Jay Silverheels as Tonto

with Johnny Depp

The familiar cry of “Hi-Yo Silver” will soon be echoing around cinemas once again as the Western crime-fighting duo of the Lone Ranger and Tonto set out on a new adventure.
  But this time it will be Tonto who will be the hero and the Lone Ranger will be reduced to the role of his sidekick if Johnny Depp has his way. 
   The actor, who has a Native American tattooed on his right bicep,  tells me he is waiting to approve the script of the new Lone Ranger film in which he will play Tonto. 
  “I want to try and pay homage to the umpteen thousands of films that have been made about Native Americans over the past hundred years or so in which they never got their due or were treated as some sort of cliche,” he says. 
  “Tonto won’t be the Lone Ranger’s sidekick in this one. Tonto is going to step up to the plate a little more—that’s my aim.” 
Although there have been twenty films about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, dating back to 1920, it is the television series which ran from 1949-1957 and starred Clayton Moore with Jay Silverheels as Tonto which most Western fans remember. Silverheels, the son of a Mohawk chief, died in 1980 aged 67 after a stroke.