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| Jay Silverheels |
Today, The Grandma is resting at home. She has been watching the old images of the arrival to the moon, on a day like today fifty years ago and she has been reading some wonderful stories written by Pere Calders, the great Catalan writer who died on a day like today in 1994.
After reading Calders, The Grandma has continued studying her Ms. Excel course and she has received an interesting phone call. Jordi Santanyí, her friend, has invited her to watch some films performanced by Jay Silverheels, the actor who became the first Native American to have a star commemorated in the Hollywood Walk of Fame (HWOF).
Jay Silverheels (May 26, 1912-March 5, 1980) was a Mohawk actor and athlete. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful Native American companion of the Lone Ranger in the long-running American western television series The Lone Ranger.
Silverheels was born Harold Jay Smith in Canada, on the Six Nations of the Grand River, 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 Battle of the Somme and Ypres during World War I, and later was an adjutant training Polish-American recruits for the Blue Army 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 of the Golden Gloves tournament.
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| Jay Silverheels |
Silverheels was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame as a veteran player in 1997.
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).
More information: Glamour Path
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.
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| Jay Silverheels |
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. 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, Los Angeles. Today the workshop is firmly established.
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.
More information: Bklyner
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.
More information: The New York Times
From a grain of sand to a great mountain,
all is sacred.
Peter Blue Cloud
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