Graham Greene, Oscar-nominated ‘Dances With Wolves’ actor, dies at 73

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Graham Greene, the Oscar-nominated Canadian actor known for his roles in “Dances with Wolves,” “Maverick” and “The Green Mile,” died after a long battle with an illness on Monday in Stratford, Ontario, his agents said. He was 73.

“It is with deep sadness we announce the peaceful passing of award-winning legendary Canadian actor Graham Greene,” his agent, Gerry Jordan, said in a statement.

Michael Greene, another agent, described the cause of death as “a long illness,” declining to give further details.

The First Nations actor’s career in film and television spanned more than four decades, starting in the early 1980s, when he took on smaller roles as Indigenous characters in historical dramas and a sports film. He made his first major breakthrough in 1990 as the Lakota Sioux medicine man Kicking Bird in the Western “Dances with Wolves,” co-starring Kevin Costner. Mr. Greene was nominated for best supporting actor and the film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, catapulting him to stardom.

Mr. Greene went on to play Walter Crow Horse in the 1992 film “Thunderheart,” as well as the Native American group leader Joseph in “Maverick” (1994) and Arlen Bitterbuck in “The Green Mile” (1999).

He was a prolific actor, appearing in more than 200 film and television productions, according to his agents. He took on a role in the teen fantasy romance “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” (2009), the hit video game “Red Dead Redemption 2” (2018) and the Marvel Studios miniseries “Echo” (2023-2024). He recently starred in the thriller “Ice Fall,” set to be released this October.

Mr. Greene was born in Ontario on June 22, 1952 and is from the Oneida Reserve. He has been married to his wife, Hilary Blackmore, for more than three decades and has one daughter.

During his career, he became a prominent figure for Native Americans and First Nations people and often advocated for their greater representation in works of fiction. He was adamant that his background should not limit his range as an actor; in a 2022 interview, he recalled a time where he said he abruptly walked out of a meeting with a film director after the director suggested that he couldn’t envision Native American people working on a U.S. submarine.

“Producers would say things – ‘I can’t see an Indian being that,'” Mr. Greene said. ” … Don’t let it get to you. Just go. Move on. Do something else. Go home, read a book, write your own script.”

At the age of 70, he expressed gratitude for the ups and downs in his life during an interview and acknowledged that his career would soon come to an end.

“Every morning, I say thank you for my failures, thank you for my victories, thank you for my presence, thank you for my life, thank you for the sunlight,” he said. ” … The day turns out better when you wake up with a positive attitude.”