Jay Silverheels
Jay Silverheels was born on a reservation in Canada to a Mohawk chief. He was a star lacrosse player and a boxer before he entered films as a stuntman in 1938. He worked in a number of films though the 1940s before he gained some notice as the Osceola brother in Humphrey Bogart's film Key Largo (1948). Most of his roles consisted of bit parts as "Indian." In 1949, he would work in a movie called The Cowboy and the Indians (1949) with another "B movie" actor named Clayton Moore. It was later that same year that Jay would be hired to play the faithful Indian companion, Tonto, in the television series "The Lone Ranger" (1949). This role, while still playing the "Indian," would bring Jay the fame that his motion picture career never did. As Tonto, on his horse Scout, Jay could show up where the Ranger could not and some of the time he would be shot at or beat up for his trouble. Jay would play Tonto in all the episodes except for those that he missed when he had his heart attack. In those episodes, he was replaced by the Ranger's nephew, Dan. However, Clayton Moore would miss the third season when he was replaced by John Hart. Jay would reprise the role of Tonto in two big-screen color movies with Moore, The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958). After the series ended in 1957, Jay could not escape the typecasting of Tonto. He would continue to appear in an occasional film and television show, but he would become a spokesman to improve the portrayal of Indians on TV.
83 acting credits
Acting · 83
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962
The Virginian
1962
Daniel Boone
1964
Rawhide
1959
Cannon
1971
Wanted: Dead or Alive
1958
The Lone Ranger
1949
The Brady Bunch
1969
Branded
1965
True Grit
1969
Pistols 'n' Petticoats
1966
Gunslinger
1961
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1948
Broken Arrow
1950
The Movie Orgy
1968
Key Largo
1948
Western Union
1941
Yellow Sky
1948
Tulsa
1949
Alias Jesse James
1959
The Sea Hawk
1940
The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold
1958
The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing
1973
Red Mountain
1951
The Lone Ranger
1956
Lust for Gold
1949
Last of the Comanches
1953
Kit Carson
1940
The Battle at Apache Pass
1952
Yankee Buccaneer
1952
War Arrow
1953
The Black Dakotas
1954
Saskatchewan
1954
Smith!
1969
Northern Pursuit
1943
Captain from Castile
1947
The Nebraskan
1953
Walk the Proud Land
1956
This Woman Is Mine
1941
Family Honeymoon
1948
Santee
1973
Masterson of Kansas
1954
Sand
1949
Fury at Furnace Creek
1948
Too Many Girls
1940
Hudson's Bay
1940
The Wild Blue Yonder
1951
One Little Indian
1973
The Legend Of The Lone Ranger
1952
The Cowboy and the Indians
1949
The Pathfinder
1952
The Ultimate Collection Starring Johnny Carson - The Best of the 60s and 70s
2002
The Phynx
1970
Laramie
1949
Drums Across the River
1954
Brave Warrior
1952
Lost in a Harem
1944
In Pursuit of Treasure
1972
The Prairie
1947
Tahiti Nights
1944
The Vanishing American
1955
Valley of the Sun
1942
Four Guns to the Border
1954
Return to Warbow
1958
The Half-Breed
1952
The Phantom
1943
Indian Paint
1965
Perils of Nyoka
1942
Pistols 'n' Petticoats
1967
Jack McCall, Desperado
1953
Texas John Slaughter: Geronimo's Revenge
1960
Trail of the Yukon
1949
Cat Ballou
1971
A Different Drum
—
Singin' Spurs
1948
The Last Round-up
1947
I Am an American
1944
The Feathered Serpent
1948
The Girl from Monterrey
1943
The Lone Ranger: Who Was That Masked Man
2013
The Western: A Lost TV Special
1958
Lone Ranger: Lost Episodes
2001
Gas House Kids Go West
1947