Thanks All the Same, Masked Man, But...

"A fiery horse with the speed of light! A cloud of dust and a hearty ‘Hi-yo, Silver!’"

Unlike big-screen superheroes Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Wolverine, Thor, or Hulk, the Lone Ranger did not originate in a comic strip or comic book. Come to think of it, the Old West did not have a comic book hero of its own for some time. However, dime novels, popular from the 1860s to 1900, lionized real-life frontiersmen such as Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill Cody while romanticizing the Robin Hood-like exploits of outlaws Jesse James and Billy the Kid.

Based on his personal longevity, Wyatt Earp (who breathed his last at the age of 80 in 1929) did his best to peddle his image as a frontier folk hero, stemming from a minor feud between opportunistic urban capitalists and clannish rural rustlers that culminated in thirty seconds of gunfire outside a corral in Tombstone, Arizona. When Wyatt Earp finally got a comic book of his own, it was based not on the onetime lawman’s self-serving accounts of his deeds but on the popular 1950s TV series "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp," starring Hugh O’Brian.

If a lone individual can lay claim to originating the Lone Ranger, it would be George W. Trendle, a Detroit-based lawyer with a reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator specializing in movie contracts who became the manager of Paramount Studio cinemas in Detroit and the owner of Detroit radio station WXYZ. He wanted to create a new radio series with a cowboy as the hero, and he wanted the hero to remain mysterious, with the same appeal as Robin Hood and Zorro. The target audience would include children, so Trendle insisted on a wholesome role model with high moral standards, while gunplay and girl stuff would be minimized.

Under the guidance of Trendle and free-lance writer Fran Striker (who contributed the idea of silver bullets), the Lone Ranger debuted on radio in 1933 as a frontier white knight who "led the fight for law and order in the early western United States." (Incidentally, radio’s "The Lone Ranger" premiered five years before Superman made his debut in comic books and six years before the first Batman comic book.) Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s "faithful Indian companion," was not introduced until the eleventh episode, a byproduct of Striker’s need to "give the Lone Ranger someone to talk to," according to Striker’s son.

The by-now familiar scenario finds a posse of six Texas Rangers, led by Captain Daniel Reid, ambushed by dastardly Butch Cavendish and his band of outlaws. Tonto rides up to the bloody aftermath and nurses the sole survivor, the captain’s kid brother, John Reid, back to health. Tonto fashions a black mask from Reid’s vest to conceal his identity as they join forces to bring Cavendish and his gang to justice.

The radio show became a huge success for WXYZ and later for the newly formed Mutual Broadcasting System (the network that would become the home for several popular radio dramas, including "The Shadow," "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," "The Adventures of Superman," and "Gunsmoke"). Radio’s first Lone Ranger was George Stenius, who left the program early to become - as George Seaton - a successful Hollywood writer (contributing to the scripts for the Marx Brothers comedies "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day at the Races," as well as "The Wizard of Oz") and director  (best known for the annual holiday favorite "Miracle on 34th Street"). In his later years, Seaton claimed to have come up with the line "Hi-yo, Silver!" because he was unable to whistle for his horse, as originally scripted.

Earle Graser took over the role of the Lone Ranger from May 1933 until his death in a car accident in 1941, after which the show’s announcer, Brace Beemer, stepped into the title role until the program left the air in 1956.

FBI Director and "Lone Ranger" fan J. Edgar Hoover
meets Brace Beemer.

Actor John Todd, known more for Shakespearean roles, played Tonto throughout the show’s history.

Despite various, sometimes contradictory accounts - some people have pointed out
that "kemo sabe" sounds a lot like the Spanish phrase "quien no sabe" ("he who
doesn't undertstand") - the humble reality is that one of the radio program's
directors had memories of a childhood camp in Mullet, Michigan,
called Camp Kee-Mo Sah-Bee.

The radio show (which was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1988) offered several premiums during its run, including the popular Lone Ranger Six-Shooter Ring. Fanning the miniature pistol would produce a small shower of sparks. Keeping in step with the Atomic Age, the program offered the Lone Ranger Atomic Bomb Ring in 1947.

The radio series inspired a spin-off radio show, "The Green Hornet," introducing the character of Britt Reid as the son of the Lone Ranger’s nephew, while the program itself spawned several novels (most of them written by Fran Striker) and comic books.

Beginning in 1948, Western Publishing issued 145 Lone Ranger comic books,
which proved to be so popular that Tonto and even Silver got their own comic books.

