Clint Walker: Left Behind

'End your day with a smile, a happy thought, and a grateful heart.'

Clint Walker

When my mother died a few years, I did a piece spotlighting her love or romance novels. (Tender Is The Storm)  I knew my mother read a lot of romance books, but was still surprised how many I found when cleaning and packing up her belongings.  There were hundreds of Harlequin's and other books tucked away in almost every room in the house.  

I again had to clean and pack with the recent death of my father.  This time, there wasn't really any one item that stood out to represent my father or who he was.  His eyesight made reading difficult and except for playing cards and exercising, he didn't have a lot of hobbies.  My father also didn't watch much television, except for maybe the evening news.  He loved sports, but preferred getting into bed and listening to a baseball or hockey game on the radio.

When I was younger however, I do remember that when he did watch a movie, it was a western.  Over the years, I bought him many movies on VHS and DVD, usually featuring John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.  I bought those not only because he liked them, but they were the only two actors I really knew who starred in westerns.  Given my dad basically stopped watching movies years ago, most of them had long ago been thrown out or given away.  Except one...

While I was cleaning out the house, I found one VHS western, tucked and long forgotten behind the cable box in the television cabinet.  It's title was The Night Of The Grizzly.  Given it was on VHS, I didn't really think twice about tossing it in the garbage bag I was using.  As Father's Day approached this year, for some reason that movie was on my mind.  I felt compelled to do a little Googling...

The hunky actor clutching the rifle on the box cover turned out to be Clint Walker, and a quick Google search had me realizing he sort of epitomized what was meant by the term beefcake.  Walker's solid frame and square hairy chest was obviously coveted by many movie goers during his long career.  It wasn't a mystery the studios knew it given how many 'beefcake' photos he appeared in and how often he was shirtless in both his films, and the promotional material used to sell the tickets. 

Walker's sturdy build came from a lifetime of hard work beginning when he was just a kid.  He left school early to work, working in factories and on a riverboat.  At 17, he joined the Merchant Marines just as World War II was coming to an end.  After the war, he caught the eye of talent agent Henry Wilson who made use of Walker's great physique by casting him as a Tarzan like character in his first film, 1954's  Jungle Gents.  Two years later, Walker appeared in the classic The Ten Commandments.

Walker's good looks and imposing physique (he stood 6 feet, 6 inches tall with a 48-inch chest and a 32-inch waist) helped him land an audition and win the the lead role in the TV series Cheyenne. (1955-1963)  After Cheyenne was cancelled, walker moved to films mostly appearing in Westerns and action films including 1966's The Night of the Grizzly.  Walker continued acting with his last appearances being on television in the late 1990's. 

I have to thank my father, and that VHS cover, for my introduction to Walker, a truly grade A cut of beef.  I enjoyed looking for images of him, and although I haven't watched it yet, do plan on finding a copy of The Night Of The Grizzly to find out why, of all the movies my father owned, that VHS tape was the one left behind.