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And then there was my third dinner
companion that night – the love of my life – Valerie Walker.
As I’ve previously mentioned, dear reader,
Val was the daughter of a famous actor. Oh goody!
Are you ready to play our little game? “Name That Celebrity.” Excellent!
Here are your clues:
For starters - you’ll
find our celeb’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1505 Vine Street – near
Sunset Boulevard. Need more clues? Here they are:
Our celeb
was born in Hartford and raised in Alton, Illinois, close to where Lewis and
Clark first crossed the Mississippi River.
He is a
quarter Cherokee and a Great Depression Era child, requiring him, at the tender
age of nine, to enter the labor market; working at carnivals doing odd jobs.
Though he grew to be massively built, he
never went out for football in high school, which he would have done well
at. Instead, when school let out at
4:P.M., he went to work at a foundry for a full 8-hour
shift.
Eventually
he left school at age 16, and at length wound up working riverboats on the
mighty Mississippi all the way down to New Orleans. W.W.II was raging and, as he reached the end
of his 17th year, he was about to become draft-bait - prompting him
to enlist in the U.S. Merchant Marine.
This could have been a fatal mistake. Because at the end of the war, when all the
tallies were in, the Merchant Marine had more fatalities than the Army, Air
Force, Navy or Marines! This is why
our boy experienced several close calls during his
service.
Following the war, he
continued doing odd jobs and married his high school sweetheart. In 1952 he ended up at the Sands Hotel
in Las Vegas - working security - living in a trailer with his wife and
two-year-old daughter.
Standing at six-foot-six,
with a 48-inch chest and 32-inch waist - topped off with jet-black hair and
piercing blue eyes – his chiseled good looks could have given Rock Hudson a run
for his money. Hollywood people - that
he bumped into at the Sands - kept telling him that he should be in the
movies. An agent even gave him his card
and told him to move to Hollywood. So he
packed up his wife and kid, and moved to L.A.
He worked as a bouncer at
the Rag Doll Club – allowing him to make the rounds of the studios for
interviews or possible “extra work.”
Till one day, when he was coming out of a Universal Studios’ acting
class, Cap Somers - an old bit actor and stuntman - stopped our
boy.
Cap Somers – WWI USMC Captain who
fought in France.
Cap had him get in touch with Henry Wilcoxon – a former matinee idol
from the 1930's and ‘40's - who was an associate producer with Cecil B.
DeMille.
Henry
Wilcoxon & Claudette Colbert – “Cleopatra”
1934.
Upon meeting our boy,
Wilcoxon liked what he saw, and set him up for an interview with the great man
himself: Cecil B. DeMille.
Cecil B. DeMille
On the day of the interview, our boy was
traveling in his 1946 Willys Jeep Station Wagon – maintained by himself with
spit, sweat and baling wire – wearing his only good sports coat, shirt and tie,
when he passed a lady in distress.
After he zipped past her,
his mind registered what it observed: a well-dressed, middle-aged lady in hat
and gloves, standing next to a late model sedan with a flat tire. Our boy slammed on the worn-out brakes,
parked, and walked back to the lady - changing her tire. She tried to pay him – but he refused –
getting her safely on her way.
Afterwards he cleaned up at a filling station - knowing in his heart he’d
blown the interview - as by now he was a very late.
Finally
reaching DeMille’s offices, he stepped inside the spacious, wood paneled
reception – but found no one behind the secretary’s desk.
However, DeMille’s door was open and he
spotted the “legend in his own time,” standing behind his desk, shuffling
papers. DeMille looked up, spied our boy
and motioned for him to come in - which he did.
Except before he could apologize for being tardy, DeMille snapped,
“You’re late, young man!”
“Y-Yes, sir...,” our boy
stammered, “m-may I explain why I’m late?”
“No...you may not!” DeMille snapped again. Then there was a very pregnant pause – while
our boy waited for the other shoe to drop - sensing his career as an actor being
flushed down the toilet.
