Norman Eugene Walker, better known as Clint Walker, was born in Hartford, Illinois, to Gladys Huldah Schwanda, a Czech immigrant, and Paul Arnold Walker, from Arkansas. Growing up during the Depression era, Walker's early life was marked by taking on various jobs to make ends meet, including working as a Mississippi River boatman, carnival roustabout, and golf caddy. He quit high school at the age of 16 and at 17 joined the Merchant Marine.
After the war, Walker worked his way across the country, including stints in the oil fields in Texas and as an undercover agent for a private detective agency on the Long Beach waterfront. He eventually found himself working as a security officer at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, where he met numerous Hollywood personalities who encouraged him to pursue an acting career.
It was Henry Wilcoxon, an actor, who introduced Walker to director Cecil B. DeMille, leading to his role as a Captain of the Guard in The Ten Commandments (1956). This exposure caught the attention of Warner Bros., who subsequently acquired Walker's contract and cast him as the lead in the popular western series "Cheyenne". The show's massive success spawned numerous other western series from Warner Bros. and other studios.
However, Walker grew dissatisfied with the way Warner Bros. was handling his career, feeling that other contract players were being given more opportunities than him. This led to a dispute that ultimately resulted in him leaving the show. After settling his differences with Warner Bros., Walker transitioned to supporting roles in feature films, with his most notable and successful performance being in The Dirty Dozen (1967).
Walker also appeared in The Night of the Grizzly (1966) and None But the Brave (1965),a World War II film that marked Frank Sinatra's directorial debut. He went on to star in Baker's Hawk (1976) and delivered a standout performance as a villain in the TV movie Scream of the Wolf (1974). In recent years, Walker and several of his "Dirty Dozen" colleagues lent their voices to the animated film Small Soldiers (1998).
