A Canadian legend has passed away. Graham Greene, a trailblazing actor of Canadian First Nations descent, has passed away at 73. According to Deadline, the actor had suffered a long illness and died in a Toronto hospital. Greene had a long and distinguished Hollywood career, having first blasted onto the scene with a key supporting role in Dances With Wolves. In it, he played Kicking Bird, the medicine man of a Sioux tribe who becomes close friends with Kevin Costner’s John Dunbar. Greene performed the entire role in the Lakota dialect and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
This movie kicked off a massively successful career for Greene as a character actor in American movies, with highlights including his role as a tribal cop opposite the late Val Kilmer in Thunderheart, a send-up of his Dances With Wolves role in the Mel Gibson remake of Maverick, an against-type part as a NYPD cop in Die Hard With a Vengeance, a death row inmate in The Green Mile, plus roles in Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River, 1883, and Tulsa King, Marvel’s Echo, and so many more. Greene kept working until shortly before his death, with IMDb listing eight films he appears in that are yet to be released. One thing Greene always advocated for was a less stoic approach to writing First Nations characters, always trying to find the humour in his roles, no matter how dark.
Greene was something of a legend in the Canadian film industry, receiving a whole host of honours, including an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Sir Wilfrid Laurier University, and being appointed to the Order of Canada. He also won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for his 2000 album Listen to the Storyteller.
Indeed, Greene was a first-rate character actor who will be missed. I’m going to throw on my copy of Dances With Wolves in his honour.