Kevon Felmine

Trib­utes in words, mu­sic and dance were paid to Trinidad-born ac­tor Sul­li­van Walk­er dur­ing his fu­ner­al at the San Fer­nan­do Cre­ative Arts Cen­tre yes­ter­day. Among those bid­ding a fi­nal farewell were for­mer Cul­ture Min­is­ter Joan Yuille Williams, vet­er­an ra­dio and tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty Hol­ly Be­taudi­er, Sen­a­tor David Ab­du­lah and mas man Dawad Phillip.

Per­for­mances by the San Fer­nan­do Spe­cial Group, Arawak Dance Troupe and San­do Hand of Praise fea­tured dur­ing the ser­vice. Walk­er's daugh­ter, Keela, de­liv­ered a mov­ing eu­lo­gy in which she shared fond mem­o­ries of her fa­ther, who she de­scribed as a teacher, guide and her first ex­am­ple of what a man should be. "I don't know how to say good­bye to one who is half of my very rea­son for ex­ist­ing, how to let go of that bond that I as­sumed, re­gard­less of dis­tance, fu­elled my every breath," she said.

The ac­tor's wid­ow, Car­ol Mark-Walk­er, de­liv­ered her own teary trib­ute in which she ex­pressed sad­ness that Walk­er was not able to ful­fill his dream of re­turn­ing to Trinidad to es­tab­lished a school for arts. She touched many mourn­ers when she said: "Sul­li­van, I hope I was a good wife to you in the time that we were to­geth­er." Walk­er was born in Laven­tille on No­vem­ber 20, 1946, and was raised at Broad­way, San Fer­nan­do. He spent his ear­ly ca­reer as a teacher at the St Paul's An­gli­can School and be­came heav­i­ly in­volved in the­atre and the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion.

In the late 1960's he placed third in the pop­u­lar lo­cal tele­vi­sion tal­ent show Scout­ing for Tal­ent. He won a trip to New York which launched his in­ter­na­tion­al act­ing ca­reer. Walk­er fea­tured in movies such as Get Rich or Die Try­ing, Croc­o­dile Dundee and The Ex­ter­mi­na­tor and made guest ap­pear­ances on tele­vi­sion shows such as Law and Or­der SVU, The Pre­tender and The Jamie Foxx Show.