Bernardino. Just look for more than 200 Mormons, dressed in pioneer garb, traveling in covered wagons.

WE ARE DAMAGED GOODS. THE NINE PEOPLE IN THIS ROOM HAVE WORKED VERY HARD all our adult lives to build careers, families or both, only to find that things haven't worked out exactly as we planned. Or, more to the frustrating point, they've worked out just the way we dreamed they would, when we were 20, or 30. We still don't feel fulfilled.

A handmade sign at the edge of the filthy frontier town in AMC's post-Civil War drama, "Hell on Wheels," gives a grim statistic: "Hell on Wheels: Population — One less every day. " Just the opposite seems to be true of prime-time television and its reinvigorated love of the western, where projects are sprouting like cactus in the desert. In the event that all or even some of these gestating network and cable shows get to air, viewers may see the biggest glut of westerns on TV since the genre's heyday in the '60s.

James Coburn, the big, versatile leading man with a toothy grin who appeared in such films as "Our Man Flint" and "Affliction," for which he won an Academy Award, died Monday afternoon at his Beverly Hills home. He was 74. Coburn died of a massive heart attack while listening to music with his wife, Paula, his manager, Hillard Elkins, said late Monday. "He died too early, but he died in his wife's arms," Elkins said. "It's a pity and a loss for all of us."

The widow of "Wagon Train" star Ward Bond died early today in a house fire tentatively blamed on her smoking in bed, authorities said. The fire that killed Mary Lou Bond, 73, left her present husband, John Diggs, 73, critically burned. Mrs. Bond, 77, kept the name of the actor who died in 1960.

Nearly a century after her death, a simple marker has been placed on the grave of a member of the Donner Party--pioneers trapped in a Sierra blizzard who ate the flesh of dead companions to stay alive. Mary Graves Clarke settled in Tulare County after the Donner ordeal. Forty-eight people survived the brutal winter of 1846-47 by resorting to cannibalism of 42 others who died. At 19, Clarke left Independence, Mo.

Students at Grandview School in Valinda will perform a musical, "Two Partners," to honor William Workman and John Rowland, who led the first Overland covered wagon train into Southern California, according to teacher Barbara Ricchio, who wrote the play. Admission is free to the performance at 12:45 p.m. Friday at the school at 795 N. Grandview Lane.

John Steadman, 83, gravelly voiced character actor who was a longtime editor for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. He began his career as a radio announcer in his native Greenville, S.C., and joined the armed forces operation in the 1950s. His movie credits include "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and several Burt Reynolds films including "The Longest Yard," "Gator" and "White Lightning."

Barbara Eiler Sperzel, 79, actress on radio and television from the 1940s through the '60s, died July 16 at Sherman Oaks Hospital of complications from hip surgery. The Los Angeles native started acting as a teenager and appeared regularly on the radio programs "The Life of Riley," "A Day in the Life of Dennis Day," "The Fabulous Dr. Tweedy" and "Glamor Manor."