Biography

John Hart

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Tall and athletic, and possessed of "movie star" good looks, John Hart acted on the stage of the renowned Pasadena Playhouse as a young man, before making his screen debut in a supporting role in director Cecil B. DeMille's big-budget The Buccaneer (1938). With these physical assets and early acting credentials, the native Los Angeleno seemed bound for bigger and better things but military service slowed his momentum: Returning to Hollywood after World War II, he found himself back at the proverbial starting line. Hart soon fell into the low-budget Western and serial rut, but he served with distinction in many youth-oriented productions: He was the perfect embodiment of radio-comic strip hero Jack Armstrong in a 1947 serial, rode the Western plains in 52 episodes of TV's The Lone Ranger (1949) (playing the Masked Man) and brought life to James Fenimore Cooper's courageous frontiersman Hawkeye in TV's Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957). In more recent years, he worked behind-the-scenes (as a cameraman, post-production supervisor, dubbing supervisor, etc.).
- IMDb mini biography by: Tom Weaver <tomweaver@aol.com>

Met his wife, the former Canadian actress Beryl Braithwaite, on the set of his series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957). They wed 10 days later in February of 1957. The union lasted 52 years until his death and produced a daughter, Robyn.
Served in the Army during World War II.
Worked as a cowboy during the summers while growing up.
Loved to surf and lived near the California/Mexico ocean for much of his life.
Replacing actor Clayton Moore as the Lone Ranger in 1952 due to a dispute over pay involving the star, John appeared in 52 episodes. He returned to the Lone Ranger role twice in later years - on a 1981 episode of The Greatest American Hero (1981) and a 1982 episode of Happy Days (1974).

I've been the "other" Lone Ranger for 50 years. There are worse things people could call me.
I had big parts in lousy movies and lousy parts in big movies. I never made a lot of money, but it sure was fun.
[about director Spencer Gordon Bennet] I got to know him very well at Columbia. If he got ahead on a shooting schedule, he got really excited . . . pushing like hell, you know. But if he was behind or just going along, he [took it in stride]. Really a nice guy.
[on Ben Welden] A neat guy. He always knew his stuff. A nice type . . . reliable actor that was all over the place. I liked him a lot.
[on the process of starring as The Lone Ranger]: We worked six days a week, every other week. We worked Monday through Sunday. The scripts ran 30-some pages...we shot every episode in two days. I'd have anywhere from 15, 16, 17 pages of dialogue to memorize. I'd get up at 5 a.m. with a cup of coffee to start memorizing my lines.

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