Actor and Author. He was an American actor, who will be best remembered by television viewers for his roles as both the private investigator Conrad McMasters on the popular 1990s courtroom drama "Matlock" and Jimmy Trivette on "Walker, Texas Ranger" from 1993 to 2001. Born Clarence Alfred Gilyard Jr. in Moses Lake, Washington, he studied drama at California State University, Long Beach and completed his bachelor's degree at California State University, Dominguez Hills before making his acting debut on the television series "Diff'rent Strokes" in 1981. Besides "Matlock" and "Walker, Texas Ranger," he also appeared in such series as "CHiPs," "The Duck Factory," "Riptide," "227" and "The Facts of Life." In 1986, he made his film debut in "Top Gun." He would later appear in such films as "Die Hard" in 1988, "Left Behind: The Movie" in 2000 and "Tribulation Force" in 2001. He also appeared in various theatrical productions through the years and taught theater at the Southeastern Louisiana University for a short time. For his role in "Walker, Texas Ranger," he received the 1999 Lone Star Film and Television Award and the 2000 NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. In 1999, he directed one episode on "Walker, Texas Ranger." During his career, he successfully published ten books, with the first being "The Dance of the Star" in 1990. He published his second book, "Instructors and Students," in 1992, following with "Eagle in a Cage" in 1996 and "Perfume at Night" in 1997. At the time of his passing, he was an associate professor at the College of Fine Arts in the Department of Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was married twice and had six children. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church at Christmas of 2001. A devout Catholic, Gilyard served as a board member of Holy Cross Family Ministries from 2004 until his death.