Oscar nominee Graham Greene died September 1, after a long illness. He was 73.

Mr. Greene was one of the most influential Indigenous actors in North American history. A member of the Oneida Tribe, a band of the Canadian First Nations, he was born on the Six Nations Reserve, the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. Initially working as a draftsman, steelworker, welder, and an audio technician for rock bands based in Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Greene was encouraged by Kelly Jay of Crowbar to consider a career in theatre in the late 1960s.

He immediately took to the stage, performing in professional theatre throughout Canada and England throughout the 1970s. A commonly repeated misconception is that Mr. Greene attended the Toronto-based Centre for Indigenous Theatre's Native Theatre School program. In reality, Mr. Greene helped to run the program, serving as the executive director of a school-supporting local arts organization. 

Mr. Greene made his television debut in 1979, and became a familiar face on Canadian screens, but he truly established himself as a worldwide cinema star in 1990, when his performance as Kicking Bird (Ziŋtká Nagwáka) in Dances With Wolves brought him an Academy Award nomination. Mr. Greene was the first Oneida actor to be nominated for an Academy Award, and only the second Indigenous performer to ever be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards, following Chief Dan George in 1970. Mr. Greene and Mr. George remain the only two Indigenous actors to be nominated in the category.

While Mr. Greene remained an in-demand screen actor for the rest of his life, appearing in Thunderheart, Maverick, Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Green Mile, A Thief of Time, Coyote Waits, The Twilight Saga, and Molly's Game. In 2005, he played a love interest in the film Transamerica, a historic role where a cis-man was portrayed as not only attracted to a trans woman, but genuinely kind to her, rather than their flirtation being played off as a joke, as was common in film at the time.

Theatrically, Mr. Greene frequently worked at the Native Earth Performing Arts. He provided the pre-recorded narration for Tecumseh!, the highly acclaimed outdoor show held in Chillicothe, Ohio, based upon the life of the illustrious Shawnee chief of that name. In 2007, he appeared as Shylock in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival production of The Merchant of Venice.

In 2018, Mr. Greene voiced Chief Rains Fall in the western video game Red Dead Redemption 2. In one of his final appearances, on FX’s Reservation Dogs, he added to his enduring legacy of opening doors for Indigenous talent in Hollywood, and earlier this year, he received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in Canada.

Prior to his death, Mr. Greene completed work on 4 screen projects that have not yet been released: Ice Fall, Afterwards, A Life Connected, and Northbound. Four additional projects were in pre-production at the time of his death: Javelins of Light, Brave, Lily's Sacred Journey, and Two Minutes to Midnight.

Mr. Greene is survived by his wife of 35 years, Hilary Blackmore, his daughter Lilly Lazare-Greene, and his grandson Tarlo.