Prayers for the repose of Clarence Gilyard

[Denise]

I think I asked for prayers for Clarence a month or so ago. This article is from the Dallas Morning news where Fr. Paul Weinberger is mentioned and quoted. Clarence and his wife went to our parish in Dallas and when Fr. Paul was moved to Greenville Clarence and his wife would come out there. Please pray for the repose of his soul and for his family.

Clarence Gilyard, who co-starred with Chuck Norris in ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,’ dies at 66
Gilyard, 66, had been suffering from a long illness, according to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where he was a theater professor.

Clarence Gilyard was one of the regular cast members of the long-running television show "Walker, Texas Ranger."(MAHONEY, Jim / 151138)
By Tommy Cummings

1:22 PM on Nov 29, 2022


Clarence Gilyard, best known to Texans as the co-star on Walker, Texas Ranger, has died. He was 66.

Gilyard had been suffering from a long illness, the University of Nevada Las Vegas said in a statement released Monday. He was a theater professor at the university’s college of fine arts.

Gilyard studied acting at Cal State Dominguez Hills and landed his first role on the TV show Diff’rent Strokes in 1981.

His first movie role was in Top Gun (1986) playing Sundown, a naval flight officer. He also played the computer-terror expert Theo in Die Hard (1988). He appeared in 85 episodes of Matlock as Conrad McMasters, Andy Griffith’s private investigator.

From 1993 to 2001, he donned a cowboy hat and played James Trivette, a sidekick to Chuck Norris’ title character in Walker, Texas Ranger.

When the show ended, Gilyard took a sabbatical from acting and earned a master’s of fine arts in theater performance at Southern Methodist University, laying the groundwork for his teaching career.

“I’m wired to teach. And I’m a professional, but the profession has to feed the classroom,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2017. “It’s what stimulates my characters because I’m in touch with people’s lives in the 21st century.”

While in Dallas in 2004, Gilyard appeared in Kitchen Dog Theater’s Permanent Collection and starred in Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa! at SMU.

Gilyard moved from Los Angeles to North Texas but left behind his wife and two children. In 2001, he told The Dallas Morning News that living alone, he found it difficult to resist temptation and his marriage fell apart.


“I came into Dallas with all jets, all cylinders, all chambers of the gun firing,” he told The News. “But that kind of energy can last only a few months. I was working exhaustively, to the point of sleep deprivation.”

Co-star Sheree J. Wilson recognized that Gilyard was struggling.

“There was a point when it was obvious that Clarence was really troubled and just besieged by personal problems,” she told The News.

Gilyard, a Protestant, turned to Catholicism as a solution.

Among his closest advisers was Father John paper, parochial vicar at St. Ann Catholic Church in Coppell, where Gilyard moved after several years in a penthouse apartment on McKinney Avenue.

Another mentor to Gilyard was Father Paul Weinberger, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in Oak Cliff.

Weinberger said Gilyard’s outspoken stance against abortion was a risk for the actor, whom he praised.

“I’m a conservative, Catholic, Black actor,” Gilyard said in 2001. “There’s a lot that goes into that ... socially, spiritually, culturally.”

Weinberger said, “If people are disappointed about the reality of who Clarence Gilyard really is, they’re missing out on a good actor, a good man, a good Catholic.”

In a statement, Nate Bynum, one of Gilyard’s colleagues at UNLV, said Gilyard will be missed.

“Some may find it surprising to know that Clarence valued his appointment as a university professor as highly, maybe higher, then his illustrious career as a TV star,” Bynum said. “It was a major goal for him. He loved ... the students he instructed in his classroom. Gone too soon.”

[MarieT]

May Clarence, through the mercy of God's infinite goodness,
rest in eternal peace
Condolences to the family and may God continue to be with
them during their sorrow