Obituaries

Actor John Hart, 91, who played the title character on the television series The Lone Ranger for 52 episodes when regular star Clayton Moore walked out over a pay dispute, died Sunday. He suffered from dementia in recent years.

A Los Angeles native who launched his Hollywood career as a bit player in Cecil B. DeMille's 1938 film "The Buccaneer," Hart played small roles in a string of films before he was drafted into the Army in 1941.

Relaunching his career after the war, he played the title role in the 1947 Columbia serial "Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy," which was based on the popular radio show.

Hart already had appeared in a couple of episodes of "The Lone Ranger" as a guest actor when Moore left the series, reportedly over a pay dispute.

"I don't know how many other actors they looked at, but I got the part," Hart said in an interview for the book "The Story of the Lone Ranger" by James Van Hise. "They didn't pay me much, either. It was unbelievable. But being an out-of-work actor, to have a steady job for a while is great."

Hart said each half-hour episode was filmed in two days.