Me and the Lone Ranger!
Poking around the ROKU app, I stumbled upon the season 1, episode 1 of the old Lone Ranger TV show. The …origin story. I watched it as long dormant brain-memory-neurons struggled to come back to life. My wife Sandy said, “I think I remember (this or that part) too!”
(The show is an American TV legacy-legend that started out as radio show. The Lone Ranger radio show debuted on January 30, 1933, on Detroit station WXYZ, while the television series premiered on September 15, 1949. The radio show continued for over 20 years, and the TV show ran until 1957 I reruns? Forever.)
I had to tell her that years back, I was assigned to “bodyguard-protect” the Lone Ranger for a day, back in 1980 , and what a kick it was. It was such a kick for me because…When I was a kid in the 1950s, the Lone Ranger was on prime time television. And along with many westerns like the Cisco Kid and Hopalong Cassidy, children of all ages were mesmerized by the black and white show-box in their living rooms.
The first years of my life, I grew up in a tenement-style, claptrap apartment in the New York Metro area. When it burned down one Christmas when I was 6, the fire also destroyed my Zorro sword, and Lone Ranger gun sets. Rifleman rifle. Josh’s mare’s leg, masks, capes, guns, everything … GONE! That, of course, deeply scarred me for life…I guess?
Anyway, a big child-highlight for me was going to Madison Square Garden in NYC to a “cowboy show”; and appearing there was the Lone Ranger (Clayton Morre) and Tonto (Jay Silverheels) shootin’ blanks and riding in circles, doin’ horse tricks, and whatever they did at these things. Wow!
Then my dad took me a couple of times to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades. From my superior vantage point atop his shoulders, I saw ALL the Western stars of the day ride by on horseback. Bonanza guys, Paladin, Josh (Steve McQueen) Randel, all of them. Even Matt Dillon. Of course, the Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick Tonto trotted by.
“Who was that masked man?” Then they left. Because, well … their work there was done.
When I talk about being a bodyguard and doing security work for famous folks, I usually never mention the ones I did as a police patrolman or detective. I was assigned those jobs. It was not like in the latter years as a private investigator. I’d developed a relationship with several publicity companies and for years they contracted me for security jobs. As a cop, I was assigned to people like Coretta King, various sports stars, and even attached to the Secret Service with Bush #1, etcetera. Several movies were made in our city, with numerous stars (I was assigned to Sinbad and Geroge C. Scott). The list grew bigger after I retired, to include more famous people like Tom Clancy, an attachment to Jimmy Carter’s SS team, and Rudy Giuliani. I am not exaggerating; I cannot remember them all off-hand. But, back as a cop…yes…even the Lone Ranger.
In 1980, a huge new shopping mall was built in our city in Texas; and the grand opening was a big event. The company hired stars to come. Let’s see if I can name them. From Star Wars, Billy D. Williams. Phyllis George who was Miss America in 1971. Ahhh … other famous dudes I can’t remember, and then, Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger.
Moore was never seen in pubic without the Ranger mask. Moore felt that if children saw the Lone Ranger as “just a regular guy,” it would break the magic. To him, the mask wasn’t a costume—it was the character. He once said the Lone Ranger should exist “without a face,” like a legend. After years of personal appearances, Moore saw how strongly kids believed in the Lone Ranger as a real hero. He didn’t want to be the guy who shattered that belief by showing up unmasked and saying, essentially, “It’s just pretend, kids.” Moore fully embraced being the Lone Ranger.
In 1980, When MGM made a new Lone Ranger movie (a bomb) they sued Clayton to get him to remove the mask for good. They wanted their new star in THEE new Ranger movie to be the only famous Lone Ranger. That was sure a lowdown move, wasn’t it? So, Clayton bought a pair of big curved dark sunglasses and wore them everywhere, the kind people wear these days when they have cataract surgery. Clayton’s mask-like eyewear let him thumb his nose in the face of MGM. I imagine they cussed their specific “mask” verbiage in that court settlement.
The “mask” lawsuit put ol’ Clayton back in the news instead of banishing him. The Texas Rangers ball team felt sorry for him and hired him as kind of a mascot. He would ride out on horseback at the seventh-inning stretch; the park was bathed in his theme song of heroic trumpets, and it would gallop around the field and whip the crowd into a complete frenzy! It was an ultimate cool to see that. Ultimate…moment.
So back at the mall grand opening, he was very popular. Clayton was decked out in the blue suit and legendary gun belt, hat, and mandatory sunglasses. He sat at a table and signed autographs and walked the mall shaking hands and talking. I had to stand-around and walk around in my uniform with him, making sure there was no Butch Cavindishes around to get him.
At the first break we wandered back into the mall offices. He took his hat, even his sunglasses off, and…gun belt off and hung the black leather, double-six-gun rig on the back of a chair. I stood behind the seat, the belt and its silver bullets and was transformed into a kid again. It glistened before me like Christmas morning.
“The last time I saw you was in Madison Square Garden in the 50s,” I told him.
“Yes,” he said, “Tonto and I were there in 1957 for the rodeo show.”
Therein lay his obsessive commitment to the character. He didn’t say “Jay” or “Jay Silverheels” and I – he had to say, “TONTO and I.”
You know I always was and am writing and pitching stories. In the 1990s, I started a pitch-story about the Lone Ranger with a dark Batman feel-vibe in the old west. I guess the idea was sacrilegious and like most of my ideas and pitches – went nowhere. And remember the Ranger never shot and killed anyway. People died in the show, but not by the Ranger’s hand. He just shot the gun arms and brought evildoers to justice. The “dark-knight-Ranger” I pitched…well, lots of people got shot, so…maybe just as well and perhaps for the better. There were many follow up books and comics, and a Dark Horse comic series in the 2000s , where the Lone Ranger was more like a dark knight Batman, but however dark? He still never shot and killed bad guys.
(By the way, the Johnny Depp Ranger movie decades later was just a disgusting twist)
Anyway, that long day with the original Lone Ranger was a blast. Thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger is still on TV somewhere in the world. There were 221 television episodes.
Clayton Moore died in 1999. I can only guess … his work here was finally done.
Hi-yooo, Bubba. Hi-yo.
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