Dances with Wolves actor Graham Greene dies aged 73

The trailblazing Canadian First Nations actor, who was nominated for an Academy Award, died in Toronto after a long illness

Tue, 02 Sep, 2025 - 08:42

Dee Jefferson

Graham Greene, the prolific Oscar-nominated Canadian First Nations actor and Hollywood trailblazer, has died aged 73 in a Toronto hospital after a long illness.

“He was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed,” Greene’s agent, Michael Greene (no relation), told Deadline. “You are finally free.”

Greene was born in 1952 in Ohsweken, on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada. He fell into acting while working as a recording engineer, after a friend persuaded him to read his script. He started on stage, performing in Canadian and English productions 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 biopic Running Brave.

Greene’s Hollywood breakthrough came when Kevin Costner cast him as real-life Lakota Sioux medicine man Kicking Bird (Ziŋtká Nagwáka) in his Academy Award-winning 1990 western Dances with Wolves. Greene’s performance landed him an Academy Award nomination and launched his Hollywood career, which included roles in Thunderheart (1992), Maverick (1994), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), The Green Mile (1999) and The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009).

Greene’s performance in Dances With Wolves landed him an Academy Award nomination. Picure: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

More recently, Greene 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.

Prolific across his career, he worked until the end, with multiple projects yet to be released.

Greene won Grammy, Gemini and Canadian Screen awards across his career and has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. In June he received the Canadian governor general’s performing arts award for lifetime achievement.

Reflecting on his career in a 2024 interview for Canada’s Theatre Museum, Greene said: “When I first started out in the business, it was a very strange thing where they’d hand you the script where you had to speak the way they thought native people spoke. And in order to get my foot in the door a little further, I did it. I went along with it for a while … You gotta look stoic. Don’t smile … you gotta grunt a lot.

“I don’t know anybody who behaves like that. Native people have an incredible sense of humour.

“And that’s what I said to Kevin [Costner]. I said, you know, the people in this film [ Dances with Wolves], in this village, they have an incredible family, incredible relationship and fun has always been part of that. 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.