Claim: After the actor who voiced the Lone Ranger on radio was killed while driving drunk, his replacement did not speak during the next several episodes to prevent the original actor's shameful death from being revealed to children by the change in voice.
Example: The story is that the man who played the Lone Ranger was killed in a drunk driving accident on the night that the show was supposed to go on the air. The producers had to replace him with someone, but didn't want to announce it because they didn't want kids to know that their hero had been killed in such a disgraceful way. So, at the last minute, they hurriedly rewrote the episode with the Ranger injured and unable to speak. He grunted and groaned a bit, and then slowly got his voice (the voice of the new actor, of course) back over the next few weeks. In this way, they got listeners gradually used to the new actor, and kids never knew that their hero had been killed.
Origins: One of the actors who portrayed radio's famous Lone Ranger did die in an automobile accident (but not while driving drunk), and his replacement did indeed speak very little for the next several episodes. The ruse was not employed to cover up the actor's (allegedly shameful) death, however, but merely to assuage children's fears that the Lone Ranger himself (rather than the actor who portrayed him) was dead, and to avoid presenting an abrupt change in the Lone Ranger's voice to the audience.
In the hectic early days of radio's The Lone Ranger, three different actors ended up voicing the title role during the show's first three months on the air 1933. The original Ranger was a man named George Stenius who left the role after two and a half months to pursue a career as a writer in New York. (As George Seaton, he would go on to a career in Hollywood as a screenwriter-director-producer, winning two Academy Awards for his screenplays along the way.) Stenius was replaced by Jack Deeds, who lasted only a few days before demonstrating himself to be ill-suited for the job. James Jewell, the station's dramatic director, filled in for one performance before hiring Earle Graser, who took over as the Lone Ranger on 18 April 1933.
Earle Graser was the Lone Ranger on radio for the next eight years, until tragedy struck. On the morning of 8 April 1941, he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and was killed when it slammed into a parked trailer. Graser's death presented two immediate problems to The Lone Ranger's producers: a new actor had to be found fast (the show was broadcast live three days a week; no reruns, and no pre-recorded broadcasts), and the transition had to be handled smoothly to avoid alienating the audience with an abrupt and obvious change in actors. Moreover, the many adolescents in the listening audience had to be reassured that it was not the Lone Ranger himself who had died. Earle Graser was so little-known outside of The Lone Ranger (and received scarcely any publicity even for that role), that his name became almost a footnote in news stories reporting the death of the "Lone Ranger." (Similarly, the media blurred the distinction between the actor Paul Reubens and the character Pee-Wee Herman when Reubens was arrested on indecent exposure charges in 1991.)
The part was filled by Brace Beemer, an announcer and studio manager who had at times narrated The Lone Ranger program, had been making personal appearances as the Lone Ranger (because he was much more physically impressive than Graser), and was currently playing the lead in Challenge of the Yukon (later Sgt. Preston of the Yukon). Beemer's voice was noticeably deeper than Graser's, however, so a gimmick had to be employed to gradually ease him into the role. The gimmick used was to have the Lone Ranger shot and badly wounded at the beginning of the next script, an injury that left him unable to speak for several days as he struggled to recover from his wounds and a fever. For five episodes (April 9 through April 18) the Lone Ranger whispered, breathed, and grunted (and communicated with Tonto through notes) as he recuperated with the aid of an Army Surgeon. Meanwhile, Tonto faithfully followed his instructions to "ride for us both" and continually assured the audience that the Lone Ranger would ride again one day. The transition series served its dual purpose of convincing children that, despite what they may have heard on the news, the Lone Ranger was not dead, and of providing a bridge to Beemer's resumption of a full-voiced Lone Ranger role. Brace Beemer was the Lone Ranger for the next thirteen years, until the radio series ended with its last live broadcast on 3 September 1954.
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