1939 Robert Livingston in the serial “The Lone Ranger Rides Again” (Everett Collection / Everett Col)
1949 – 1958 Clayton Moore in “The Lone Ranger” TV series and the film spinoffs “The Lone Ranger” and “The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold” (Everett Collection / Everett Col)
1981 Klinton Spilsbury in “The Legend of the Lone Ranger” movie (©Universal/courtesy Everett / Ev)
In his autobiography, “I Was That Masked Man,” Moore notes his mask (seen at right in the 1956 movie) was originally purple because it delivered a more textured look in black and white.
“The first mask was slightly smaller and covered less of my face. The mask was made of plaster, molded right to my face, then covered with purple felt,” he wrote. “I developed the molded mask. In previous movies, masked men had trouble moving around because the mask hindered their vision. But with this mask, I had no trouble at all. I could see a punch coming from the side, or I could look down and see my toes.”
Moore wore many masks in his years as the Lone Ranger — the Smithsonian owns one, and another was sold in a Sotheby’s auction in 2000 to a Chicago woman for $30,000. One of Moore’s white Stetsons sold for $7,000 at an auction last month.
Moore also explained in his book why the famous hat never fell off during fight scenes: “That’s because of a little trick I learned from stuntman Tom Steele. I took a rubber tube, the kind you would use as a tourniquet — it was about as thick as your little finger — and put that on the inside of the hat band. Then, when I put the hat on and pushed it on, it made the hat tight so it wouldn’t come off.”
Despite a similar look for the Lone Ranger, the movie was a mega-flop.