jay silverheels played tonto in the lone ranger tv series.
jay silverheels played tonto in the lone ranger tv series.
who played tonto in the lone ranger tv series?
jay silverheels
in the old "lone ranger" tv series, the ranger's faithful friend and partner tonto, played by first nations actor jay silverheels for the entire run of the series, was asked in many scenes what "kemosabe" meant. his reply was invariably, "it mean trusty scout!". the made-for-tv movie "enter the lone ranger" (1949) combined the plots of the first three episodes of the "lone ranger" tv series: "enter the lone ranger", "the lone ranger fights on", and "the lone ranger triumphs" into a complete story.
ke-mo sah-bee
tonto made his first appearance on the 11th episode of the radio show "the lone ranger". two conflicting origin stories have been given for the character tonto and how he came to work with the lone ranger. as originally presented, in the december 7, 1938, radio broadcast, reid had already been well established as the lone ranger when he met tonto. in that episode cactus pete, a friend of the lone ranger's, tells the story of how the masked man and tonto first met. according to that tale, tonto had been caught in the explosion when two men dynamited a gold mine they were working. one of the men wanted to kill the wounded tonto, but the lone ranger arrived on the scene and made him administer first aid. the miner subsequently decided to keep tonto around, intending to make him the fall guy when he would later murder his partner. the lone ranger foiled both the attempted murder and the framing. no reason was given in the episode as to why tonto chose to travel with the lone ranger, rather than continue about his business.
tonto