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

TORONTO – Graham Greene, an indigenous Canadian actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Dances With Wolves (1990), died in Stratford, Canada, on Sept 1. He was 73.

His death was confirmed by Mr Gerry Jordan, his agent in Canada.

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. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kevin Costner, who also starred in the movie as a Union Army officer who lives with a Sioux tribe after being wounded in battle.

Greene later appeared in several blockbuster action films, including Maverick (1994) and Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995), the third instalment of the Die Hard films starring American actor Bruce Willis. Greene also played Arlen Bitterbuck, a Native American inmate awaiting execution, in the Oscar-nominated film The Green Mile (1999).

Over a film and theatre career that spanned nearly five decades, Greene resisted moving to Los Angeles or New York.

“I don’t like any of those places,” he said in June, when he received Canada’s Governor General’s Award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts. “I was born in Canada and I’m here to stay.”

Greene was born on June 22, 1952, in the Oneida Reserve in south-western Ontario, Mr Jordan said. Greene graduated from the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto in 1974.

He worked as a welder, carpenter and audio engineer before booking his first television role in a 1979 episode of The Great Detective, a Canadian series. He made his film debut in 1983 in Running Brave, a biopic about Oglala Sioux athlete Billy Mills.

Greene was nominated twice in the 1994 Gemini Awards, Canada’s television awards. He won for a recurring role as a tree in the children’s series The Adventures Of Dudley The Dragon (1993 to 1997).

He received the Order of Canada in 2016 for his achievements in theatre and film, and a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto in 2022.

He is survived by his wife Hilary Blackmore, his daughter Lilly Lazare-Greene and a grandson, Tarlo, said his American agent Michael Greene, who is not related to him.

Graham Greene remained active in his last years.

He played the chief of a Native American tribe in the second and fifth instalments of the vampire film series The Twilight Saga (2008 to 2012), 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 in 2025.

Greene also continued to appear onstage in Canada at the Stratford Festival and in productions by Native Earth Performing Arts, an indigenous theatre company, Mr Jordan said.

“At first, there was nothing, no real outlet for our acting, our storytelling, our careers, our talent,” 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.” NYTIMES