King Features Syndicate ran a Lone Ranger newspaper comic strip from 1938 to 1971, then New York Times Syndicate launched a second Lone Ranger comic strip in 1981, possibly to coincide with the big-screen overhaul "The Legend of the Lone Ranger." The movie bit the dust (more on that later), but the comic strip lasted until 1984.

In 1938, Republic Pictures cranked out the 15-chapter serial "The Lone Ranger," notable for presenting as many as five separate characters who could be the masked hero. The studio’s 1939 follow-up, "The Lone Ranger Rides Again," settled on a single protagonist, while both cliffhangers featured Chief Thundercloud as Tonto (below), a stuntman of German, Scottish, Irish and Cherokee heritage whose real name was Victor Daniels.

We read somewhere that the familiar screen and television image of Indians
wearing headbands was a Hollywood innovation, simply to hold the performers'
wigs in place.

Ultimately, the radio show gave rise to one of early television’s most popular series, "The Lone Ranger," which aired over 220 episodes through eight seasons, from 1949 to 1957. The series’ producers (which included radio’s George W. Trendle) couldn’t have found a more suitable embodiment of the champion of frontier justice and moral decency than actor Clayton Moore, who had been a successful child acrobat, a former male model, and a Hollywood stuntman and bit player.

The Lone Ranger's signature theme music - originating
on radio - was "March of the Swiss Soldiers" from Rossini's
"William Tell Overture," which was used primarily because
it was in the public domain.

Armed with silver bullets (courtesy of a silver mine he and his late brother had discovered which provided him with income, as he never accepted payment for his good deeds), he shot only to disarm or wound, not to kill. As the Lone Ranger, Moore insisted on using perfect grammar in precise sentences devoid of slang and colloquial phrases. These were the moral fibers that endeared the character to parents, while the weekly adventures provided enough action to keep children entertained.

Jay Silverheels, likewise, was a movie bit player when he was cast as the Lone Ranger’s stalwart friend, Tonto. Born Harold J. Smith, the son of a Canadian Mohawk chief, he was a star lacrosse player and boxer before he entered show business as a stuntman in the late 1930s. Adopting his screen name from a nickname given him as a lacrosse player, he enjoyed a 30-plus-year acting career.

Silverheels was never comfortable with the broken-English dialogue and subservient role he had to endure as Tonto, as well as in numerous other Native American portrayals. In his later years, he found success as a race horse breeder and professional harness racer himself while accepting occasional television and motion picture work. His final screen appearances included cameos as a prisoner condemned to be hanged in the 1969 John Wayne western "True Grit" and as an Indian chief in 1973’s "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing," starring Burt Reynolds and Sarah Miles.

By 1969, Jay Silverheels was a respected instructor
at the Indian Actors Workshop.

Silverheels made a memorable appearance, in character, in a sketch on  "The Tonight Show" in 1969, being interviewed by Johnny Carson for a job at NBC. "I work thirty years as faithful sidekick for kemo sabe," Silverheels said. "Hunt, fish, make food, sew clothes, sweep up, stay awake all night, listen for enemies for kemo sabe. Risk life for kemo sabe. Thirty lousy years." When Carson wonders why Tonto’s former employee let him go, Silverheels says, "Him find out what kemo sabe mean."

Carson said, "So you’re the Lone Ranger’s closest buddy for all those years, sort of Ed (McMahon) with feathers." Silverheels replied, "Yes, I hung out with him, even though he was the stuffiest guy west of Newark. Man, did he take himself seriously!"

Indeed, according to his daughter, Dawn Moore, Clayton took his status as a role model for youngsters very seriously. "He fully understood the influence he had as that character," she recently told Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Jeff Strickler. "He embraced the message" spelled out in Trendle and Striker’s original Lone Ranger’s Creed, which included, "I believe that to have a friend, a man must be one," and, "I believe in being prepared physically, mentally and morally to fight when necessary for what is right."  "It was created by the show’s producers as a template for the writers," Dawn said. "It was to help them answer the question: What would the Lone Ranger do in such-and-such a situation."

Joel Bachul, a nephew of Moore, told Jeff Strickler, "He was the Lone Ranger first and Clayton Moore second. That was the image he projected, but not in an overbearing way. That image was always present." Bachul recalled visiting his uncle when the latter was in his 70s and residing in a Los Angeles suburb: "We sat and talked for a few hours, and I realized that he was still just the same. He was still the Lone Ranger."

