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There always seemed to be a good reason in the script for actor Clint Walker to take his shirt off.
At 6'6" tall and 235 lbs he was naturally buff and renowned for working out on the sets of his films.
Born in 1927, he left school early to work on a riverboat. At 17 he joined the US Merchant Marine for the last few months of WWII. After the war, he worked as a nightclub bouncer and doorman at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.
His lucky break came in 1955 with the starring role on the TV show Cheyenne. This ran for 8 years and he even got to use his baritone singing voice on some episodes. The link below is an appearance on the Jack Benny show which I think shows why he would have been such a good Superman. He looks the part but also feels like him in some way.
During shooting of the famous war movie The Dirty Dozen, Muhammad Ali visited the set and spent some time talking with Walker.
Walker was known on the set for a physical stunt where he would grab the collars of two men, one in each hand, and heaved them both up off the ground.
With former pro footballer Jim Brown on the set of The Dirty Dozen
Here he is with Burt Reynolds in the 1969 film Sam Whiskey.
He was cast alongside some very pretty ladies
Including Angie Dickinson
And Doris Day
In 1971 he suffered a bizarre accident. While skiing at Mammoth he fell off a ski lift and one of his ski poles pierced his chest and entered his heart. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, but a doctor then detected faint signs of life and rushed him into emergency surgery, saving his life.
Walker was married three times and had a daughter Valerie, who became one of the first female airline pilots. He passed away in 2018 from heart failure, nine days before his 91st birthday.
