Rodney A. Grant

Following the immense success of Kevin Costner's 1990 revisionist Western, "Dances With Wolves," roles suddenly became plentiful for Native American actors. Rodney A. Grant was well positioned to benefit from that trend, having played a memorable role as the skeptical Lakota warrior Wind In His Hair in Costner's epic. Grant became a familiar face in many films and TV shows/movies featuring Native Americans. He did another turn as a warrior, the famous and ultimately doomed Crazy Horse, in "Son of the Morning Star," a 1991 television biopic about George Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn. The actor swerved into the 20th century with a small role in another biopic, "The Doors" (1991), Oliver Stone's trippy exploration of the life of Jim Morrison. Grant returned to Native American history in yet another biopic, Walter Hill's "Geronimo: An American Legend" (1993), playing Mangas. The also inhabited James Fenimore Cooper's faithful Chingachgook in the short-lived TV series "Hawkeye" (1994). Regognizing the limits of playing strictly Native American characters, Grant kept his options open. He appeared in an ethnically neutral role in the John Carpenter sci-fi thriller feature "Ghosts of Mars" (2001) and played a Mongol in 2010's "Genghis Khan: The Story of a Lifetime."