To date, only two male actors of Indigenous North American heritage have been nominated for Academy Awards. The first was Chief Dan George, co-star of 1970’s Little Big Man. Two decades later, Canada’s Graham Greene was, like George, nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Dances with Wolves. This was just one of several milestones in the career of the popular character actor, who passed away earlier this week at 73.
A member of the Oneida tribe, Greene was born on southern Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve (also the birthplace of Jay “Tonto” Silverheels) in 1952. After working as a steelworker and band roadie, he helped establish the Center for Indigenous Theater in Toronto in the early 1970s (some sources say he graduated from the program), Greene began performing in regional stage productions across Canada. He made his CTV debut in a 1979 episode of The Great Detective, and four years later got his first film role in the sports biodrama Running Brave with Robby Benson. Moviegoers saw him alongside Al Pacino in the Revolutionary War saga Revolution (1985) and as a Vietnam veteran living on a reservation in the Native American-themed road movie Pow Wow Highway (1989). The latter also starred Graham’s cousin, fellow actor Gary Farmer.
Greene’s breakthough came when director/star Kevin Costner cast him as the Sioux medicine man Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves. After his Oscar-nominated turn, Greene played a South Dakota reservation police officer who teams with a part Sioux FBI agent (Val Kilmer) to solve a murder in Thunderheart (1992). The following year he was Bret Maverick’s (Mel Gibson) buddy Joseph, who dresses and speaks in stereotypical Indian style to impress a rich Russian aristocrat (“Of course he’s gotta hear the war drums ALL THE TIME!”), in Maverick (1994), and played an Alaskan Inuit and prospective pop to a young Elijah Wood in Rob Reiner’s offbeat family tale North. Graham was an NYPD detective helping John McClain (Bruce Willis) in 1995’s Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third entry in the action series, and he was featured as a Death Row inmate in 1999’s The Green Mile.
On the small screen, Greene made appearances on L.A. Law, Murder, She Wrote, Northern Exposure, and other American programs, along with a reccuring role as dynamite-loving Edgar K.B. Montrose on the Canadian-made cult comedy The Red Green Show and hosting the doucmentary series Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Science. He also starred in the made-for-TV dramas The Last of His Tribe and (as Chingachgook) The Pathfinder.
His 2000s body of work was a diverse one, from the Disney dogsledding comedy Snow Dogs (2002) to the LGBT-themed Transamerica (20025) to the YA supernatural romance The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009). He was also a common face in independent and Canadian-made films. In addition, Greene had regular roles in such TV series as Wolf Lake, Longmire, and Defiance, and co-starred as Slick Sakai in two 2003 telefilms based on Tony Hillerman novels, Coyote Waits and A Thief of Time. Greene received good notices for his turn as a judge in Aaron Sorkin’s 2017 seriocomedy Molly’s Game. On September 1st the actor passed away in his southern Ontario home from what his family called a “lengthy illness.”
In a 2023 interview for the Television Academy, Greene said that one of his biggest challenges during the making of Dances with Wolves was learning the Lakota Sioux dialogue, which he accomplished by eight hours of daily study over three months. “I don’t even speak my own language,” he confided. “We were taught not to speak it. It’s like forgetting your heart.” The heart and pride that he felt for his people and their heritage shown through his many memorable and groundbreaking performances.