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Clayton Moore (September 14, 1914 –
December 28, 1999) was an American actor best known for
playing the fictional western character The Lone Ranger.
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The
Lone Ranger TV page.
The Lone
Ranger Goes to Washington
The Grand
nephew of the Lone Ranger the Green Hornet
Born as Jack Carlton Moore in Chicago, Illinois, Moore was a circus
acrobat as a boy, then later enjoyed a successful career as a John
Robert Powers model. Moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, he began
working as a stunt man and bit player between modelling jobs.
According to his autobiography, around 1940 Hollywood producer Edward
Small convinced him to adopt the stage name "Clayton" Moore. He was an
occasional player in B westerns and Republic Studio cliffhangers,
ultimately starring in more even than serial hero Buster Crabbe. His
big break came in 1949, when George Trendle spotted him in "The Ghost
of Zorro". As producer of the radio show and creator of "The Lone
Ranger" character along with writer Fran Striker, Trendle was about to
launch the masked man in the new medium of television. Moore was cast
on sight.
Moore then faced the challenge of training his voice to sound like the
radio version of The Lone Ranger, which had then been on the air since
1933, and succeeded in lowering his already distinctive baritone even
further. With the first notes of Rossini's stirring "William Tell
Overture" and announcer Fred Foy's, "Return with us now, to those
thrilling days of yesteryear...", Moore and co-star Jay Silverheels in
the role of Tonto made television history as the first western written
specifically for that medium. The Lone Ranger soon became the
highest-rated program to that point on the fledgling ABC network and
its first true "hit", earning an Emmy nomination in 1950.
After two successful years, which presented a new episode every week,
52 weeks a year, Moore had a pay dispute and left the series. As "Clay
Moore," he made a few more westerns and serials, sometimes playing the
villain. The public didn't really accept the new Lone Ranger, actor
John Hart, so the owners of the program relented and rehired Moore at
his requested salary, who stayed with the program until it ended the
first-run production in 1957. He and Jay Silverheels also starred in
two feature-length "Lone Ranger" motion pictures.
After completion of the second feature, "The Lone Ranger and the Lost
City of Gold" in 1956, Moore embarked on what eventually became 40
years of personal appearances, TV guest spots, and classic commercials
as the legendary masked man. Silverheels joined him on occasional
appearances during the early 1960s, and throughout his career Moore
always expressed his tremendous respect and love for Silverheels.
In 1979 the owner of the Ranger character, Jack Wrather, obtained a
court order prohibiting Moore from making future appearances as The
Lone Ranger. Wrather anticipated making a new film version of the
story, and did not want the value of the character being undercut by
Moore's appearances, nor anyone to think that the 65-year-old Moore
would be playing the role in the new picture. This move proved to be a
public relations disaster of the first order. Moore responded by
changing his costume slightly and replacing the mask with
similar-looking wraparound sunglasses, and then counter-sued Wrather.
He eventually won the suit, and was able to resume his appearances in
costume, which he continued to do until shortly before his death.
Some have attributed the incredible failure of Wrather's picture,
finally released in 1981 as The Legend of the Lone Ranger, to this
move. In reality, it was only one of the picture's many problems
(including Klinton Spilsbury's performance in the title role,
reportedly so inept that his dialogue was re-recorded by James Keach).
However, none of the subsequent remakes of the fictional western hero
caught the public's imagination nor earned their respect as the
original.
Moore often was quoted as saying he had "fallen in love with the Lone
Ranger character" and strove in his personal life to take The Lone
Ranger Creed to heart. This, coupled with his very public fight to
retain the right to wear the mask, ultimately elevated him in the
public's eyes to an American folk icon.
In keeping with the nature of the Ranger character, Moore chose to
always protect the Ranger's identity and therefore is probably the
only actor, or one of very few to have achieved his level of fame,
whose face is largely unknown to the public. His full face was never
shown in the TV series, although occasionally he would don a disguise
and affect an accent, revealing the upper half of his face in the
process. However, there is no shortage of photos of Moore unmasked,
including many in his autobiography. His many fans though could easily
identify him by his instantly recognizable voice.
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