(Left) John Hart, as a cavalry officer, has the drop on the Lone Ranger;
(right) two years later, Hart dons the mask for the show's third season.

Moore was absent from the series’ third season due to a contract dispute over his demand for a higher salary (although Moore later insisted he left over "creative differences") and was replaced by actor John Hart. Moore returned for the final two seasons, but the fact of the matter is that Hart never caught on with audiences, and reruns of his episodes remained unseen until the 1980s.

(Left) Glenn Strange as Butch Cavendish; (right) mad scientist Boris Karloff
consoles Strange in "The House of Frankenstein"

The Lone Ranger’s archenemy, the sinister Butch Cavendish, was portrayed in a half dozen episodes by Glenn Strange, about whom you should know two things: Strange is best known as Sam the Long Branch Saloon bartender in the long-running "Gunsmoke" TV series, and, personally coached by Boris Karloff, he played the Monster in three movies in the 1940s, "House of Frankenstein," "House of Dracula," and "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein."

As the TV series wound down, Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels starred in two successful theatrical films, "The Lone Ranger" (1956) and "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold" (1958). Both movies were produced specifically for theaters, not merely re-edited episodes from the television show.

An attempt by CBS in 1961 to revive the series, "Return of the Lone Ranger," starring Tex Hill (above), a real-life rancher and cowboy, did not get past the pilot stage. A native of Del Rio, Texas, Hill, who raises American Quarter Horses on an Arizona ranch, got into trouble with the owners of the Lone Ranger trademark when he attempted to make public appearances as the "Last Lone Ranger."

MAD magazine's "Lone Stranger," which appeared in
February 1953, was the magazine's first direct parody of
a TV show. Written by Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated
by the inimitable Jack Davis, the sendup was so popular
that a sequel appeared in MAD later that year.

The popularity of the classic TV series inspired two completely different takes by two equally influential, groundbreaking comedians. On Bill Cosby’s 1964 Grammy Award-winning album "I Started Out as a Child," he complained, "Why does Tonto always do the same thing? The Lone Ranger would always (say), ‘Tonto?’ ‘Yes, kemo sabe?’ ‘I want you to go to town.’ And every time he’d go to town, the bandits would beat the snot out of him…And I’d always holler, ‘Tonto! Don’t go to town! They’re gonna beat you up again, man!’ Just one time - ‘Tonto?’ ‘Yes, kemo sabe?’ ‘You go to town -’ ‘You go to hell, kemo sabe!’ ‘I want you to get the information.’ ‘What is information? Information say Tonto no go to town, that’s what information say.’"

"Thank You Mask Man" is an animated short film based on an audio recording of a routine by Lenny Bruce, in which the townspeople are angry with the Lone Ranger, who never lingers long enough for them to thank him for his good deeds. Convinced to finally hang around, the Lone Ranger quickly decides he likes being thanked. So much so that when there’s a call for help from a nearby robbery, he blurts, "Don’t bust my balls now. I’ve helped you people a lot. I’m entitled to take one week off to get some thank-yous." Pressed by a townsman to accept a present ("Do it for the kids and we’ll get the hell out of here"), the Lone Ranger says, "Give me that Indian over there…I want Tonto the Indian." "What the hell you want Tonto for?" "To perform an unnatural act." Reacting to the crowd calling him a "dirty fag" and a "dang queer," the Lone Ranger says, "I’m not a fag, but I heard a lot about it…and I want to try it now to see how bad it is, just once…Wash him up and get him ready. Tell you what - give me the horse, too." "What the hell for?" "For the act." Amid outcries of "Dang queer freak!" the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride off into the sunset.

Produced by John Magnuson, the short was completed in 1968 (two years after Bruce’s death) but not released until 1971. The crudely charming animation was designed and directed by Jeff Hale, who went on to work as an animator on the 1981 film "Heavy Metal" and the 1980s Saturday morning series "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show," as well as animation director for the series "The Transformers" and "Muppet Babies."

(Left) "The Lone Ranger" 1966-1969 animated series; (right) the opening titles
for "The Wild Wild West" were designed by Ken Mundie (noted for the
opening title animation for director Blake Edwards' "The Great Race")

Saturday morning TV viewers enjoyed an anomaly amid the humdrum cookie-cutter cartoons when the CBS animated series "The Lone Ranger" aired from 1966 to 1969. It was no coincidence that the show bore a strong resemblance to the then-popular primetime CBS series "The Wild Wild West," not only in the bizarre storylines that blended science-fiction with Victorian steampunk, but, as well, in the presence of villain Tiny Tom, who was similar to James West’s dwarfish archenemy, Dr. Loveless. Even the stylized, edgy artwork of the animated series (described by one internet site as "wonderfully scratchy, almost like a charcoal drawing") was not unlike the opening title animation for "The Wild Wild West."

