The Oscar-nominated "Dances With Wolves" actor Graham Greene passed away at the age of 73
He continued to work in theater, film, and
television despite being an Indigenous Canadian and made appearances in some other Hollywood blockbusters. On Monday, Indigenous Canadian actor Graham
Greene passed away in Stratford, Ontario. Greene was nominated for an Academy
Award for his role in "Dances With Wolves." He was 73. Gerry Jordan,
his agent in Canada, confirmed his death.
Mr. Greene, who belonged to the
Oneida First Nation, won his Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for his
role as a medicine man in “Dances With Wolves” (1990). The movie won seven
Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, which went to Kevin
Costner, who also played a Union Army officer who moves in with a Sioux tribe
after being wounded in battle.
Mr. Greene went on to make big-budget action
films like "Maverick" (1994) and "Die Hard with a
Vengeance" (1995), the third "Die Hard" movie with Bruce Willis.
He also played Arlen Bitterbuck, a Native American inmate awaiting execution in
the Oscar-nominated film “The Green Mile” (1999). Over a film and theater
career that spanned nearly five decades, Mr. Greene was opposed to moving to
New York or Los Angeles.
When he received Canada's
Governor General's Award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts in
June, he stated, "I don't like any of those places." “I was born in
Canada, and I’m here to stay, and that’s it.” Mr. Graham Greene was born in the
Oneida Reserve in southwestern Ontario on June 22, 1952. Jordan said.
In 1974, he received his diploma
from the Center for Indigenous Theater in Toronto. Before landing his first
television role in a 1979 episode of the Canadian series "The Great
Detective," he worked as a welder, carpenter, and audio engineer. In the
1983 biopic "Running Brave," which was about Oglala Sioux athlete
Billy Mills, he made his acting debut. In the 1994 Gemini Awards, Canada's television
awards, he received two nominations. He won a recurring role as a tree in
the children’s series “The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon.”
He received the Order of Canada
in 2016 for his achievements in theater and film and a star on Canada’s Walk of
Fame in Toronto in 2022. He was survived by his wife, Hilary Blackmore, and his
daughter, Lilly Lazare-Greene, and a grandson, Tarlo, who, according to Mr.
Michael Greene, Greene's American agent, was not related to him. Mr. Greene
remained active in his last years.
He played the chief of a Native
American tribe in the 2009 and 2012 installments of the vampire film series
“The Twilight Saga” and made guest appearances in the television series
“Reservation Dogs” and “The Last of Us” in 2023. He also starred in the Canadian
film “The Birds Who Fear Death” (2024).
His last two films, “Ice Fall”
and “Afterwards,” are scheduled for release later this year. Mr. Greene also
continued to appear onstage in Canada at the Stratford Festival and in
productions by Native Earth Performing Arts, an Indigenous theater company, Mr.
Jordan said.
“At first there was nothing, no
real outlet for our acting, our storytelling, our careers, our talent,” Mr.
Greene was quoted as saying by the Governor General’s Awards.“But today, there
are a lot more Indigenous writers and actors, a lot of young kids coming up who
are breaking into the industry. It’s great to see that.”
