RIP Clint Walker

Veteran American actor Clint Walker died of heart failure in Grass Valley, California on May 21, 2018. He would have been 91 on May 30. Born Norman Eugene Walker in Hartford, Illinois on May 30, 1927, he was discovered as a doorman and security guard working in Las Vegas in the mid-1950s. He was hired to portray Cheyenne Bodie on the Warner Brothers TV series Cheyenne (1955-1962). Clint at 6’6” was a mountain of a man and a favorite of the kids. His career was just starting to expand into films when he had a freak accident while skiing at Mammoth Mountain in 1971. In a fall from a ski lift, Walker was pierced through the heart with his ski pole. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. However, a doctor detected faint signs of life and rushed Walker to surgery, where his damaged heart was repaired. Within two months, Walker was working again. He would go on to appear in over 40 films and TV series often portraying the Cheyenne character. Clint appeared in only one Euro-western as Scotty in 1972’s “Pancho Villa” starring Telly Savalas.