(Left) The bargain-basement Filmation Lone Ranger and Tonto;
(right) at least William Conrad got to use his gun in "Cannon"

Sadly, when the characters of the Lone Ranger and Tonto joined Zorro and Tarzan in Filmation’s Saturday morning lineup on "Adventure Hour" in the 1980s, they were reduced to cut-rate limited animation (the characters weren’t even allowed to hit the bad guys), although the Lone Ranger’s sonorous voice was provided by actor William Conrad (the original voice of Marshal Matt Dillon on radio’s "Gunsmoke," narrator of "Rocky and Bulwinkle," and later the star of TV’s "Cannon" and "Jake and the Fatman").

After the beloved "The Lone Ranger" TV series left the air in 1957, star Clayton Moore continued to make public appearances as the Lone Ranger, entertaining children and parents at supermarket openings and the like across the country. In 1979, however, Jack Wrather, an executive producer on the series who owned the rights to the character, legally stopped Moore from wearing the trademark mask, in anticipation of an upcoming big-budget, big-screen reboot, "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" (which would be released in 1981). Afraid that Moore was stealing his thunder, Wrather, a co-producer of the new film, didn’t want the public to think that Moore was involved with the project.

Right out of the gate, Wrather’s boorish maneuver alienated scores of "The Lone Ranger" fans. When the film crew arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting "The Legend of the Lone Ranger," they found leaflets on their cars that read, "Clayton Moore is the REAL Lone Ranger." Recently, Christopher Lloyd, who portrayed the villainous Butch Cavendish in the 1981 movie, told Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Labrecque that Wrather had gone too far. "I thought that was really kind of nasty and unnecessary," Loyd said. "Nothing Moor was doing was really interfering with the film. I thought that was kind of terrible."

Who's that behind those Foster Grants?

Undaunted by legal injunctions, Clayton Moore continued appearing as the Lone Ranger, substituting Foster Grant wraparound sunglasses for the traditional mask. And, in true Lone Ranger style, it wasn’t long before justice prevailed, and Moore won a countersuit, allowing him to again don the familiar mask. (Incidentally, whether out of spite or whimsy, Wrather cast Moore’s one-season replacement, John Hart, in a cameo in the new film as a newspaper editor named Striker, in honor of original co-creator Fran Striker.)

No hard feelings: In their later years, John Hart and Clayton Moore
enjoy a Lone Ranger reunion

To direct "The Legend of the Lone Ranger," the producers brought in William A. Fraker. Fraker was a five-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer whose résumé included "Rosemary’s Baby," "Bullitt," "Heaven Can Wait," "1941," and "Tombstone." His only two previous credits as a director were 1970’s "Monte Walsh," a beautifully elegiac western starring Lee Marvin and Jack Palance (cast against type in a surprisingly sympathetic and gentle role) and the 1973 thriller "A Reflection of Fear," with Robert Shaw, Mary Ure, Sally Kellerman, and Sondra Locke. Fraker announced to his crew that he wanted "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" to have the look of "Lawrence of Arabia." To that end, cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs ("Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces") effectively utilized the stunning beauty of a number of Southwest locations, including Utah’s Monument Valley (which, just as in the 2013 "The Lone Ranger," the filmmakers would have us believe is part of the Texas landscape).

Apparently inspired by how successfully the recent blockbuster "Superman" made a movie star out of little-known actor Christopher Reeve, the filmmakers thought they could repeat the formula with a Hollywood newcomer named Klinton Spilsbury. Born Glenn Klinton Spilsbury into a large Mormon family (his father, Max Spilsbury, was a noted head coach of the Northern Arizona University football team), he attended Brigham Young University before seeking his fortune in Hollywood.

Spilsbury’s former agent, John Crosby, related to Entertainment Weekly, "To this day, I think he is the most striking man that I have ever put my eyes on…It was like he walked in on a white horse. He was as close as you could come in real life to the Lone Ranger." Co-producer Martin Starger recalled, "He looked great in the mask…But that was important because we had to find an actor whose eyes were not close together. The mask doesn’t look good if the eyes are too close."

