Old cowboys never die.
Take Cheyenne Bodie, for instance. The larger-than-life Army scout roamed the West — or at least the West of the TV screen — in the late 1950s, lending a helping hand wherever he went. The epitome of the strong, silent cowboy, Bodie, played by equally big (6 feet, 6 inches) Clint Walker, rode off into the sunset after eight seasons.
"But those old shows are running again on cable. I still get fan mail from all over the world," Walker said during a telephone interview from his home in California.
Walker isn't surprised that old Westerns still strike a chord with viewers. "They represented a time when we had more freedom. It wasn't always easy, but in that day and age if you had the gumption and good fortune to survive, you could accomplish a good deal. If you were willing to work, you could carve a place out of the wilderness."
Walker will be honored for his portrayal of Western heroes at this year's Western Legends Roundup in Kanab, where he will be on hand to receive a plaque on the "Little Hollywood Walk of Fame."
Also honored will be John Wayne (posthumously), Charlton Heston (his son will accept the award) and Adrian Booth (who was planning to come until she recently fell and broke her hip).
The festival honors the legacy of the Western, said Brad Hainsworth, Kanab City Councilman, author and member of the Western Legends board of directors. "There aren't many places where you can find the Old West. Kanab is one of the few places where you can come into town, and as you look at those marvelous vermillion mountains, and you get a sense of what it was like."
Activities this year will include Western folklore and crafts workshops, the Cowboy Poetry Rodeo, Dutch oven cook-off, fiddle contest, wagon train, parade, an old-fashioned cowboy church, food vendors, a Western film festival, lectures, movie-set tours and panel discussions This year's entertainers include Riders in the Sky, Baxter Black, Jim "Curly" Musgrave, Belinda Gail, Brenn Hill.
In many ways the Old West was a mythical time. "But we need those myths. We need to keep them alive."
Now in its fifth year, the festival honors stars who made their mark in Westerns and who worked in Kanab.
John Wayne only made one movie in Kanab, "but for John Wayne, that's all you need," said Hainsworth. "He's the epitome of the Western. And there are certain names that just have to be in our Walk of Fame." Past honorees include Tom Mix, Dale Evans, the cast of "Gunsmoke," Ben Johnson, Dale Robertson and Robert Fuller.
The era of the Western is dying off, said Hainsworth. "And that's too bad. We need to honor it while we can. Two people who just had no right to die were John Wayne and Louis L'Amour."
Hainsworth is excited that Walker will be honored this year. "Cheyenne" was television's first hourlong Western and set the standard for numerous others.
Walker, who grew up in a Mississippi River town in Illinois, took a circuitous route to Hollywood. In 1950, he and his wife and daughter migrated to Texas and California, where he made a living doing construction work, punching cattle, selling encyclopedias and in any other way he could.
He eventually ended up in Las Vegas, working as a deputy sheriff and as a nightclub bouncer. Entertainers there encouraged him to try movie work, and he landed a small role in "The Ten Commandments." Then came a contract with Warner Bros. and "Cheyenne."
Walker remembers filming "Fort Dobbs" in Kanab. "It wasn't very big, but it was a special little town. Beautiful country. And the people were so nice."
At the time (August 1957), he joked with a Deseret News reporter about the fact that the doors of the Parry Lodge where he was staying "weren't cut tall enough." And he complained about some of the tall tales that were circulating about him. "Somebody said I could bend a horseshoe like an ordinary man could bend a hairpin. I hid for two weeks in case somebody asked me to do it."
Nowadays, that's behind him. But he stays busy. He recently finished co-writing a Western novel titled "Yaqui Gold," and he's been designing workout equipment. He also maintains a Web site www.clintwalker.com, where he keeps in touch with his fans.
Walker still gets movie offers, is currently considering a script that "looks pretty good." He had another offer for a movie in Spain, "but it was just loaded with four-letter words. I told them if they cleaned up the language, I might be interested. They didn't want to do that." He said he is proud of being a Christian. "That's an important part of my life. But if you're going to be a Christian, you have to be one 100 percent of the time."
That's one reason he doesn't watch much TV these days. "Everything seems to be oriented around sex, as if that's all there is to life." "Cheyenne" wasn't like that, he said. It dealt with all kinds of issues. "Westerns had a morality to them."
Cowboys live on because they were big in more ways than one, he said. "What really counts is how big you are on the inside.
"You have to live by some code. Morality is the golden thread that holds society together."
And in the old Westerns, "there was always a moral that you could take away and place in your basket of ways to live your life."
If you go
What: The Fifth Annual Western Legends Round-Up
Where: Kanab
When: Wednesday-Aug. 24
How much: Ticket package prices vary
Phone: 435-644-5033
Web: www.westernlegendsroundup.com
E-mail:kane@westernlegendsroundup.com
E-MAIL: carma@desnews.com