Jay Silverheels

He is best remembered for his role of 'Tonto', the faithful Indian companion of the 'Lone Ranger'. Born Harold J. Smith, at the Six Nations Indian Reservation in Ontario, Canada, to a Mohawk Chief, he excelled in sports during high school, and became a noted Lacrosse player, before entering films as a stuntman in 1938. After military service in World War II, he returned to films, landing small roles, usually as stereotyped Indians, in such films as "Canyon Passage" (1946), "Northwest Outpost" (1947), "The Last Roundup" (1947), "Captain from Castile" (1947), "The Prairie" (1947), "Yellow Sky" (1949), and many other B-movies. In 1949, he played in the movie "The Cowboy and the Indians" with actor Clayton Moore, and together, they were both hired to play the roles of the Lone Ranger and his Indian friend, Tonto, in the television series, "The Lone Ranger." Silverheels played the role during the entire period from 1949 to 1957, even when Clayton Moore was replaced one season by John Hart (1952 to 1953), winning respectability for Indians at a time when most Hollywood movies and television portrayed them as the bad guys. He reprised the role of Tonto for the two Lone Ranger movies, "The Lone Ranger" (1955) and "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold" (1958). When the series ended in 1957, Silverheels found his fame as Tonto overshadowed everything else he did, and he continued to reprise the role in commercials, guest spots, and small bit parts. Later films include "True Grit" (1969), "Cat Ballou" (1965), "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing" (1973), and "One Little Indian" (1973). In later years, he became a spokesman for Indian rights and a respected teacher within the Indian acting community, appearing on talk shows and variety shows. In his late years, he became a harness racer, giving it up only as his health began to fail, in the mid-1970s. He died of a stroke in 1980 in Woodland Hills, California. His son, Jay Silverheels, Jr, has become a television actor in his father's footsteps. In 1993, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers in the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson

Silverheels was born Harold Jay Smith in Canada, on the Six Nations of the Grand River, near Hagersville, Ontario. He was a grandson of Mohawk Chief A. G. Smith and Mary Wedge, and one of the 11 children of Captain Alexander George Edwin Smith, MC, Cayuga, and his wife Mabel Phoebe Doxtater, also a Mohawk. His father was wounded and decorated for service at the Battle of the Somme and Ypres during World War I, and later was an adjutant training Polish-American recruits for the Blue Army for service in France, at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Silverheels

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Jay Silverheels was a First Nations actor. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful Native American companion of the character, The Lone Ranger in a long-running American western television series.

In 1993, Silverheels was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was named to the Western New York Entertainment Hall of Fame, and his portrait hangs in Buffalo, New York's Shea's Buffalo Theatre. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6538 Hollywood Boulevard. First Americans in the Arts honored Jay Silverheels with their Life Achievement Award.

In 1997, Silverheels was inducted, under the name Harry "Tonto" Smith, into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in the Veteran Player category in recognition of his lacrosse career during the 1930s.

Silverheels raised, bred and raced Standardbred horses in his spare time. Once, when asked about possibly running Tonto's famous Paint horse Scout in a race, Jay laughed off the idea: "Heck, I can outrun Scout!"
Married in 1945, Silverheels was the father of three boys and a girl.