WALKER-NORMAN

FROM  MERCHANT  MARINE  SAILOR

TO  FAMOUS  MOVIE  ACTOR

Norman Eugene Walker was born May 30, 1927, in Hartford, Illinois.  He quit school at 16 to find jobs, first in a local factory, then on riverboats before making his way to the merchant marine where he worked on the ore ships that plied the Great Lakes.  In 1948 he married and had a daughter.  The family moved to Long Beach, California, where Walker worked as a port security guard and a nightclub bouncer.  He then moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was a deputy sheriff providing security at the Sands Hotel.  It was there that actor Van Johnson suggested that he explore acting and in 1954 he had his first role in a movie.  Warner Bros. renamed him Clint Walker and in 1955 his good looks and imposing physique (6-feet, 6-inches tall and 32-inch waist) helped him land the lead role in the TV series Cheyenne which played until 1963.  Following this successful run, Walker was cast in numerous movies until 1998.  Walker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 2004 was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  In 1997 he also received a Golden Boot Award.  Nine days before his 91^st birthday, Norman Eugene “Clint” Walker died on May 21, 2018, due to congestive heart failure.  He is survived by his wife and daughter.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)