The radio versions of Tonto had featured actors who were decidedly non-Indian, and both the radio and film roles had been cast as a wise elder.
#The lone ranger was black series
The televised series also needed a new Tonto. He was a fit specimen, but above all, Moore knew horses, and he knew Hollywood. Moore had worked as a trapeze artist at Chicago’s 1933-34 World’s Fair and later as an actor in a number of movies, including quite a few westerns.
Trendle found his man in Clayton Moore, born Jack Carlton Moore 35 years earlier on Chicago’s south side. The new program needed a new Lone Ranger to suit the new medium. Once more, a narrator intoned those spine-tingling words, "A fiery horse with a speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty ‘Hi-Yo, Silver!’. The Lone Ranger’s dedicated fan base followed him to the new medium to "return.to those thrilling days of yesteryear" all over again. The leap to television in 1949 was altogether natural for a radio and film success story. Republic Pictures began producing Lone Ranger serials, short films in episode format, in 1937. "Who was that masked man?" some bystander would ask.įrom 1933 to 1954, the voices of several Lone Rangers, most notably the deep, steady cadences of Brace Beemer, chased bad guys across the radio dial three nights each week. After a roundup, the selfless, anonymous Lone Ranger leaves behind a single silver bullet, a reminder of his steadfast vigilance against evil. Thus concealed, he sets out to bring the gang to justice, and after them, a host of other rogues and desperadoes who prey on honest, simple folk. To hide his identity while he pursues Cavendish, Reid dons a mask cut from his dead brother’s vest. The lone survivor, John Reid, is nursed back to health by a passing Indian (who, remarkably enough, had known Reid as a child).
A Texas Ranger unit on patrol is ambushed by the notorious Butch Cavendish gang. The tale evolved as the show developed and jumped media, but the most familiar goes like this.
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In the early 1930s, George Washington Trendle, the enterprising co-owner of Detroit radio station WXYZ, conceived of a masked hero blending aspects of film hero Zorro, Robin Hood and the Texas Rangers.įran Striker, Trendle’s crack scriptwriter, developed a story set in the 1880s. How this mask attained treasure status in the first place is a tale of another sort. Before his death in 1999 at the age of 85, Moore had instructed Dawn to donate one of his three original masks to the museum upon his passing. How he and Tonto rode up on their fiery horses to bring varmints to justice, and then disappeared as that most perfect of Rossini overtures swelled and faded.Īt the Smithsonian, the mask’s story began with a letter from Dawn Moore, daughter of the late Clayton Moore, television’s best-known Lone Ranger, to the Institution. How the ultimate masked man brought peace and goodwill to the Old Wild West.
#The lone ranger was black tv
Visitors to the national Museum of American History’s "Popular Culture" exhibition may imagine hearing ghostly strains of the William Tell Overture as they look at a black felt mask labeled: "This mask was worn by Clayton Moore during his television career as the Lone Ranger between 19." Adults of a certain age and late-night TV viewers everywhere know the rest.