Chief Thundercloud

Chief Thundercloud
Thundercloud as Chief Whitecloud in Renegade Girl (1946)
Born	Victor Daniels (1899-04-12)April 12, 1899 Muskogee, Indian Territory, U.S.
Died	December 1, 1955(1955-12-01) (aged 56) Ventura, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1935–1955
Spouse(s)	Frances Delmar

Chief Thundercloud, (born Victor Daniels, April 12, 1899 – December 1, 1955) was an American character actor in Westerns. He is noted for being the first actor to play the role of Tonto, the Lone Ranger's Native-American companion, on the screen.

Information available about Thundercloud is limited and vague. His application for a Social Security number lists his birth date as April 12, 1899, and his birthplace as Arizona. Most biographies state that he was a full-blooded Cherokee (or Muskogee), but others state that he had some German, Scottish or Irish ancestry. Thundercloud was the first of nine children born to Jesus Daniels and Tomaca Daniels (as indicated on his Social Security application), though the pressbook for The Lone Ranger Rides Again announced his parents as "Dark Cloud and Morning Star, aristocrats of the Muskogee tribe" and his death certificate lists his father as Joseph Mahawa.

Raised on a ranch in Arizona, he was educated at the University of Arizona at Tucson, where he excelled scholastically and in athletics (football, boxing), although no record exists of his enrollment.

Daniels worked many jobs before becoming a stuntman, as a cowboy on cattle ranches, as a miner, a rodeo performer, and tour guide, before he went to Hollywood to try his luck in acting. From there he graduated to character actor status. His title "Chief" was a Hollywood invention. He had the title role in Geronimo (1939) and played Tonto in both Republic Lone Ranger serials, The Lone Ranger (1938) and The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1939).

Throughout the 1940s Chief Thundercloud continued to work as a character actor. In most of the films in which he was featured, he played an antagonist opposing the white protagonist. For example, in the film "Young Buffalo Bill" (1940) he played Akuna, a renegade Native American chief who commits murder while working as a hired hand. In the film Renegade Girl (1946), he played the main villain, Chief Whitecloud, a vengeful antagonist with a vendetta against the protagonist's family.