When another newcomer, Michael Horse, a Native American jeweler, painter and sculptor, was asked to play Tonto, he said he wasn’t interested. "Finally, they  told me what they’d pay me," he said, "and I went, ‘Ohhhhh, kemo sabe!’" Horse, who had been a student in acting classes for Native Americans taught by Jay Silverheels, remembered, "I told them that in this day and age, if you portray Tonto with disrespect, there will be more Indians on your lawn than Custer saw. They assured me that this time they were going to make Tonto an equal character to the Lone Ranger." It should be noted that Horse’s Tonto speaks fluent English, not the embarrassingly demeaning broken sentences Jay Silverheels was forced to utter in the ‘50s.

Unfortunately, there were no assurances that fledgling Klinton Spilsbury would be able to hold his own in the onscreen partnership. Red flags were immediately raised during auditions when, as recalled by costar David Hayward, Spilsbury "wanted the scene shortened because he was having trouble with the lines."

Christopher Lloyd (above) as Butch Cavendish oversees his
gang of cutthroats, including moviehouse favorite Matt Clark
(with badge) as a duplicitous sheriff; somewhere among this
rogues' gallery is former "Billy Jack" star Tom Laughlin.

Christopher Lloyd told Entertainment Weekly that Spilsbury "came onto the set as if he was playing the role of a movie star…a problem from beginning to end." According to publicist Don Safran, Spilsbury "really resented anybody trying to help him. He didn’t respond to his director very well." Co-producer Walter Coblenz reflected, "I think he was scared of the whole thing, of this picture sort of resting on his shoulders. He just wasn’t able to compete as an actor with some the great professionals that we had on the film…Christopher Lloyd and Jason Robards. I realize now that he was not ready for that." Lloyd admitted, "He did things that simply hindered the production."

"One night, (Spilsbury) got into a fight," Michael Horse later recalled, and "some guard called me at three in the morning to come and get him. I said, ‘Whoa, that faithful companion stuff is only in the movies.’"

Early on, people on both sides of the camera also became aware of Spilsbury’s difficulty with delivering his scripted dialogue. John Bennett Perry, who played the Lone Ranger’s ill-fated brother, noted that Spilsbury "just didn’t sound committed to the material. It just kind of came out the same way all the time. There wasn’t any passion."

(Left) Klinton Spilsbury as John Reid (the Lone Ranger);
(right) James Keach as Jesse James in "The Long Riders"

Actor James Keach, who had recently portrayed Jesse James in "The Long Riders," was recruited  to loop (re-dub) some of Spilsbury’s lines, but ultimately, the producers hired him to dub all of Spilsbury’s dialogue. "His inflections were a little strange," Keach told Entertainment Weekly, "but I didn’t think he was that bad, to be honest with you. I don’t know why they didn’t have him redo it. But it was a very well-paying job at the time."

Years later, James Keach bumped into Spilsbury at a party. "I think I said that I felt bad," Keach told Entertainment Weekly. "I told him that (the producers) were going to do it anyway, but I felt really bad to do it. I never wanted to embarrass the guy. Jeez, you get your big break in Hollywood: ‘Hey, Mom, I’m the Lone Ranger!’ ‘But that’s not your voice.’ It must have been horrible."

The venerable Jason Robards, as President Ulysses Grant,
manages to keep a straight face when he admires a silver bullet
and utters, "Who was that masked man?"

Despite noble efforts by supporting players Christopher Lloyd, Jason Robards (as President Ulysses Grant) and Richard Farnsworth (as Wild Bill Hickok), the film was such a turkey that it tanked a major movie studio. All said and done, the film earned just over $12 million on an $18 million budget. Co-producer Walter Coblenz said, "Looking back, I feel that we were trying to please everyone, from six to sixty. It was too violent for little kids and not sophisticated enough for an older audience."

Theodore J. Flicker and Richard Farnsworth ride at full gallop as Buffalo Bill Cody
and Wild Bill Hickok. Better known as a director himself, Flicker was a member of
Chicago's Compass Theater, America's first showcase for improvisational comedy
which predated The Second City and featured Mike Nichols, Elaine May, and
Shelley Berman. In 1967, Flicker wrote and directed the brilliant political satire
"The President's Analyst," starring James Coburn and Godfrey Cambridge and
photographed by future "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" director, William A. Fraker

Michael Horse’s reaction to the fiasco was "I don’t really care to be a movie star. I just wanted to be a working character actor. So I was actually kind of relieved." He told Entertainment Weekly, "People like Dennis Banks and Russell Means of the American Indian Movement came up and said, ‘You did a wonderful job. You didn’t embarrass us.’" Horse did move on to bigger and better things, including a recurring role as Deputy "Hawk" on the cult TV series "Twin Peaks."

