BY JOE ELLIOTT
Long-time
Grass Valley, California resident (Norman Eugene) Clint Walker
starred in the iconic television western Cheyenne from 1955-1963. This was
the golden era of TV westerns, with dozens of similar shows airing around the
same time.
Like their big screen counterparts, TV
cowboys were usually handsome, brave, resourceful and of course good with a
gun. However, there was something a bit
different about the Cheyenne Bodie character as Walker portrayed him. He fit
the genre all right. A big, handsome man built like an oak tree (6’6â€, 48-inch
chest, 32-inch waist), he rode easy in the saddle and looked better than almost
anybody in a Stetson and boots. Men who doubted his resolve always ended up
regretting it. Ladies looked his way. Still, despite never violating the
conventions of the formula, Walker somehow managed to make the sum of his
character add up to more than its parts.
Knowing perhaps from fan mail that young boys
comprised a large part of the Cheyenne
audience, the writers frequently stocked their scripts with gentle morals.
Often as not it was a lesson about tolerance of others, especially others
unlike ourselves. Oh sure, the bad guys
almost always ended-up dead in the end, as was to be expected. Cheyenne was in at least one obligatory fight
per episode, frequently letting his huge fists do his talkin’ for him. The producers more and more frequently showed
him bare-chested (the money shot for the growing number of females in the
audience).
Yet, none of this is really what most fans
of the show remember. What we remember is the man himself, his down-to-earth
persona and quiet sense of humor, his willingness to bend when necessary but
never sacrifice his core principles. And something more: the decency and
kindness with which he treated others, especially the down-and-out, the town
drunk or the old man who everybody poked fun at. Clint Walker in the role of
Cheyenne Bodie helped teach, if only in a small way, a generation of young
American males that being a man wasn’t just about being tough. It was also
about sticking to your word, lending a helping hand when needed, and practicing
that most ancient of all western codes: whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.
Joe
Elliott
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I recently spoke with James Drury about his old pal Clint
Walker. Drury played the title role in one of the most popular and
longest-running television westerns in history, The Virginian.
“I first met Clint on the set of Cheyenne,†Drury told me. “I did the show with him and we hit it off and
have been good friends ever since. That’s the way it worked sometimes. You’d walk
onto a set and meet somebody and you’d become friends for life. I don’t think I actually worked with Clint in
the acting field again until more recently when we did a Kung Fu: The Legend Continues episode with David Carradine. However,
we have worked in many other venues together. Within the last few years we’ve
attended a lot of film festivals. I
always try to sit next to Clint any time I can because I get the overflow from
his crowd. He draws more people at a film festival and autograph session than
just anybody. He usually has a line around the block. He has immense and well
deserved popularity.â€
I asked Drury about any parallels between
the character Clint Walker played on TV and the real man. “I believe Clint patterned the Cheyenne Bodie character
after his own personality,†he told me. “What you see is what you get with him.
He lets it (his personality) work for him every day of his life and people love
him for it. He’s a wonderful gentleman
and a wonderful human being, he really is. He’s always doing everything he can
to help everybody else. Whatever is going on, he’s there to help. I’m always
willing to talk about him because he is such a dear friend and gentleman.â€
“You know it takes a lot of physical
strength to do a western,†Drury continued. “Both mental and physical strength to
do all the things you have to do on horseback and the other tasks. Westerns are make-believe but we actually had
to do the work as well. If we were pretending to be digging a cesspool, then we
were digging a cesspool. You had to get down there and do it, whatever it was.
Clint had done all sorts of physical labor
before becoming an actor and built up a tremendous amount of strength. Then he
got into the body building. He made his own weights out of cement. He put
cement in two five gallon cans and stuck a pipe in both ends and made a barbell.
I’m sure he could lift a D12 tractor if he felt like it. He’s got to be one of
the strongest men I ever met. Incidentally, someone told me just the other day
they had measured Clint’s draw with a six-gun and he was among the fastest
there was. I just heard that recently, though it doesn’t surprise me.â€
I asked James Drury about the traditional
American values reflected in the Cheyenne
series as well as shows like The Virginian and The Rifleman. “As my friend Richard Farnsworth used to say, that
early part of our (country’s) history was our Camelot. It’s the time we look back to when integrity,
honesty, loyalty and true friendship were qualities people went out of their
way to share and have because the conditions were so terribly difficult you had
to take care of your fellow man, and he had to take care of you. People had the
tendency to make friends and keep them. There’s a little saying from the Cowboy Way that goes, If it’s not true, don’t say it; if it’s not
yours, don’t take it; if it’s not right, don’t do it.â€
Good words to live by and, according to
someone who has known him for over fifty years, fitting ones for Clint Walker,
both the actor and the man.
In 2004 Clint Walker was inducted into the Hall of Great Western
Performers at the National Cowboy &
Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Joe Elliott is an
educator and writer who lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Joe Elliott
828.687.0734
jpelliott16@aol.com