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 The
character of Sam William, rich of a good potential, appears on the
occasion of a promising storyline, but which is very fast going to
languish and to relegate him in the background. He is going to know a
too premature progressive disappearance of the screen, without being
really developed as he would have deserved to be.
So,
Sam makes a resounding entrance in Santa Barbara on board...
of a coffin. On returning to the United States, his friend, Dylan
Hartley, expects from his news after his plane was shot down in Africa.
Sam and Dylan were on the African continent in search of a gold mine,
but were pursued by dangerous gangsters eager to put the hand on the map
of this treasure. So, when Dylan opens the coffin, he finds his friend
Sam lengthened and impassive, when suddenly this one opens the eyes !
Sam managed to escape his pursuers in Africa being been thought of as
dead, and got back to the United States by plane with the map of the
mine with him.
Very
fast, the men of the dangerous Carlo Alvarez find the track of Sam and
Dylan. Both friends conceive a false map, that they let escape in Carlo's
hands. But Nick, Dylan's brother, worried about Carlo's threats, decides
to give him back the real map in exchange for the guarantee that he will
leave Sam and Dylan quiet. Sam is however reassured when he discovers
that Nick took photos of the real map, and that the access to the gold
mine is not lost. He develops the photos with Dylan but, again, Carlo
takes them by surprise. Kelly Capwell helps them by saving the photos of
the map, and takes refuge with Dylan in a ghost town. Sam threatens
Carlo of reprisals if he touches his friend, and succeeds in helping
Dylan and Kelly, by however losing the map for the benefit of Carlo.
The
end of this storyline coincides with the beginning of a second one, that
of the casino, in which Sam will be at the beginning stakeholder before
to quickly fade. Always ready to assist and to support his friend Dylan,
he gets enthusiastic for his idea to transform a disused oil rig
belonging to the Capwells in a floating casino. The project is quickly
born, and Sam manages the place with Dylan. But Dylan's behavior creates
a new tension between them, and Sam loses then the complicity which
united him to his friend. At first, he discovers that Dylan forged the
roulette and made money on many players, such as Warren Lockridge. He
discovers afterward that he even stole money in the receipts. Finally,
Sam despairs to see his friend falling crazy in lover with Kelly, Nick's
fiancée, and tries on numerous occasions to convince him to stop
harassing her and to forget her, in vain.
Tired
of Dylan's overflowing, Sam decides to resell his parts of the casino to
C.C. Capwell. He however continues to keep a reproving eye on Dylan, and
lines up on the side of Nick. In his last appearance, he warns Nick that
Dylan grabbed his gun and that he is afraid that he commits something
mad with Kelly. We shall not see him crying Dylan's accidental and
tragic death a few hours later, Sam having already disappeared from the
screens. Maybe that if the writers had taken time to develop more his
energetic and entertainer side, Sam would have been able to survive
longer the death of his friend and to know another fate...
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