Chief David Bald Eagle, prominent Native American leader and actor, dies aged 97

David Beautiful Bald Eagle Jr, the prominent Native American chief and actor who appeared in movies including the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves, has died at his home on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was 97.

A paratrooper, dancer, Wild West show performer and musician, who acted in more than 40 Hollywood films, Bald Eagle also spent several years as the face of the Mount Rushmore state’s tourism promotion campaign.

His grandfather, Chief White Bull, led a charge against General Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. A member of the Lakota Sioux tribe, Bald Eagle was born in a teepee at Cherry Creek village on the Cheyenne River reservation in 1919. He won a Silver Star for valour while serving in the US army during World War 2, landing as a paratrooper at Anzio in Italy and again in Normandy on D-Day, where he was wounded by German gunfire.

A drummer for the Cliff Keyes Big Band and a ballroom dancer, he lost his first wife and dance partner, Penny, in a car accident. He met his second wife, Josee, while performing in a Wild West show at the World’s Fair in Belgium in 1958.

Meanwhile, he made the move into Hollywood, working with Golden Age stars such as John Wayne and Errol Flynn as a riding and weapons trainer and stunt double. He was also a longstanding fixture of the annual “Days of ‘76” historical parade in Deadwood, South Dakota.

In 2001, he was elected the first Chief of the United Native Nations. “Chiefs are chosen by acclamation but they have to meet certain criteria: being humble, being brave and other values we embrace as a people,” said Sonny Skyhawk, an actor and founder of the advocacy group American Indians in Film and Television.

“Dave Bald Eagle qualified in all those values. We don’t have many chiefs left because most of them have made the journey to the spirit world, but Dave carried the name of chief very well. He was a very special and extraordinary human being. He stood for his people, honoured his people and educated others about them.”

His final film was the drama Neither Wolf Nor Dog, which recently premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival. “He was an astonishingly beautiful man,” the film's director, Steven Lewis Simpson, told the BBC. “His life was more extraordinary than of those that most great biographies are written about.”

Bald Eagle died on 22 July and a traditional four-day wake in his honour began on Monday. His funeral will take place on Friday at the Black Hills National Cemetery in Sturgis, South Dakota

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