Born 73 years ago in Ontario in the reserve of the six nations, within a family of the Oneida nation, the Canadian Graham Greene built, against prognosis, a notable career as an actor, first in theater and later in cinema and television. His greatest success was his incarnation of Ave that kicks, Kevin Costner’s sioux in Dancing with wolvesthat earned him an Oscar nomination. Considered a whole celebrity in Canada, where he has a star on the Paseo de la Fama, he died after a long illness in a hospital in Toronto. “With deep sadness we communicated the quiet death of the award -winning and legendary Canadian actor, Graham Greene,” his agent, Gerry Jordan, announced Monday.
Greene worked as a sound technician before making the leap to the interpretation. That first turn to the theater, as he remembered in an interview, happened in the seventies in the United Kingdom. During the next decade he continued working mainly on the British and Canadian scenarios. His television debut was in 1979 and cinematographic in 1983, in an episode of the series The great detective and at the biopic The brave corridorrespectively.
In 1990 the interpreter conquered Hollywood thanks to his interpretation of Ave that kicks, The member of the Sioux tribe that becomes a friend of Lieutenant John J. Dunbar in the Kevin Costner movie Dancing with wolves. That role earned an Oscar nomination (the film finally took seven statuettes). Then their work arrived in Thunder heart (1992), Maverick (1994)Crystal Jungle: Revenge (1995)The green mile (1999) or the second movie of the saga Dusk (2009).
Recently, he had participated in the HBO series The Last of Us, Marvel production Echo and in 1883 y Tulsa Kingboth written by Taylor Sheridan, who also gave him a role in Wind River (2017). There are other projects in which it has participated in recent years.
Among other distinctions, Greene won Grammy and Gemini awards, and several medals of the Canadian government. He was a member of the Order of Canada – the second most important civil distinction in the country – not only for its prolific career, in which it appeared in more than 100 different films and television series, but also being a model to follow in its native community of the six nations.
The strong connection with its origin was unquestionable. In an article published in 2012 by the medium Playback – Dissemination of the production industry in Canada, “Greene confessed that her favorite film was The strength of revenge -and not Dancing with wolvesas could be assumed. A 1991 film closer to your home. It tells the story of a lawyer who arrives in northern Ontario to defend indigenous activists who are blocking the indiscriminate felling of centenary trees in their lands by a company. Here, the interpreter gives life to Arthur, who insists on kidnapping the director of the timber to teach him the price of his destruction.
In this feature film he worked with his friend, the Canadian actor Michael Hogan, who in the interview for Playback He remembered Greene as an original and magical person: “You wonder if it is a spirit or a human being in the film.”
Stereotypes in its beginnings
Just last year, Graham Greene answered the question: “Do you think they hire him for his talent or because his face fits the character?” In that interview for the Theater Museum in Canada, the actor commented that for a long time he thought more about the first reason than in the second. He also remembered his beginnings in the film industry: “It was strange when they gave you the script and you had to talk about the way they thought the natives speak. But, to make me a hole, I did it.” They asked him not to smile and growl too much. “I don’t know anyone who behaves like this. The natives have an incredible sense of humor,” Greene told the interviewer as he told that episode of his career.
His agent Michael Greene (without a family relationship) referred to the actor as a person of great ethics, moral and character: “We will miss him eternally,” he told the American environment in a statement Deadline. “You are finally free.”