SM2, thanks for that image. Like Bestie said, that's got to be the inspiration for Tonto's costume.
Bestie, I found this, from 2008
Christianity Today interview with Armie Hammer for the Billy Graham movie (
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/interviews/2008/armiehammer.html):
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The question has to come up when you play a character like this: What about your own personal beliefs? Hammer: I have my own spiritual life, and I value it very much. I feel like spirituality is something that is for each person and something that needs to be alive for each and every person. With this, I was given a chance to get into the spiritual life of Billy Graham and, as an actor, take that on. I started reading the Bible quite a bit, so I could understand the word that Billy Graham was saying. His sermons were so rich and deep with revelations, that as an actor, if you just say those words and you don't understand the meaning behind them, it won't make sense. It'll fall flat. But if I can understand his sermons on a deeper level by reading up on the Bible, then I'm able to, as an actor, experience that as well, and that was a beautiful thing.
Is there anything from Graham's spiritual teachings that you would take away from the film, or apply to your own spiritual life? Hammer: I'm sure that, in the process, I just discovered so much about my own spiritual life. But nothing's jumping to the top of my head.
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He doesn't seem like a bible-thumper type here. Maybe he was being deliberately non-committal and vague, perhaps to appeal to a wider audience, but it seems that if he had wanted to play up a personal Christian faith, the perfect time to do so would have been for that interview, for that movie.
As for Tonto, I found this, fwiw, from
http://www.endeavorcomics.com/largent/ranger/faq.html:
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Isn't it true that Tonto means "fool" in Spanish? This *is* true, but it was not that meaning that was intended by the producers of the show.
There are two versions of the story.
Fran Striker told the Saturday Evening Post that he invented Tonto's name and that it was picked by merely alterring the consanants in the name Bobo. (This was a caveman character Striker had created in another radio program.)
Jim Jewell says that Striker was remembering wrong. Tonto, he said, is another Potowatomie word.
There were a few Indians who would come to the camp to tell stories to the children.
One of the Indians apparently had a penchant for drinking after the children had gone to sleep. Sometimes he would get rowdy and the other Indians would call him "tonto." This meant "wild one."
Jewell remembered the word, liked it, and gave the name to the Lone Ranger's Indian companion.
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Trivia -- both the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet were created by Fran Striker. Britt Reid aka Green Hornet is the grand/great/something-nephew of the Lone Ranger (whose first name is apparently debatable).
All right, I'm boring y'all, I can feel it. LOL As you were, everybody!
Updated On: 3/9/12 at 03:33 PM