
Jay Silverheels
Biography
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.
Acting (68 movies)

The Feathered Serpent
1948

The Movie Orgy
1968

Texas John Slaughter: Geronimo's Revenge
1960

Tahiti Nights
1944

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing
1973

The Phynx
1970

One Little Indian
1973

Yankee Buccaneer
1952

Santee
1973

Captain from Castile
1947

Northern Pursuit
1943

The Phantom
1943

The Half-Breed
1952

Pistols 'n' Petticoats
1967

The Lone Ranger
1956

The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold
1958

Drums Across the River
1954

Tulsa
1949

The Black Dakotas
1954

Fury at Furnace Creek
1948

Red Mountain
1951

Saskatchewan
1954

The Girl from Monterrey
1943

Indian Paint
1965

The Wild Blue Yonder
1951

Jack McCall, Desperado
1953

Return to Warbow
1958

The Vanishing American
1955

Masterson of Kansas
1954

The Nebraskan
1953

In Pursuit of Treasure
1972

The Pathfinder
1952

The Cowboy and the Indians
1949

Four Guns to the Border
1954

Family Honeymoon
1948

Broken Arrow
1950

Brave Warrior
1952

War Arrow
1953

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1948

Sand
1949

True Grit
1969

The Battle at Apache Pass
1952

Walk the Proud Land
1956

The Legend Of The Lone Ranger
1952

The Ultimate Collection Starring Johnny Carson - The Best of the 60s and 70s
2002

Lust for Gold
1949

Key Largo
1948

Perils of Nyoka
1942

Kit Carson
1940

Gas House Kids Go West
1947

Laramie
1949

Last of the Comanches
1953

The Sea Hawk
1940

Too Many Girls
1940

Trail of the Yukon
1949

The Prairie
1947

This Woman Is Mine
1941

Western Union
1941

Singin' Spurs
1948

Valley of the Sun
1942

Smith!
1969

Yellow Sky
1948

Lost in a Harem
1944

Lone Ranger: Lost Episodes
2001

Alias Jesse James
1959

Cat Ballou
1971

The Lone Ranger: Who Was That Masked Man
2013

The Western: A Lost TV Special
1958
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