Oscar-nominated Graham Greene passed away on Monday at 73 years old. Per Greene’s agent speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, the Ontario-based actor had been battling a “lengthy illness.”
Born June 22, 1952 in Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve, Greene was an executive director for the Native Theatre School program in Toronto’s Centre for Indigenous Theatre. After spending the 1970s doing professional theatre in Toronto and England, he made his TV debut in an episode of 1979’s The Great Detective. (He’d later call that performance “awful” and commit to learning acting as a profession.) Greene then became a recurring actor in TV with the CBC series Split Bay in the mid-80s and in the 90s for shows like Northern Exposure and Royal Canadian Air Farce.
Greene first came onto the silver scene in 1983’s Running Brave, going on to star in 1990’s Dancing with Wolves, which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as Kicking Bird. The film, one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, introduced non-Canadian audiences to Greene and led to more work throughout the decades: From Thunderheart to Die Hard With a Vengeance and The Green Mile, he was everywhere, sometimes appearing in as many as six projects a year across TV and film. Some of us knew him through Twilight or Defiance, others through Exhibit A: Secrets of Forensic Sciece or Red Dead Redemption II.
“[Graham Greene] was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed, his agent Michael Greene told THR. “You are finally free. Susan Smith is meeting you at the gates of heaven,” he continued, referencing the actor’s longtime agent, who passed in 2013.
More recently, Greene appeared in The Last of Us, Echo and Tulsa King on TV and five films, including Paige Darcy: Reluctant Detective and Protectors of the Land. His likely final role will be in the upcoming thriller film Ice Lake. Greene is survived by his wife, Hillary Blackmore, daughter Lilly Lazare-Greene, and grandson Tarlo. According to THR, details on a remembrance celebration will be shared in the near future.
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