What makes Chief Dan George even more remarkable is that he was 60 years old when he began his acting career. He was born Geswanouth Slahoot in Tsleil-Waututh, North Vancouver, British Columbia on July 24, 1899. His original name in English was Dan Slaholt, but his surname was changed to George when he was enrolled in a residential school when he was 5 years old. Before going into acting, he worked a number of different jobs, including longshoreman, logger, school bus driver, and construction worker.
It was in 1960, when he was sixty years old, that Chief Dan George took his first acting job. It was on the CBC drama series Cariboo Country. On the show, the show he played Ol' Antoine, a chief of the Chilcotin people. Cariboo Country would not be the the last time that Chief Dan George played Ol' Antoine. It was in 1965 that Paul St. Pierre, the creator of Cariboo Country, began adapting some the episodes he had written for the show as novels. The novel Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse was adapted by Walt Disney Productions as the movie Smith! in 1969. The cast would be entirely different from that of the TV show Cariboo Country except for one actor, Chief Dan George as Ol' Antoine.
Although he is now probably most familiar to audiences for his movies, Cariboo Country would not be the last work in television that Chief Dan George did. He made several guest appearances on Canadian and American TV shows. In the episode "Cougar Hunter" of The Littlest Hobo, he was one of a group of First Nations people who adopted the dog of the show's title. On The High Chaparral, in the episode "Apache Trust," he played Chief Morales, a Apache chief anxious to prove that the Apache did not steal a shipment of Army rifles. In the Bonanza episode "Warbonnet," he played Red Cloud, a Native American chief who want to get his stolen warbonnet back from a former U.S Calvary officer. Chief Dan George's last television role was as the recurring character Chief Moses Charlie on the comedy drama The Beachcombers, a show often counted among the greatest Canadian shows ever made.
While Chief Dan George did a good deal of television, he may be best known today for his movie roles. In fact, Chief Dan George was the first Indigenous North American actor to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. It was for his role as Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man (1970). He won both the New York Film Critics Circle Award and National Society of Film Critics Award for Supporting Actor for the film, as well as the Laurel Award for Best Supporting Performance, Male. Beyond Little Big Man (1970), Chief Dan George's best-known role may be Lone Watie in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a Cherokee man who finds himself travelling with Josey (Clint Eastwood). In the movie Harry and Tonto (1974), he played Sam Twofeathers, who is in prison for the first time in his life for having urinated in public. In the comedy Americathon (1979), Chief Dan George played Sam Birdwater, a billionaire and the leader of a Native American cartel who must bail a bankrupt United States government out.
In addition to acting, Chief Dan George was also a poet. He wrote the poetry collection My Heart Soars, published in 1974, and My Spirit Soars, posthumous published in 1983. Chief Dan George was also a musician, and played bass fiddle.
Chief Dan George died on September 23, 1981, at the age of 82. He left behind s legacy that still being felt to this day. Chief Dan George eschewed playing stereotypes, and insisted on playing sympathetic roles. If we do not see such Indigenous stereotypes as the hostile Native American "savage," we owe a good deal to Chief Dan George. Chief Dan George used his position as an actor, public speaker, and poet to advocate for the Indigenous peoples of North America. Indeed, for the Centennial of Canada in 1967 he delivered the Lament of Confederation, a powerful attack on the effect colonization has had on the Native peoples of Canada. Chief Dan George was an enormous talent and an advocate for his fellow Indigenous people.
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