Here’s a strange piece of Hollywood history. In 1973, news went out that actor Clint Walker had died. It wasn’t true. He went on to live another 45 years.
Clint was a big name in his day. Tall, calm, and steady on screen, he became famous as Cheyenne Bodie in the Western series Cheyenne. For a while, he was one of the most recognized cowboys on television.
For the last 21 years of his life, one woman stood quietly beside him. Her name is Susan Cavallari. She was his third wife, and by far his longest-lasting marriage.
But here’s the thing. Susan is one of the most private spouses in Hollywood. She gave no interviews. She shared no stories. Almost nothing about her early life was ever made public.
That means her story is closely tied to his. In this article, we’ll cover how they met, their wedding, their rare nights out, Clint’s career and family, and where Susan is today. Let’s get started.
Who Is Susan Cavallari?
So who exactly is she? Susan Cavallari is the widow of American actor Clint Walker. They married in 1997 and stayed together until his death in 2018.
She was his third wife, and the last. Clint had married twice before, but neither of those marriages came close to the length of this one. Susan was with him for the final chapter of his long life.
What did she do before the marriage? That’s the honest gap in her story. Her career, her family, and her background were never shared publicly. No interviews, no profiles, nothing.
Susan Cavallari became known simply because of who she married. And unlike many people in that position, she never used the attention to build a public life of her own.
She stepped into the spotlight only when she chose to, and even then, rarely.
How She Met Clint Walker
So how did these two find each other? The couple are said to have met in Grass Valley, California.
If you don’t know it, Grass Valley is a small town in the northern part of the state. It sits in the Sierra Nevada foothills, far from the noise of Los Angeles. It’s the kind of place people move to when they want peace and quiet.
Clint had ties to the area already. He had lived on a small ranch there during his second marriage. After his second wife passed away in 1994, he stayed connected to that part of California.
The exact details of how they met were never shared. Was it through friends? A local spot in town? Nobody outside the family knows, and neither of them ever said.
By this point, Clint was in his late 60s. His biggest fame was decades behind him. Susan Cavallari met him well past his Hollywood peak, which says something about what drew them together.
Both clearly liked a quiet life. That shared preference shaped everything that followed.
Their Wedding and Marriage
Clint and Susan married on March 7, 1997. The ceremony took place in Sparks, Nevada.
Sparks sits right next to Reno, and it’s long been a popular spot for simple, low-key weddings. There’s no red carpet there, no press line. Just a quick, private ceremony — which fits this couple perfectly.
The marriage lasted more than 21 years. That’s worth pausing on. It was easily the longest of Clint’s three marriages, outlasting his first by several years and his second by more than a decade.
They never had children together. Clint already had a daughter from his first marriage, and Susan brought no children of her own into the public record.
What stands out most is how quiet they kept things. Over two decades of marriage, they barely surfaced in the press. No magazine spreads. No tell-all interviews. Just a long, steady life together, mostly away from cameras.
Their Rare Public Appearances
That said, they did step out now and then. And when they did, photographers were there.
Their earliest known appearance together came on August 5, 2000, in Beverly Hills. The two attended the 18th Annual Golden Boot Awards — a fitting event, since the Golden Boots honored people who worked in Western films and television.
Susan wore a black tasseled jacket with a white blouse. She paired it with black high-waist jeans and a silver chain belt. Clint matched her nicely in a white button-up shirt, black trousers, and a leather jacket.
Twelve years later, they appeared again in Beverly Hills. On September 22, 2012, the couple was photographed at a retro TV action-adventure event held at The Paley Center for Media.
Susan also showed up regularly on Clint’s Facebook page over the years. Looking through those photos, one thing becomes clear: the two shared a very similar sense of style, often turning up in matching tones.
Here’s the striking part. These few outings make up nearly the entire public record of Susan Cavallari. Two red carpets and some family photos, across a 21-year marriage.
Who Was Clint Walker?
To understand Susan’s story, it helps to know the man she married. Clint Walker was born Norman Eugene Walker in Hartford, Illinois. He later took the name Clint for the screen.
He wasn’t born alone. Clint had a twin sister named Lucille Westbrook. The two shared a birthday and a childhood in small-town Illinois. Lucille passed away in 2000. Their mother was Czech, adding a European thread to the family background.
Clint entered TV and film in the mid-1950s. And he stood out immediately, mostly because of his size. He was a big, broad-shouldered man who looked born to ride a horse.
But it wasn’t just his build. He had a calm, gentle screen presence that people warmed to. He didn’t shout or overact. That quiet strength became his trademark, and it made him perfect for Westerns.
His Career and Famous Roles
He played Cheyenne Bodie, a drifting cowboy with a strong sense of right and wrong. The show ran for seven seasons, from 1955 to 1963, and earned Emmy recognition along the way. It turned Clint into a household name.
There was one bump in the road. Clint left the show for a while over a contract dispute with Warner Bros. The studio replaced him with a lesser-known actor, but fans weren’t happy. He returned in early 1959 and stayed until the series ended.
He worked steadily in film too. In 1956 he appeared in the epic The Ten Commandments. In 1967 he took a role in the war classic The Dirty Dozen, alongside a stacked cast.
