Chief Dan George was in his 60s before he ever acted professionally, yet within a decade he shared the screen with Dustin Hoffman and Clint Eastwood, earned an Academy Award nomination, and became one of Canada’s most recognizable Indigenous voices. His path to that second life was anything but conventional. Born Geswanouth Slahoot on July 24, 1899, on the shores of Burrard Inlet in what is now North Vancouver, British Columbia, he was a member of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. His father was a chief.
The community’s history stretched back generations before Canada existed as a country. When George was about five years old, he was sent to St. Paul’s residential school, where students were separated from their families and forbidden from speaking their own languages. It was there that his surname became George, taken from his father’s English name.
He remained at the school for roughly 11 years. He married Amy, and their marriage lasted more than half a century. They had eight children together, six of whom survived to adulthood. George spent decades working as a construction worker, logger, school bus driver, and musician before settling into physically punishing work on Vancouver’s waterfront.
In 1923, his father-in-law helped him get work as a longshoreman. He spent approximately 27 years loading and unloading cargo ships. In 1947, a swinging load of lumber struck him, severely damaging his leg and hip muscles. He later described the injury bluntly: “My leg and hip muscles were smashed to hamburger.
” The accident ended his waterfront career. In 1951, George became chief of the Burrard Indian Band, the community now known as the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. He was elected, not simply inheriting the role, and served until 1963. For 12 years, he dealt with the practical problems facing his community while also becoming one of its most recognizable voices.
He increasingly acted as a spokesman for Indigenous people beyond his own nation. In 1960, he landed a role on the CBC television series “Caribou Country” playing Old Antoine, an Indigenous elder. He had no formal acting training, but the performance revealed that he already possessed the age, authority, and lived experience the role required. In 1967, playwright George Ryga was preparing “The Ecstasy of Rita Joe,” a play about a young Indigenous woman struggling to survive in urban Canadian society.
Ryga and George discussed the play extensively, and those conversations helped shape the character of David Joe, Rita Joe’s father, before George was even cast. When the production opened at the Vancouver Playhouse that November, George played the role in what became one of the most important Indigenous-themed works in modern Canadian theater. That same year, George stepped onto a much larger stage. On July 1, 1967, during Canada’s centennial celebrations, approximately 32,000 people gathered at Vancouver’s Empire Stadium.
Instead of delivering a comfortable patriotic message, George presented what became known as “A Lament for Confederation. ” He confronted the history of dispossession, describing how Indigenous people had been called savage for defending their land and lazy when they resisted ways of life they did not understand. But he then turned the argument in another direction. He declared that like the Thunderbird, he would rise again and grab the instruments of the white man’s success—education and skills—and use those tools to build a stronger future for his people.
According to George’s son Leonard, his father first read the speech in the family living room after his wife encouraged him to write something expressing what the centennial meant to First Nations people. When he delivered it at the stadium, the crowd fell silent. Then came a standing ovation and national newspaper coverage the next day. The career breakthrough came with “Little Big Man” in 1970.
Director Arthur Penn cast George as Old Lodge Skins, a fictional Cheyenne elder, opposite Dustin Hoffman. Contemporary reporting said Penn had considered Laurence Olivier and Paul Scofield, then offered the role to Richard Boone, who withdrew shortly before filming. Old Lodge Skins was affectionate, mischievous, philosophical, stubborn, and capable of devastating humor. He adopts Hoffman’s character as his grandson and teaches him the Cheyenne way of seeing the world.
The Library of Congress describes George’s performance as giving the film its soul, noting that his real experience as a chief informed the portrayal. One scene in particular changed his career. Old Lodge Skins prepares for death, climbs to a high place, and settles himself into the landscape, believing his time has come. He speaks to the spiritual world, lies down, and waits.
Then rain begins falling. He opens his eyes, realizes he is still alive, and delivers the line that became inseparable from the character: “Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t. ”
George later said the song, dance, and his manner of talking to the great spirit were his own ideas, drawn from his own identity and experience. In 1970, the New York Film Critics Circle named George best supporting actor for “Little Big Man.
