Clint Walker, R.I.P.

I just heard that Clint Walker passed away. He was a large part of my childhood, looking forward to the adventures of Cheyenne Body Bodie.

Walker's daughter Valerie Walker tells The Associated Press that her father died Monday of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Grass Valley, California at age 91.

I'll share one little anecdote that you probably won't see anywhere else. I was watching the old Tonight show, with Pat Boone guest hosting for Johnny Carson. One of his guests was Clint Walker. Pat brought up the fact that Clint had been in a near fatal skiing accident, where he was impaled with a ski pole. Pat, an avid evangelical, was pressing Clint to tell the audience of some near death experience, a bright light or some such, and Clint, looking somewhat uncomfortable with the line of questioning, responded with stone faced, monosyllabic answers, mostly "no". Pat, not receiving the kind of response he had hoped for finally moved on.

Whether his experience was just too highly personal to share on national television, or founded on a different theology or cosmology, Clint wasn't going to play Pat's game. He was a giant of a man...6'6" with a 48" chest. He cast a very large shadow. Gone at 91. RIP, Clint.