Who Was That Masked Man?

Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

The recent jump in COVID-19 cases has some talk about masks becoming “popular” again.

We can argue till the cows come home about whether those masks were and are effective for curbing the virus.

In my day, some heroes wore masks and they didn’t even cover their mouths.

That’s why I’m going to talk about the masked man who roamed the Wild West “defending the helpless and downtrodden against the forces of evil.”

Clayton Moore.

He was born Jack Carlton Moore in Chicago and his family was well enough off to have a full-time maid.

Young Jack was fairly athletic and, at age 8, was even a circus acrobat.

After high school, the future Lone Ranger worked as a model, a stuntman and a bit player and was cast in some “B” westerns.

Then, in 1940, someone suggested he take up the stage name “Clayton”.

He got the job to be The Lone Ranger which was the first western written specifically for television.

Clayton Moore starred in the first of 169 of the 221 episodes with his faithful sidekick, “Tonto”, played by Jay Silverheels, roaming the Wild West.

There was a period from 1950-1953 when actor John Hart took over the role of The Lone Ranger for 52 episodes.

Clayton Moore was embroiled in a contract dispute with the show’s producers but, in 1953, he returned to the lead role until 1957.

I have something in common with Clayton Moore.

We were both U.S. Air Force veterans.

He served during WWII with the United States Army Air Force in the First Motion Picture Unit.

Somebody had to make those training and promotional films.

Legal tussles arose again in 1979 when a movie producer was doing a film, “The Legend of The Lone Ranger”.

This producer didn’t want Moore to make appearances wearing his trademark black eye mask since he felt that would hurt his movie’s efforts and Moore wasn’t going to be in the flick.

It was during this time that I interviewed Clayton Moore about the dispute which was a real hoot for me since The Lone Ranger was one of my childhood heroes.

The new movie, released in 1981 was a flop.

The lawsuit was eventually dropped in 1984 and Clayton Moore could wear his famous mask again.

While he was banned from wearing his usual mask, he donned a domino-style one.

Clayton did an advertising campaign for wrap-around sunglasses, when the question was posed “Who’s that behind those Foster-Grants?”

It helped prove Clayton Moore as a true icon in his role as The Lone Ranger.

For years, he was the only person on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to have his character and his real name listed with his star

I recently re-watched all those classic black and white Lone Ranger episodes, even the ones with John Hart in the lead role. The last and final season was the only one filmed in color.

But the ones with Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels are my favorites.

The Lone Ranger was supposedly the sole survivor of a group of ambushed Texas Rangers and he was nursed back to health by his faithful sidekick Tonto.

Now “tonto” is an Apache term for Western Apaches, meaning “wild ones” while Tonto’s famous “Kemo Sabe” is from the Ojibwa/Potawami word “gimoozaabi”, meaning “he/she looks out in secret” and later “trusted scout” or “faithful friend”.

Often times, a character would ask, “Who was that masked man?”

The reply would be, “I don’t know but he left this silver bullet.”

After cleaning up that week’s mess, The Lone Ranger and Tonto would gallop off to the strains of “March of the Swiss Soldiers” finale from Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.

As a kid growing up, if it wasn’t Looney Tunes, it was The Lone Ranger exposing me to classical music.