At last
DeMille continued, “I know why you’re late.
You changed my secretary’s flat tire.
Sit down and relax...you’ve got the part.”
True to his word, DeMille cast him as the
“Sardinian Captain of the Guard” – and that’s how our boy appeared in the 1956
version of the biblical epic: The Ten
Commandments.
“Our Boy” at left with the horns.
He was scheduled to do a scene with Charlton
Heston and Yul Brynner.
Unfortunately, at the last moment DeMille decided to take his lines away
and cancel his scene – since Heston and Brynner, in DeMille’s words: “...would
look like stumps next to a sequoia.” Not
good box office.
Much
later, in 1971, while enjoying his stardom, our boy took an extended skiing
holiday at Mammoth Mountain, in California. Spending two weeks of solid skiing every day,
he was in top physical condition.
Following this - when he was going to start a run down a slope - a fan
loaned our celeb a set of newly-designed racing ski poles to try out. Unfortunately, they had a serious design
flaw: no straps on the handles.
Ski poles with straps.
Half way down the hill our boy took a spill.
One of the ski poles flew out in front of him
- lodging point upward in the snow - causing our celeb to impale himself on it!
The ski pole actually piercing his
heart! Then it popped out and he became
unconscious. Medics rushed him to the
backwater Bishop Hospital. Where the
medical staff was unable to figure out what was wrong with him – still clothed,
they couldn’t see his wound - prompting two local doctors to pronounce him
“dead.” And during this “dead” period he
experienced an NDE (Near Death Experience) – totally going out of his body –
seeing an astronaut’s view of the earth.
A Beverly
Hills heart specialist just happened to be visiting the hospital, as he was
considering retiring here and wanted to inspect the medical facilities. Spotting our boy in the ICU, the doc ran a
quick exam, discovered the wound, took command, cracked open our celeb’s chest
and saved his life!
Had he not been in
such excellent physical shape, he wouldn’t have survived. Merely two months passed when our boy –
fresh out of recovery - reported for work on the set of a film being shot in
Spain!
Okay, dear reader, enough with the
clues. Who am I talking about? There’s no pulling the wool over your eyes –
once again you’re absolutely correct.
Our “mystery celeb” is Clint Walker.
DeMille
had some big plans for Clint’s chiseled, matinee-idol dimensions in future
projects. Unfortunately DeMille went to
that immense sound stage in the sky before he could finance them.
The Ten
Commandments.
Fortunately,
Henry Wilcoxon, on a hunch, had Clint do a couple of screen tests in the Western
genre. In the meantime, Producer Hal
Wallis placed Clint on a six-month contract – but really wasn’t doing anything
with him. Warner Brothers, on the other
hand, was in a financial jam and wanted to try something new: a one-hour weekly
Western program for TV - when TV shows in the 1950's were limited to a
half-hour. Warners obtained
Clint’s screen tests – liked what they saw - and then bought his contract from
Hal Wallis. Thus the Cheyenne series
was born – Clint starring as “Cheyenne Bodie” – which ran from 1955 to 1962 and
put both Warner Brothers and Clint Walker on the TV map.
Cheyenne.
Clint went on to star in
21 major feature films and eleven TV shows – simply playing himself – a straight
arrow, humble hero and true gentleman. Here’s a
sample:
Fort
Dobbs – with Virginia
Mayo.
Yellowstone Kelly.
None But The Brave.
The Great Bank Robbery – with Kim
Novak.
The Dirty Dozen.
Send Me No Flowers – giving Rock Hudson
a run for his money.
Clint’s Star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame.
The following are family shots of Clint and
Valerie:
As I write this, it’s my
pleasure to say that Clint and I remained good friends, and the welcome mat was
always out for me at his home, until his passing on 21st May 2018.
Merely nine days short of his 91st birthday.
Clint and me –
2008.
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