Trivia: Having worked as a model and circus aerialist, in 1938 he began appearing in films as a stuntman and bit player. He began playing lead roles in 1942, going on to star in numerous serials and low-budget action movies, occasionally playing a supporting role as a villain. He is best known for portraying the Lone Ranger in the long-running TV series (1949-52 and 1954-57) and its two movie spinoffs (1956 and 1958). He retired from acting in 1959, but continued appearing in Lone Ranger garb in commercials and at promotional events. In 1980 the owners of the Lone Ranger copyright won a court order forbidding him from wearing the costume in public; public outrage helped him regain the right. He is married to former actress Sally Allen.

Trivia: A mixed-blood Mohawk Indian, Jay Silverheels was the son of a Canadian tribal chief. Silverheels excelled in sports during his youth and it was this prowess that brought him to Hollywood in 1938 as a stunt man. Though most of Silverheels' earliest film appearances went uncredited, it was difficult to ignore him in such roles as the Osceola boy in Key Largo (1948) and Geronimo in Broken Arrow (1950). In 1949, Silverheels was cast as Tonto on the pilot episode of TV's The Lone Ranger. Until the series shut down production in 1956, Silverheels essayed the role of the masked man's "faithful Indian companion," while Clayton Moore (and, briefly, John Hart) was seen as the Ranger. Silverheels also co-starred in two spin-off Lone Ranger theatrical films and reprised the Tonto role in a memorable Jeno's Pizza Rolls advertisement of the 1960s ("Have-um pizza roll, kemo sabe?"). Silverheels' other film credits include a cameo in the all-star fiasco The Phynx (1970) and a pivotal role in 1973's The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. In the 1970s, Silverheels established himself as a prize-winning horse breeder and harness racing driver. During the period, he was asked if any of his new horses were faster than Tonto's Scout, whereupon Silverheels replied, "Heck, I can beat Scout." One of Jay Silverheels' last public appearance was on a comedy sketch on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, wherein Silverheels summed up his relationship with the Lone Ranger as "30 lousy years."