"Tonto"

Real Indians in TV westerns are fast becoming a vanishing breed.

"Whenever TV producers these days need Indians they take Mexicans and leave us Indians out of work," Jay Silverheels, better known as "Tonto" the Lone Ranger's sidekick, complained the other day from his five-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley.

Between 1949 and 1956, Silverheels, a Mohawk born Harold Jay Smith on the Six Nations reserve at Brantford, played the monosyllabic Tonto in 178 TV films and two full-length motion pictures. At one time he was earning $100,000 a week.

Things are different now. "I could kid you and say I've been working hard but the truth is I haven't worked in four months," he said.

Silverheels, 46, father of four children, last worked in two TV episodes on Rawhide and Gunsmoke and has no idea when he'll work again.

The rugged 6-foot, 1-inch, 170-pound actor, who talks like a college graduate, came in 1939 as a member of a Canadian all-star lacrosse team and was spotted by comedian Joe E. Brown who offered him work.

Two years ago Silverheels offered to come to the CNE for a week-long personal appearance but was rejected by CNE officials.

"I really wanted to come back to Toronto to work but it was no go," he said.

Silverheels, son of Major George Smith, the most decorated Canadian Indian soldier of World War I, keeps himself in shape horseback riding. He appears annually at the Shrine circus in Harrisburgh, Penna. "Horses are an expensive hobby and I hope I'll be able to afford them for quite a long time to come."