Jay Silverheels

Known for ActingBorn 1912-05-26Died 1980-03-05Six Nations Reservation, Brantford, Ontario, Canada

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.Read more

Movies & web series

In Pursuit of Treasure

Tahiti Nights

Texas John Slaughter: Geronimo's Revenge

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The Girl from Monterrey

Perils of Nyoka

Pistols 'n' Petticoats

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

True Grit

Trail of the Yukon

Key Largo

Rawhide

The Last Round-up

Cat Ballou

Captain from Castile

Daniel Boone

The Sea Hawk

Wanted: Dead or Alive

The Half-Breed

The Wild Blue Yonder

The Cowboy and the Indians

Singin' Spurs

Yellow Sky

Branded

The Brady Bunch

Cannon

The Movie Orgy

The Lone Ranger

Laramie

The Vanishing American

Red Mountain

Broken Arrow

The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold

The Virginian

One Little Indian

The Phantom

The Battle at Apache Pass

Gas House Kids Go West

The Prairie

The Legend Of The Lone Ranger

Gunslinger

I Am an American

Tulsa

The Lone Ranger

Fury at Furnace Creek

Last of the Comanches

Family Honeymoon

Walk the Proud Land