Clayton Moore Clayton Moore ( September 14 , 1914 – December 28 , 1999 ) was an American actor best known for playing the fictional western character The Lone Ranger . 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 and 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 left the role in a pay dispute and made a few more westerns and serials — sometimes playing the villain ! The public was not very accepting of his replacement , actor John Hart , and 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 '' theatrical motion pictures . After completion of the second feature , `` The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold '' in 1959 , Moore embarked on , what eventually became forty years of personal appearances , TV guest spots and classic commercials as the legendary masked man . Silverheels joined him on occasional appearances during the early 1960's , 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 an order enjoining Moore from future appearances as The Lone Ranger . They 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 Legend of the Lone Ranger , to this move ; in reality it was only one of the picture 's many problems . 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 . Moore was so identified with the masked man , that he is the only person on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , as of 2006 , to have his character 's name along with his on the star , which reads , `` Clayton Moore — The Lone Ranger '' . He was inducted into the Stuntman 's Hall of Fame in 1982 and in 1990 was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City , Oklahoma . In keeping with th e 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 that instantly recognizable voice . Erroneous reports not withstanding , Clayton Moore 's birthdate was September 14 , 1914 and he died December 28 , 1999 from a heart attack and is buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale , California . Autobiography I Was That Masked Man , by Clayton Moore with Frank Thompson , Taylor Publishing Company , 1996 - ISBN 0-87833-939-6 External links Moore 's IMDb entry a fan site http : //surfnetinc.com/chuck/cmoore.htm Podcast - the life story of Clayton Moore See also Other notable figures in Western films Categories : 1914 births | 1999 deaths | American actors | Hollywood Walk of Fame | People from Illinois | Chicago actors | Television actors In other languages : Français | Português | Svenska 