Michael Horse as Deputy Tommy "Hawk" Hill on "Twin Peaks"

Andy Warhol, who compared Spilsbury’s looks to "a cross between Warren Beatty and Clint Eastwood," interviewed the actor during the film’s promotion for Interview magazine, a conversation Warhol later described as "nutty." Convinced that Spilsbury was "very drunk," Warhol said he was "blowing his whole image" by telling Warhol he was a friend of actor Dennis Christopher (best known for starring in "Breaking Away") and had fallen in love with him and also admitting to being in love with actor Bud Cort (best known for starring in the black comedies "Brewster McCloud" and "Harold and Maude"), adding that he had gone to bed with American fashion designer Halston.

The 1981 Golden Raspberry Awards gave Klinton Spilsbury two Razzies, for Worst Actor and Worst New Star. The movie itself also garnered a Razzie nomination for Worst Original Song, Merle Haggard’s talk-sing ballad "The Man in the Mask," featuring lyrics by Dean Pitchford, of "Fame" and "Footloose" (which he also scripted)  renown. (Any suspension of disbelief is shredded by Haggard’s constant offscreen yammering throughout the film, speaking in rhyming couplets as if he were Waylon Jennings, chronicling the exploits of the Duke boys.

"The Legend of the Lone Ranger" wastes two-thirds
of its running time in an origin-of-the-hero exposition
(imitating "Superman: The Movie"), including an
excrutiatingly agonizing slow-motion Lone Ranger-
meets- Silver sequence. It's an hour into the picture
before the filmmakers resurrect the chestnut of the
"William Tell Overture." By the third use of the music
in the film, it becomes a quaint, antiquated joke.

Except for a brief interview he gave the Los Angeles Times in 1989 when he was considering a comeback, Spilsbury has successfully avoided the media; he recently refused to speak to Entertainment Weekly. At various times, Spilsbury was later reportedly employed as a model in Europe, working at a Subway sandwich shop, or merely residing in Los Angeles.

Try not to smirk when you look at Chad Michael Murray and Nathaniel Arcand
in the 2003 made-for-television movie "The Lone Ranger."

Just over twenty years after the debacle that was "The Legend of the Lone Ranger," the (now-defunct) WB television network slapped together a two-hour TV movie as a pilot for a new "The Lone Ranger" series. Directed by Jack Bender (who would move on as an executive producer and lead director of the hit television series "Lost"), this metrosexual retooling of the tale starred Chad Michael Murray, a former fashion model best known for portraying Lucas Scott on The CW series "One Tree Hill." Tonto was played by Nathaniel Arcand, a Plains Cree Native Canadian actor. (The supporting cast featured Wes Studi, an actor of Cherokee ancestry familiar from such roles as the bloodthirsty Magua in 1992’s "The Last of the Mohicans" and as the star of 1993’s "Geronimo: An American Legend.")

When word of this latest failure to jump-start the Lone Ranger franchise
reached Michael Horse ("The Legend of the Lone Ranger's" Tonto), he
joked, "I was afraid I'd always be known for being in the bad 'Lone Ranger.'"

Prophetically, Horse's phrase presaged the decade-later block-blunder that is 2013’s "The Lone Ranger." Producer Jerry Bruckheimer promised, "It’s a retelling of a tale from a whole different perspective. From a Native American telling of the tale." He claimed he wanted to re-introduce the Lone Ranger and Tonto in "a fresh and exciting way," which meant that a lot of things get blown up. Things blow up real good in Bruckheimer’s pictures, including "Top Gun," "Bad Boys," "The Rock," "Con Air," "Armageddon," "Black Hawk Down," "Bad Boys II," "Pearl Harbor," and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Speaking of the latter, it hasn’t escaped us in the moviehouse that "The Lone Ranger" was concocted by the "Pirates" crew - producer Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski, star Johnny Depp, and screenwriters Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio - to divert the masses while they manufacture yet one more threadbare skeleton of a plot for Captain Jack Sparrow’s next cinematic voyage.

