Lots of TV westerns had a wanderer as the protagonist hero. You could write a limitless variety of stories that way. Cheyenne with its laconic hero Cheyenne Bodie was the first of many westerns that Warner Brothers produced for television. Clint Walker, all 6'7" inches of him was an ideal cowboy hero. Unlikely he'd ever be cast with John Wayne because the Duke liked looking up to nobody.
Walker was in fact more suggestive of Gary Cooper than Wayne. If he had been born 20 years earlier he would have been a great B picture cowboy hero. In fact it was Warner Brothers who realized that the B western did not die, but moved to television. Cheyenne was the first of a dozen or so westerns that Warner Brothers did for television. The most successful of which was Maverick because it's star James Garner had the biggest career undoubtedly.
When Cheyenne ended its run Walker found that westerns on the big screen were in eclipse. Possibly he should have looked for another television series. His best known big screen movie role was one of The Dirty Dozen.
Too bad Cheyenne was not done in color. It would get a lot of run on the TV nostalgia channels. As for Walker his Cheyenne Bodie was a jack of all western trades and did them all in Cheyenne's run.
Clint Walker was a model cowboy hero and deserves to be remembered as such.
