LOS ANGELES -- Clayton Moore, whose portrayal of the Lone Ranger defined the moral code of the first TV generation in the 1950's, died Tuesday (December 28, 1999) of a heart attack at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 85.

Moore's passing, along with the recent deaths of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Rex Allen, brings to a close an era when the difference between good and evil was as plain as the hat on your head.

"I'll wear a white hat the rest of my life," Moore said in a 1985 Los Angeles Times interview. "The Lone Ranger is a great character, a great American. Playing him made me a better person."

Some 50's TV actors couldn't wait to shed their TV personae. George Reeves, who played the title role in the Superman series, despised being stereotyped as the Man of Steel.

But not Moore. He was and will always be the masked man who raced horseback to the William Tell Overture and the cry of "Hi-Yo, Silver away!"

A pioneer of the early TV western, Moore starred in The Lone Ranger from 1949 to 1952 and from 1954 to 1957, crusading against villians on his horse, Silver, with his Indian sidekick, Tonto.

(The show ran September 15, 1949 to September 18, 1960; September 28, 1960 to September 20, 1961; and June 11, 1965 to September 4, 1965. And then, syndicated. Tonto was played by Jay Silverheels; Tonto's horse, Scout; and the Announcer was Fred Foy.)

The show was ABC's biggest hit when the fledgling network was overshadowed by CBS and NBC.

Though he appeared in about 70 feature films, Moore lived and breathed the Lone Ranger role, making public appearances as the masked man into the 1980's and preaching a creed of justice that the character espoused. He even fought a five-year court battle after he lost the right to wear the Lone Ranger mask. (A company that manufactured dark glasses signed him to replace the mask with their glasses.)

The program delighted children of the 1950's, who brought Lone Ranger lunch boxes to school and wore the black mask.

Johnny Grant, the honorary mayor of Hollywood said, "We've lost a part of America in the passing of Clayton Moore. He was a great showman and a great human being."

The Lone Ranger was one of the first shows filmed especially for television and has continued ever since in reryns.

John Hart portrayed the masked man from 1952 to 1954 while Moore was gone from the series because of a contract dispute.

EARLY DAYS OF THE RANGER

The Lone Ranger was created by Fran Striker and George W. Trendle and first heard on radio on January 30, 1933. The last broadcast on radio was done in September, 1954.

Brace Beemer played the title character for thirteen years and was required by contract to restrict his radio acting to that one role until the program left the air. John Todd played the role of Tonto for the twenty-one year run of the show.

Transcriptions of the show from the forties were still being played on radio stations in the seventies.

Other sources: "Remember Radio" by Ron Lackmann, and "The Complete Encyclopedia of Television Programs 1947 to 1976" by Vincent Terrace.

Excerpts from The Lone Ranger Creed:

I believe:

* That to have a friend, a man must be one

* That God put the firewood there, but every man must gather and light it himself.

* That men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number

* That sooner or later, somewhere, somehow, we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken

* That all things change but truth, and that truth alone lives on forever

Footnote: Bob Hite Sr., whose rich baritone voice brought children scrambling to the radio at the start of "The Lone Ranger" with a booming: "From out of the past came the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver!" has died. He was 86. Hite died Friday (Feb. 18, 2000) under the care of Hospice of Palm Beach County, two days after he slipped into a coma. Hite, an Indiana native, was a young man in the 1930s when he went to work at Detroit radio station WXYZ. There, he announced "The Lone Ranger" and other radio shows, including "The Green Hornet."
(from "Shop Talk" e-zine.)
The "Lone Ranger" was the radio show :-) that debuted 1/30/1933. It first aired on a special hook-up of WXYZ, WOR, and WGN. The announcer gig changed hands several times before its demise on 9/3/1954... from Harold True, Brace Beemer (who later played the title role after the original Ranger died), Harry Golder, Charles Woods, and THEN Bob Hite, and ultimately Fred Foy. It would be my guess that Fred Foy is so closely identified with the role because he was the only announcer on the tv version of the series. =============================================== Well, yes, he did the announcing in the early days of the show. But the voice that most of us fondly remember, from July 2, 1948 until the show left the air in September 1954, the "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear" voice was that of Fred Foy, who is still very much with us.