Landing the plumb role of the Lone Ranger was Armie Hammer (above), the great-grandson of oil tycoon-philanthropist Armand Hammer, best known for playing young evangelist Billy Graham in "Billy: The Early Years," as well as identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in "The Social Network" (in which his face, via CGI, was superimposed on actor Josh Pence). Bruckheimer insisted that the movie was going to make the 6’ 5" 26-year-old actor "a big star. I just thought, ‘That guy looks like the Lone Ranger. He’s handsome and tall with this square jaw. He looks like a guy who came from the Old West.’" (Sound familiar, Klinton Spilsbury?)

If only Hammer had known that he would be stuck with the sidekick role, playing second fiddle to Johnny Depp’s impression of Buster Keaton. The movie had been in the works since 2008, when Disney proudly announced that Depp would portray Tonto, sparking immediate controversy over the casting of a white actor as a Comanche. (Incidentally, the original TV series identified Tonto as being from the Potawatomi, a Midwest people related to the Ojibwe and Ottawa.)

Initially, Johnny Depp shrugged off negative criticism by muttering, "I guess I have some Native American (in me), somewhere down the line," but he got more specific as time went by, later asserting that a great-grandmother was "Cherokee or Creek." In an open-mouth-insert-foot moment, he said that if a white person claims Native American heritage, "You have to think, somewhere along the line, I’m the product of some horrific rape," a remark many Native Americans found ignorant and insensitive.

Interestingly, in 1997, Depp made his directing debut and starred as a contemporary Native American in "The Brave" (above), costarring Marlon Brando, Frederic Forrest, Clarence Williams III, and Luis Guzman. The film was screened at Cannes but was never released in the U.S., either in theaters or on DVD.

Depp purportedly met with Comanche chiefs and elders before filming began to discuss his portrayal. He was "adopted" as an honorary son by a member of the Comanche Nation in 2012 but not as an enrolled member of the Nation. Native Americans do not regard someone with even one drop of indigenous blood to be a Native American unless the person holds tribal citizenship.

The filmmakers proudly trumpeted the presence of native advisors from the Comanche Nation on the set during production. Armie Hammer gushed, "They were nothing but excited about it. They loved it. They’re thrilled. It’s so funny, because every Native American we talked to was like, ‘This is so awesome! I’m so excited!’…It’s like the white people are the one who have the problem, but the Native Americans are like, ‘This is great. We love it!’"

Filmmakers proudly paraded septuagenarian
Saginaw Grant on the red carpet for the premiere
of "The Lone Ranger." Grant, a member of the
Sac-n-Fox, Iowa, and Otoe-Missouri Nations,
is a traditional dancer and motivational speaker.
Cast as Chief Big Bear, Grant said, "I've been very
fortunate because people seem to like my look,
because it's an 'Indian' look. I'm not a star or anything,
but I've been able to stick here and have work."

Depp said that he expected some repercussions from his role but felt vindicated "so long as I know that I have done no harm and have represented, at the very least, the Comanche Nation, in the proper light."

He proclaimed his performance a personal endeavor "to try to right the wrongs of the past." Or it could be just another excuse for him to wear goofball makeup...

Speaking of oddballs, when it comes to questionable casting of Native American roles in motion pictures, Hollywood has tirelessly supplied an indiscriminate array of eclectic talents...

Notorious British rabble-rouser Oliver Reed portrayed an Oxford-educated
half-breed in "The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday,"starring Lee Marvin
and Robert Culp; Anna Hot Water, who wants to make "bim-bam"with
aging Frank Sinatra in"Dirty Dingus Magee," was played by Michele Carey,
a starlet discovered by director Howard Hawks, the venerated filmmaker
who also discovered Lauren Bacall; "Texas Across the River" reunited
two-fifths of the Rat Pack with Dean Martin and Joey Bishop as his
Indian sidekick, Kronk (Martin: "Why couldn't you have been born
a Comanche?" Bishop: "Mother run too fast.").

Other skewed screen portrayals of Native Americans worth mentioning are Mel Brooks as a Yiddish-spouting Indian chief in "Blazing Saddles," Los Angeles Rams-Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Roman Gabriel as Native American scout Blue Boy in the John Wayne-Rock Hudson western "The Undefeated," and "Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In" resident poet Henry Gibson as beatnik Indian Charlie Horse in The Three Stooges comedy "The Outlaws Is Coming."

According to Ancestry.com researchers, it turns out that Armie Hammer has Native American roots, going back to 18th-century Cherokee leader and peace advocate Chief Kanagatucko (aka Old Hop and Stalking Turkey), revered as the "First Beloved Man of the Cherokee," while Johnny Depp is related to Elizabeth Key Grinstead, the first woman of African descent in the North American colonies who successfully sued for her freedom from slavery in 1656 in Virginia.

