Jay Silverheels (born Harold Preston Smith, May 26, 1912 - March 5, 1980) was a Mohawk Canadian actor and athlete. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful Indian companion of the Lone Ranger in the long-running American western television series The Lone Ranger.
Video Jay Silverheels
Early life
Silverheels was born Harold Preston Smith in Canada, on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, 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 Somme and Ypres during World War I, and later was an adjutant training Polish-American recruits for the Blue Army (Poland) for service in France, at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
Maps Jay Silverheels
Athlete
Silverheels excelled in athletics, most notably in lacrosse, before leaving home to travel around North America. In the 1930s, he played indoor lacrosse as Harry Smith with the "Iroquois" of Rochester, New York in the North American Amateur Lacrosse Association. He lived for a time in Buffalo, New York, and in 1938 placed second in the Middleweight class of the Golden Gloves tournament. Silverheels was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame as a veteran player in 1997.
Actor
Films
While playing in Los Angeles on a touring box lacrosse team in 1937, Silverheels impressed Joe E. Brown, with his athleticism. Brown encouraged him to do a screen test, which led to his acting career. Silverheels began working in motion pictures as an extra and stunt man in 1937. He was billed variously as Harold Smith and Harry Smith, and appeared in low-budget features, westerns, and serials. He adopted his screen name from the nickname he had as a lacrosse player. From the late 1940s, he played in major films, including Captain from Castile starring Tyrone Power, I Am an American (1944), Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart (1948), Lust for Gold with Glenn Ford (1949), Broken Arrow (1950) with James Stewart, War Arrow (1953) with Maureen O'Hara, Jeff Chandler and Noah Beery, Jr., The Black Dakotas (1954) as Black Buffalo, Drums Across the River (1954), Walk the Proud Land (1956) with Audie Murphy and Anne Bancroft, Alias Jesse James (1959) with Bob Hope, and Indian Paint (1964) with Johnny Crawford. He made a brief appearance in True Grit (1969) as a condemned criminal about to be executed. He played a substantial role as John Crow in Santee (1973), starring Glenn Ford. One of his last roles was a wise white-haired chief in The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973).
Television
Jay Silverheels achieved his greatest fame as Tonto on The Lone Ranger. The fictional story line maintains that a small group of Texas Rangers were massacred, with only a "lone" survivor. The Lone Ranger and Tonto then ride throughout the West to assist those challenged by the lawless element. Their expenses and bullets are provided through a silver mine owned by The Lone Ranger, who also names his horse "Silver". Being irreplaceable in his role, Silverheels appeared in the film sequels: The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958).
When The Lone Ranger television series ended, Silverheels found himself firmly typecast as a Native American. On January 6, 1960, he portrayed a Native American fireman trying to extinguish a forest fire in the episode "Leap of Life" in the syndicated series, Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries.
Eventually, he went to work as a salesman to supplement his acting income. He also began to publish poetry inspired by his youth on the Six Nations Indian Reserve and recited his work on television. In 1966, he guest-starred as John Tallgrass in the short-lived ABC comedy/western series The Rounders, with Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne, and Chill Wills.
Despite the typecasting, Silverheels in later years often poked fun at his character. In 1969, he appeared as Tonto without The Lone Ranger in a comedy sketch on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The sketch was featured on the 1973 record album Here's Johnny: Magic Moments From The Tonight Show. "My name is Tonto. I hail from Toronto and I speak Esperanto." In 1970, he appeared in a commercial for Chevrolet as a Native American chief who rescues two lost hunters who ignored his advice in that year's Chevy Blazer. The William Tell Overture is heard in the background.
Silverheels hilariously spoofed his Tonto character in a famous Stan Freberg Jeno's Pizza Rolls TV commercial opposite Clayton Moore, and in The Phynx, opposite John Hart, both having played The Lone Ranger in the original television series.
He appeared in three episodes of NBC's Daniel Boone, starring Fess Parker as the real life frontiersman.
His later appearances included an episode of ABC's The Brady Bunch, as a Native American who befriends the Bradys in the Grand Canyon, and in an episode of the short-lived Dusty's Trail, starring Bob Denver of Gilligan's Island.
