Indian Actors Association Indian Actors Association. The Indian Actors Workshop was another group built on the foundation of the Indian Actors Association. Founded by Jay Silverheels, best known for playing Tonto on "The Lone Ranger", the Indian Actors Workshop trained Indians for roles in film and television. Similar groups continued to form well into the 1980s. The Indian Actors Association was able to function as a support group and provided subsistence funds for out of work Indians. They were able to raise these funds through membership dues, powwows, and performances for local clubs and organizations. Indian Actors Association The Indian Actors Association was
Jay Silverheels a Mohawk. His father was wounded and decorated for service at the Battle of 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. 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