Elsewhere on the worldwide web, one internet wag, who purported that the average white person has between 2% and 20% African-American blood, wondered why white people have such a hard time admitting their black ancestry yet will mention Native American heritage in a heartbeat when there is probably none present in their blood.

Cher’s biography, at one time, listed her father as Armenian, her mother being of Irish and German heritage. But when her hit single "Half-Breed" started climbing the charts, she suddenly remembered she was 1/16 Cherokee on her mother’s side. (For some reason, "Cherokee" is the Native American of choice among celebrities.)

"Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born."

The Disney studio’s marketing strategy, which has evolved with a cold-blooded efficiency that would make old man Walt’s head spin in its cryogenic icebox, is to pump a lot of money into a few films in hopes of manufacturing franchises from the budget-bloated pictures that will continue generating revenue from sequels, toys and merchandise tie-ins, and from outlets like theme park attractions and TV properties. Well, after Disney spent an estimated $225 million (plus an additional $1 million to promote the film) - more than twelve times the budget for "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" - the movie’s ballyhooed Independence Day eve opening brought in a measly $9.7 million, while its same-day competition, "Despicable Me 2," generated over $34 million at the box office. The extended holiday weekend only protracted Disney’s woes, prompting analysts to predict that Disney may end up with a loss of around $100 million. ("John Carter," a previous Disney debacle with a $250-million-plus budget, cost the studio a $100-150 million loss.)

(Left) As posted on Facebook, this is Michael Horse's response
to having just watched Johnny Depp's performance.

"This is slick trash," Richard Roeper wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "a bloated, unfunny, sometimes downright bizarre train wreck featuring some of the loudest, longest and least entertaining actual train wrecks in recent memory." Roeper noted, "In the unholy mess that is ‘The Lone Ranger,’ we finally have a movie that combines the slapstick antics of a…‘Road Runner’ cartoon with a villain so bloodthirsty he…cuts out the heart of a vanquished foe and eats it. Some films are for everyone. This film is for just about no one."

In agreement, critic Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times reflected, " ‘The Lone Ranger’ was a radio serial that broadcast 2956 episodes over 21 years, as well as a beloved TV series that ran for an additional eight (years). Never in all that time was it thought necessary to have a villain who cut out human hearts and ate them…"

The nightmarish image of actor William Fichtner as the cannibalistic ghoul
Butch Cavendish in Disney's "The Lone Ranger" reminds us of old man Walt's
creed for his films: "For every laugh, there should be a tear."

Darren Franich, writing for Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch, called the film a greatest hits collection, "with several different western plots piled on top of each other like ill-fitting Tetris blocks." Among the movies Franich recommends viewing "several times and never watching ‘The Lone Ranger’ ever again" are "The General," "High Noon," "The Searchers," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Once Upon a Time in the West," "Hang ‘Em High," "The Wild Bunch," "Little Big Man," "High Plains Drifter," and "Rango."

The New York Times’ A.O. Scott noted, " ‘Who was that masked man?’ is a less relevant question than, ‘What on earth were they thinking?’" Kenneth Turan lamented that it was "sad to report that although this Lone Ranger is good at helping strangers, rescuing his own film is beyond even him."

"The Lone Ranger," A.O. Scott pointed out, "belongs to the ancient pop culture of the Great Depression and the early baby boom. His adventures were heard on radio in the 1930s, and seen on television from 1949 to 1957, but unlike some of his cape-wearing peers, he has mostly stayed in the past, an object of fuzzy nostalgia and mocking incredulity, a symbol of simple pleasures and retrograde attitudes."

Turan mused that the old TV show "may have been modesty itself in terms of production values, but we cared about its heroes in a way we do not here." Clayton Moore’s daughter, Dawn Moore, said, "My dad spent 50 years maintaining the integrity of that character. He never wanted it to die with him." At the end of the trail, the melancholy truth, repeatedly ignored by filmmakers, is that the Lone Ranger’s time has come and gone.

Postscript:

It has been suggested by more than one source that the character of the Lone Ranger might have been inspired by Bass Reeves (1838-1910), a former slave and legendary peace officer in Indian Territory (pre-state Oklahoma) from 1875-1907, one of the first African Americans to be commissioned as a Deputy U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi. Now that would be a movie worth making.