In the early 1960s, Silverheels supported the Indian Actors Workshop, where Native American actors refined their skills in Echo Park, California. Today the workshop is firmly established.
Personal life
Jay 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 girls (Marilyn, Pamela and Karen) and a boy Jay Anthony Silverheels, who later became an actor.
Death
Silverheels suffered a stroke in 1976, and the following year, Clayton Moore rode a paint horse in Silverheels' honor in the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade. Silverheels died on March 5, 1980, from complications of a stroke, at age sixty-seven, in Calabasas, Los Angeles County, California. He was cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory, and his ashes were returned to the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.
Legacy
In 1993, Jay 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, Jay 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.
Selected filmography
- Gas House Kids Go West (1947)
- Unconquered - Indian (uncredited) (1947)
- Fury at Furnace Creek (uncredited) (1948)
- Key Largo - Tom Osceola (uncredited) (1948)
- Trail of the Yukon (1949)
- Laramie - Running Wolf (uncredited) (1949)
- The Cowboy and the Indians" - Lacona (1949)
- Broken Arrow - Geronimo (uncredited) (1950)
- Red Mountain - Little Crow (1951)
- The Story of Will Rogers - Joe Arrow (1952)
- Brave Warrior - Tecumseh (1952)
- The Legend of the Lone Ranger - Tonto (1952)
- The Pathfinder - Chingachgook (1952)
- "Saskatchewan (1954) Cajou with Alan Ladd
- The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1955, TV Movie) - Tonto
- The Vanishing American (1955) - Beeteia
- The Lone Ranger (1956) - Tonto
- Walk the Proud Land (1956) - Geronimo
- Return to Warbow (1958) - Indian Joe
- The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958) - Tonto
- Alias Jesse James (1959) - Tonto (uncredited)
- Indian Paint (1965) - Chief Hevatanu
- Smith! (1969) - McDonald Lasheway
- True Grit (1969) - Condemned Man at Hanging (uncredited)
- The Phynx (1970) - Tonto
- In Pursuit of Treasure (1972)
- One Little Indian (1973) - Jimmy Wolf
- The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) - The Chief
- Santee (1973) - John Crow
Television
- The Lone Ranger - 217 episodes - Tonto (1949-1957)
- Wide Wide World - episode - The Western - Himself (1958)
- Wanted: Dead or Alive - episode - Man on Horseback - Charley Red Cloud (1959)
- Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color - episode - Texas John Slaughter: Apache Friendship & Texas John Slaughter: Geronimo's Revenge - Natchez (1960)
- Gunslinger - episode - The Recruit - Hopi Indian (1961)
- Wagon Train - episode - Path of the Serpent - The Serpent (1961)
- Rawhide - episode - The Gentleman's Gentleman - Pawnee Joe (1961)
- Laramie - episode - The Day of the Savage - Toma (1962)
- Daniel Boone - episode - Mountain of the Dead - Chenrogan (1964)
- Daniel Boone - episode - The Quietists - Latawa (1965)
- Branded - episode - The Test - Wild Horse (1965)
- Daniel Boone - episode - The Christmas Story - Sashona (1965)
- Gentle Ben - episode - Invasion of Willie Sam Gopher - Willie Sam Gopher (1967)
- The Virginian - episode - The Heritage - Den'Gwatzi (1968)
- The Brady Bunch - episode - The Brady Braves - Chief Eagle Cloud (1971)
- The Virginian - episode - The Animal - Spotted Hand (1971)
- Cannon - episode - Valley of the Damned - Jimmy One Eye (1973)
- CHiPs -episode-Poachers (1980)
See also
- Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Bibliography
- Lamparski, Richard (1970). Whatever Became Of...?. 3. New York: Ace Book. OCLC 8977472.
- Misiak, Zig (2013). Tonto: The Man in Front of the Mask (Biography). self published. p. 128. ISBN 978-0981188065.
External links
- The Rise and Fall of Jay Silverheels @WFMU
- Jay Silverheels tribute site
- Jay Silverheels on IMDb
- Biographical Information
- Screen Legends
- Jay Silverheels at Find a Grave
- Western Stars Quick Quiz on Jay Silverheels
- Amctv.com article on Silverheels and Western Sidekicks
- Jay Silverheels Biography;Tonto: The Man in Front of the Mask
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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