August Schellenberg

Canadian actor August Schellenberg has played a number of great fictional and real-life Native-American roles throughout his career. Schellenberg got his start acting in numerous stage productions after graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1966. He made his television debut in 1970 on an episode of "Castle Zaremba" and got introduced to film audiences when he appeared in the Canadian coming-of-age drama "Rip-Off" the following year. Schellenberg's career has included a number of intriguing projects. He's voiced characters in the 1981 cult animated film "Heavy Metal," gotten cast as a Mob soldier in 1994's "Getting Gotti," and played a prospector murder suspect in the 1980 docudrama "L'Affaire Coffin." But Schellenberg's most cherished parts have been Native Americans, be it the Apache warrior Cochise ("Geronimo"), his award-winning turn as the fictional 1600s-era Algonquin guide Chomina ("Black Robe"), or the full-blooded Choctaw grandfather of Holly Hunter's Grace Hanadarko ("Saving Grace"). The Canadian actor's favorite portrayal has been of Sitting Bull, whom he has played three times: in an episode of the 1970s historical reenactment series "Witness to Yesterday," the 1996 made-for-cable TNT movie "Crazy Horse," and the 2007 HBO adaptation of the Dee Brown book "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."