” The National Society of Film Critics gave him the same honor, and he won the Laurel Award for best supporting performance. At the 43rd Academy Awards, he was nominated for best supporting actor. John Mills won for “Ryan’s Daughter,” but the nomination itself was historic: George was the first Indigenous North American actor nominated for an acting Oscar. That same year brought a private loss.
His wife Amy died. They had been married for 51 years. In 1971, George was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada. He received an honorary doctor of laws from Simon Fraser University in 1972 and a doctor of letters from Brandon University the following year.
George used his celebrity to challenge stereotypical representations of Indigenous people. Library and Archives Canada records that he would not accept roles that demeaned his people. Yet his choices were not always straightforward. He appeared in the 1972 comedy “Cancel My Reservation” starring Bob Hope despite criticism.
His explanation was blunt: “The business of an actor is to act. ” But he maintained his boundary against roles he considered degrading. In May 1973, while appearing in a Washington production of “The Ecstasy of Rita Joe,” George faced a direct political challenge. Activists associated with the American Indian Movement approached him and tried to persuade him to support the occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota.
He refused. According to Library and Archives Canada, he explained: “We buried the hatchet in Canada long ago. ” He acknowledged that treaty after treaty had been broken but said Indigenous people in Canada had not taken up the hatchet again and had their council of chiefs to work through their problems. His disagreement was over strategy, not grievance.
He believed change could come through leadership, education, public persuasion, and control over Indigenous representation rather than necessarily through confrontation. In 1974, George published “My Heart Soars,” a 95-page collection of poems and reflections created with illustrator Helmut Hirnschall. The book presented him not as an actor discussing Indigenous life but as a writer expressing his own worldview. One of its best-known poems begins: “The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speaks to me.
” The imagery moves through mountains, thunder, the sea, stars, flowers, fire, and salmon before arriving at the title’s declaration: “and my heart soars. ”
In 1976, Clint Eastwood cast George as Lone Watie in “The Outlaw Josey Wales. ” Eastwood later said he knew George was right for the part, describing his face as one that “could look like a puppy dog one moment and an aristocratic king the next. ” Lone Watie was a survivor who had experienced betrayal by the United States government yet retained enough humor to make that betrayal ridiculous.
When he tells Josey about traveling to Washington with other Indigenous representatives, officials praised them for appearing civilized and told them to “endeavor to persevere. ” Lone Watie explains they thought about those grand words for a very long time. Then comes the punchline: “We declared war on the Union. ”
Accounts of the production say that when George struggled with memorized dialogue, Eastwood would have him tell the story naturally rather than forcing him to reproduce written lines.
Roger Ebert praised George’s “wonderfully understated wit,” noting he was funny and dignified at the same time. George kept working steadily. His credits included “Harry and Tonto,” “The Bears and I,” “Alien Thunder,” “Shadow of the Hawk,” “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” and “Spirit of the Wind. ” He also appeared on television, including “The Beachcombers,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and the miniseries “Centennial.
” His final film role came in “Nothing Personal” in 1980. Some later projects were particularly revealing. In 1975, he appeared in the National Film Board production “Cold Journey,” a film dealing directly with the devastating effects of residential schools and cultural dislocation. In 1979, he appeared in “Spirit of the Wind,” a semibiographical film about Alaska Native champion dog musher George Attla.
On September 23, 1981, George died at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver at the age of 82. His funeral drew approximately 1,200 people to Vancouver’s Holy Rosary Cathedral. He was buried on the Burrard Reserve where his life had begun. The boy whose language had been suppressed became a public speaker.
The working man became a Hollywood star. The chief became a character actor. The actor became an Oscar nominee. The poet became a literary voice.
And the man Hollywood initially had little reason to notice became one of the most enduring Indigenous figures in 20th-century Canadian film history.
