Jay Silverheels

Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1993.

On Thursday, July 17, 1979, at noon, Jay Silverheels received a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame dedication ceremony. In a wheelchair, Mr. Silverheels attended this special Hollywood event. During the ceremony, a native-American group, in full-Indian attire, danced around his star. Due to a stroke, Mr. Silverheels could not speak well. He mumbled a few words of thanks. It was a small group, which included comedian Jonathan Winters and actor Steven A. Fredrick. [Source: Steven A. Fredrick].

On The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), Silverheels told Johnny Carson that he had married his Italian wife to “get back at Christopher Columbus”. They called their children “Indalions”.

Was a high school physical education teacher in California during the late 1960s.

Silverheels recreated 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).

In 1949, he worked in the movie The Cowboy & The Indians – A Gene Autry Christmas Western (1949) with another “B movie” actor Clayton Moore.

Later that year, Silverheels was hired to play the faithful Indian companion, Tonto, in the TV series The Lone Ranger (1949) series, which brought him the fame that his motion picture career never did.

Reportedly beat out 35 other actors to win the Tonto role in the initial radio version of “The Lone Ranger”, which he had been invited to audition for based on his appearance in Key Largo (1948).

Of the nearly 200 TV and film appearances Silverheels made with Clayton Moore, the actors co-starred in just 4 features where they did NOT play Tonto and The Lone Ranger: Perils of Nyoka (1942), The Cowboy & The Indians – A Gene Autry Christmas Western (1949), Cyclone Fury (1951) and The Black Dakotas (1954).

He worked in a number of films through the 1940s before gaining notice as the Osceola brother in a Humphrey Bogart film Key Largo (1948). Most of Silverheels’ roles consisted of bit parts as an Indian character.

Jay Silverheels was born on Canada’s Six Nation’s Reserve and was one of 10 children. He was a star lacrosse player and a boxer before he entered films as a stuntman in 1938.

U.S. government records give Silverheels’ birthdate as 26 June 1912, though virtually all cinema reference works disagree, giving instead the 1919 date listed here.