JAY "TONTO" SILVERHEELS - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 300327

JAY "TONTO" SILVERHEELS
The Award Winning actor signs on a still photograph from the popular 1970s television series Cannon
Inscribed Photograph Signed: "to Jess,/Thanks for remembering/Sincerely/Jay Sivlerheels/", B/w 10x8. He is shown as Jimmy One Eye from the episode of Cannon entitled "Valley of the Damned". The episode follows the story of drug smugglers who frame an Indian worker (Jay Silverheels) for a murder. Actor Jay Silverheels (1912-1980), born on the Six Nations Reservation in Ontario, Canada to a Mohawk chief, is best known for playing Tonto, the Lone Ranger's faithful Indian companion, on one of television's most popular westerns (1949-1957). A former star athlete, Silverheels went to Hollywood as a stuntman in 1938, usually playing stereotypical roles as an Indian in a number of feature films before first teaming up with Clayton Moore in 1949 in the feature film, The Cowboy and the Indians. Later that year, he was cast as Moore's sidekick in the TV series, and he would appear as Tonto in two feature films: The Lone Ranger (1955) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958). Following the series, Silverheels appeared in several feature films, including Alias Jesse James (1959), True Grit (1969) and The Man Who Love Cat Dancing (1973), and he made numerous appearances on the small screen, appearing primarily in Westerns, but also guest starring on such series as The Brady Bunch (1971), Love, American Style (1972) and Cannon (1973). Silverheels' health began to fail in the late 1970s, and he died of a stroke in 1980. Unknown residue at face (on margin, not effecting signature). Typed caption on paper affixed at verso. Otherwise, fine condition.