Later on, he came back to the role that made him. In 1995 he played Cheyenne Bodie again in the film Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, nearly 40 years after first taking on the part.
His last screen credit came in 1998, the year after he married Susan. He voiced a character named Nick Nitro in the adventure film Toy Soldiers, working opposite Kirsten Dunst, Jay Mohr, and Phil Hartman.
Clint Walker’s First Two Marriages
His first wife was Verna Lucille Garver. Clint was just 21 when they married — very young, and years before fame found him. Their daughter Valerie arrived soon after, in 1950. The marriage lasted about two decades before ending in divorce in 1968.
His second marriage began on May 26, 1974. His wife brought two children from an earlier marriage into the family. The couple settled on a small ranch in Grass Valley, California — the same town where Clint would later meet Susan Cavallari.
Sadly, that marriage ended in loss rather than divorce. She died of cancer in January 1994 and was buried in Culver City. Clint kept working through his grief, and three years later he married Susan.
One honest note here. The sources we reviewed give two completely different names for Clint’s second wife. One calls her Camille D’Arc; another calls her Giselle Hennessy. The dates match, but the names don’t. We’ve chosen not to state either as fact, since one is clearly wrong.
His Daughter, Valerie Walker
Clint had just one child: a daughter named Valerie Jean Walker, born in 1950.
Here’s what makes her interesting. She didn’t follow her famous father into acting. She went in a completely different direction — up into the sky.
Valerie became a professional pilot. By her late twenties, she was working as a second officer for Western Airlines. She also served as a flight engineer on the Boeing 727, a demanding technical role.
That was a real achievement for the time. Women were rare in commercial airline cockpits in the 1970s, so Valerie was breaking new ground while building her career.
She went on to fly for other commercial airlines as well. And when her father passed away in 2018, it was Valerie who publicly confirmed what had happened.
Clint Walker’s Death in 2018
Let’s return to that odd story from the opening. In 1973, reports went out that Clint Walker had died. The news was wrong. He was very much alive and went on to live another 45 years.
The real news came decades later. Clint died on May 21, 2018, at the age of 90. The cause was congestive heart failure — a condition where the heart gradually struggles to pump blood as it should.
He wasn’t alone at the end. Both Susan and his daughter Valerie were with him when he passed. After more than two decades of marriage, Susan Cavallari was right there beside him.
His estimated net worth at the time was around $4 million, built over many years of steady work. Cheyenne is widely considered his biggest contributor.
Ninety years is a long life. And for a man once wrongly declared dead in his forties, there’s something fitting about how much of it he got to live.
Where Is Susan Cavallari Today?
So what happened to Susan after 2018? The honest answer is that she stepped away almost completely.
She is still living, but she has stayed out of the media since her husband’s death. No interviews. No public statements. No appearances at industry events.
Reports say she helped manage her late husband’s estate after he passed. That would make sense after a 21-year marriage, though the details were never made public.
Where does she live now? What does she do with her days? Nobody outside her circle knows. There are also no confirmed public social media accounts under her name.
Some people in her position build a career from the connection. Susan Cavallari did the opposite. She was private before the marriage, private during it, and she’s stayed private since. That looks like a clear, deliberate choice.
Interesting Facts About Susan Cavallari and Clint Walker
- Clint was wrongly reported dead in 1973 — he lived another 45 years after that.
- Their marriage lasted over 21 years, the longest of Clint’s three marriages.
- They married in Sparks, Nevada, a small city near Reno known for quiet, simple weddings.
- The couple met in Grass Valley, California — the same town where Clint had lived on a ranch during his second marriage.
- Clint was in his late 60s when they met, decades past his Hollywood peak.
- Only two red carpet appearances are documented across their entire 21-year marriage.
- At the 2000 Golden Boot Awards, the pair matched in black and white — a look they repeated often.
- Clint had a twin sister, Lucille Westbrook, who passed away in 2000.
- His mother was Czech, giving the family a European connection.
- He briefly walked away from Cheyenne over a contract fight with Warner Bros., then returned in 1959.
Bottom Line
Susan Cavallari is the widow of Western TV legend Clint Walker. They met in the quiet California town of Grass Valley, married in Nevada in 1997, and stayed together for over 21 years — the longest marriage of his life.
She never sought fame. She gave no interviews and made only a handful of public appearances. When Clint died in 2018, she was at his side, and then she stepped quietly back out of view.
That means there’s very little confirmed information about her, and we’d rather tell you that plainly than fill the page with guesses. What we do know is straightforward: she shared two decades with a man who left a real mark on television, and she chose privacy over attention every step of the way.
(FAQs)
When did Susan Cavallari and Clint Walker marry?
They married on March 7, 1997, in Sparks, Nevada. The marriage lasted more than 21 years.
Did Susan Cavallari and Clint Walker have children?
No. They had no children together. Clint’s only child was his daughter Valerie, from his first marriage.
How old is Susan Cavallari?
Her age isn’t reliably known. Some websites list a birth year, but it appears on a single unreliable source with nothing to back it up.
Was Susan Cavallari an actress?
There’s no evidence she worked in entertainment. Her career and background before the marriage were never made public.
How did Clint Walker die?
He died of congestive heart failure on May 21, 2018, at age 90. Susan and his daughter Valerie were both with him.
