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Thursday, May 24, 2018

Clint Walker, father of WA/DL pilot Valerie Walker

~ IN MEMORY ~
actor Clint Walker, father of WA/DL pilot Valerie Walker
May 30, 1927 ~ May 21, 2018 
 
Norman Eugene "Clint" Walker, actor and singer and father of Western/Delta pilot Valerie Walker, has passed nearing his 91st birthday.
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Actor Clint Walker, star of TV show 'Cheyenne,'.....................
 
Actor Clint Walker, best known for manifesting the role of Cheyenne Bodie in the 1955-63 western TV series "Cheyenne," has died at the age of 90 in Grass Valley, Calif.
 
According to TMZ, Walker's daughter Valerie confirmed he died of congestive heart failure.
 
Born Norman Eugene Walker in Hartford Ill., his acting career spanned across five decades. His towering 6-6 figure with a 48-inch chest would allow him to fit a character-mold as the "big man" in movies and on television.
 
His acting career began with a role in the 1954 film Jungle Gents and ended with a voice-over as Nick Nitro in the 1998 family action movie Small Soldiers. In the years between, he starred in the films Yellowstone Kelly, The Dirty Dozen, Pancho Villa and in the 1974 TV series "Killdozer!"
 
However, the role that would define his career would be his lead part in "Cheyenne," the first hour-long western television show.
 
Walker painted an image of a lifelike hero with a larger-than-life frame. A man quick to humility and never quick to anger; a gentle giant, yet one who acts without hesitation and willing to draw iron when dealing out justice with numerous villains and bandits across the American West.
 
Walker's massive physique, booming voice and smooth delivery embodied the western-era everyman. Determined and uncompromising, Walker's Cheyenne meandered alone through the post-Civil War frontier, helping those in distress with his innumerable strength, gentle spirit and unwavering practicality.
 
His archetypal portrayal of Cheyenne would be connected to Walker for the rest of his career.
 
He would reprise his famed role twice, both occurring more than two decades after the series ended; First in 1991 for the made-for-TV movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw, and again in 1995 for an episode of the TV show "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."
 
Walker personified the character of Cheyenne for seven seasons, taking a sabbatical from 1958-59 to strike for better terms, namely due to Warner Brothers' restriction on Walker's ability to produce his own music outside of the company's record label. Due to Walker's strike, "Cheyenne" spun off into two separate western series: "Bronco" and "Sugarfoot."
 
A freak skiing accident at Mammoth Mountain, Calif., almost claimed his life in 1971. Walker fell from a ski-lift chair and landed on a ski pole, puncturing his heart. Initially pronounced dead, doctors saved his life by repairing his heart.
 
Walker has been married three times. He married wife Verna Garver in 1948; they had one daughter, Valerie, two years later. After divorcing Garver in 1968, he married Giselle Hennesy and they stayed together until she died in 1994.
 

He is survived by his current wife Susan Cavallari, who he married in 1997, and daughter Valerie, who was one of the first two female pilots hired by Western Airlines, and the first to ascend to the rank of first officer.

12 comments:

  1. I am just learning of his death today after watching Cheyenne all morning and half of the afternoon. I'm heartbroken. Clint Walker was probably my most favorite TV western star. Growing up watching him every Saturday morning. Rest in peace "Cheyenne " as you wait in the arms of our Lord

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  2. He will be greatly missed. I knew his father from Aurora Mo.

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  3. I still look @Chayenne on Tv.What a hunk.Rest inPeace you still continue to thrill some of the younger generation

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  4. Clint Walker was the personification of an American hero. You were my hero as a kid and I still watch re-runs of Cheyenne today. God bless you and may you ride the trails in heaven.

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    1. Wonderful comment. I too, was sad at his passing. He personified the American Spirit.
      Thank you

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  5. He was so handsome and I loved watching him as Brody on Cheyenne! He will be missed by so many!

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  6. Adored this cowboy from 1961 when my aunt got a tv.....RIP BIG GENTLE MAN.....never forgotten

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  7. I was born in 1954 and never saw Cheyenne until 2019 and fell in love with Clint walker immediately. I’m still trying to watch all the episodes and anything else Clint Walker. His personal sincerity comes across the screen like a wonderful, soft, warm cloud. I felt this was not acting but the true nature of the man, honest, caring, smart, and humble. Added to that his gorgeous good looks and singing voice and oh my... what a package. There will never be another like him which makes me so sad. RIP Mr. Walker.

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    1. You are so right! There will never be another like him! Sad that he’s not here with us on earth anymore in these dark times.

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  8. The wife and I are in our early 60's. I was born in Texas,she in California. I watched Cheyenne with my Granddad as a boy. I can remember him calling my grandmother " Sugarfoot ". I know that Sugarfoot was a character on the series but, I think he called her that cuz she was so sweet. Now thanks to cable we sit and watch the Cheyenne Show every night after supper. And like all women she also thinks Mr. Walker is a " hunk". The only thing I have in common with Clint is our middle name but, when I put on my cowboy hat and start singing she can't tell the difference. Old cowboys don't die they just ride away into the sunset. You'll always "sit tall in the saddle" in our eyes.

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  9. He must have been proud of Valerie, making her way in what was a male only job and her dedication to martial arts. I watched Cheyenne as a kid and watch it now on the H&I Network.

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  10. He and my dad were of an age, and when I learned this big man on screen shared my first name, I just thought it was cool. However, over the years, in all those tv characters with this imposing figure, it was always his underlying gentleness and humility that impressed me. He could easily have been cocky and arrogant, but chose to act a gentle-man. God bless the few like him!

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