Graham Greene, the prolific Oscar-nominated Canadian First Nations actor and Hollywood Trailblazer, has died at the age of 73 in a Toronto hospital after a long illness.
“He was a man of great morals, ethics and character, and he will be forever missed,” Green’s agent, Michael Green (no relation), told Deadline. “You are finally free.”
Green was born in 1952 in Ohsweken, a Six Nations reserve in Ontario, Canada. He fell into acting while working as a recording engineer after a friend convinced him to read his script. He began his career on stage, performing in Canadian and English in the 1970s, before making his screen debut in 1979 in an episode of the Canadian drama The Great Detective. His first film role was in the 1983 biographical film Running Brave.
Green’s Hollywood breakthrough came when Kevin Costner cast him as the real-life Lakota Sioux Medicine Man Kicking Bird (Ziŋtká Nagwáka) in his Academy Award-winning 1990 Western Dances with Wolves. Green’s performance earned him an Academy Award nomination and launched his Hollywood career, which included roles in Thunderheart (1992), Maverick (1994), Hard with a Vengeance (1995), The Green Mile (1999), and The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009).
Most recently, Green appeared in Taika Waititi’s FX series Reservation Dogs, HBO’s dystopian series The Last of Us, and Taylor Sheridan’s series 1883 and Tulsa King.
Produced throughout his career, he worked until the end, and several projects had yet to be released.
Green won Grammys, Geminis and Canadian Screen Awards throughout his career and has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. In June, he received the Governor General of Canada’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Reflecting on his career in a 2024 interview at the Canadian Theatre Museum, Green said, “When I first started in the business, it was a very strange thing where they would hand you a script where you had to speak the way they thought the native people spoke. And to have my feet a little further, that was what I did. I got a lot out of it.”
“I don’t know anyone who behaves like that. The locals have an incredible sense of humor.”
“And that’s what I said to Kevin [Costner] in The Village. I said, you know, the people in this movie [Dances with Wolves], in this village, they have an incredible family, an incredible relationship, and fun has always been a part of it. Fun is 50% of how they live and enjoy things. Family is family no matter what.”
Greene is survived by his wife of 35 years, Hilary Blackmore, his daughter Lilly Lazare-Greene, and grandson Tarlo.
