Jay Silverheels was a Kanien'kehá:ka actor born Harold J. Smith on May 26th, 1912. He was born on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation reservation, the most populous First Nation in Canada, and the only nation in which all six Iroquois nations live together. He was the third of eleven children born to Major George Smith, the most decorated Native American soldier in the Canadian Army, who served in World War I.
Harold began going by the name Jay and was given the nickname Silverheels when he played on the lacrosse team, the Mohawk Stars, at sixteen. He later moved across the Niagara River to play lacrosse on the North American Amateur Lacrosse Association team, the Rochester Iroquois. He also boxed and in 1938 placed second in the middleweight section of the Golden Gloves tournament. He lived for a time in Buffalo, where he had his first son, Ron, with Edna Lickers.
The previous year he'd begun working in film, as an extra in the musical comedy, Make a Wish. He married his first wife, Bobbi, and they had a daughter named Sharon. They divorced in 1943. Over the next few years he appeared, usually uncredited, as a stuntman or extra in The Sea Hawk, Too Many Girls, Hudson's Bay, Wester Union, Jungle Girl, This Woman is Mine, Valley of the Sun, Perils of Nyoka, Good Morning, Judge, Daredevils of the West, The Girl from Monterrey, Northern Pursuit, The Phantom, I Am an American, Raiders at the Border, Passage to Marseille, The Tiger Woman, Haunted Harbor, Lost in a Harem and Song of the Sarong.
In the latter half of the 1940s, he began acting in more prestigious films, including Captain from Castile (1948) and Lust for Gold (1949). In 1949, he was cast in the role that would bring him both his greatest fame, and stifle him with typecasting, as Tonto, the faithful friend of the Lone Ranger. Tonto had previously been portrayed, on the Old Time Radio program by a white English actor, John Todd. The TV series became ABC's highest rated program and gave the network its first hit, six years after its initial broadcast. It also made Silverheels the most famous Native American of the era, and the first Native American TV star.
In the 1970s, he acted in more westerns as the genre declined and appeared on an episode of The Brady Bunch as an Indian chief who befriends the Bradys in the Grand Canyon. His final role was on 1974's Dusty's Trail, as an Indian chief. A stroke in 1975 ended his acting career. He died in 1980, at 67, in Calabasas, California and was cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory. His ashes were returned home to Six Nations Indian Reserve.
Although his career was mostly one that required him to play stereotypes, he was nonetheless a pioneer, one of the few Native Americans to get any sort of consistent work in Hollywood, and thus helped open the door for Native actors in the decades that followed his death, who've gone on to enjoy far more diverse roles.
Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, essayist, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking paid writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities. He is not interested in generating advertorials, cranking out clickbait, or laboring away in a listicle mill “for exposure.”
Brightwell has written for Angels Walk LA, Amoeblog, Boom: A Journal of California, diaCRITICS, Hidden Los Angeles, and KCET Departures. His art has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft Contemporary, Form Follows Function, Los Angeles County Store, the book Sidewalking, Skid Row Housing Trust, and 1650 Gallery. Brightwell has been featured as subject in The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, CurbedLA, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, and on Notebook on Cities and Culture. He has been a guest speaker on KCRW‘s Which Way, LA?, at Emerson College, and the University of Southern California.
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