.jpeg)
The performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, making him the first Indigenous actor ever nominated for an Oscar. Hollywood noticed. Six years later, when director Philip Kaufman was preparing to shoot "The Outlaw Josey Wales," a Civil War revenge Western based on Forrest Carter's novel, he knew exactly who he wanted for the role of Lone Watie—the elderly Cherokee who becomes companion to the outlaw protagonist. He wanted Chief Dan George.
The role was substantial: Lone Watie wasn't comic relief or a mystical guide spouting wisdom. He was a fully realized character—a survivor of the Trail of Tears, a man who'd lost everything to American expansion, traveling with an outlaw because he had nowhere else to go. The part required someone who could convey a lifetime of loss without sentimentality, who could find humor without undermining tragedy. George accepted the role.
But before filming could begin, the production hit a snag. Kaufman and the film's star, Clint Eastwood, had creative disagreements. Eastwood, who was also producing, made the decision to take over directing duties himself—his fifth time directing, building on the experience he'd gained with films like "High Plains Drifter" and "The Eiger Sanction." When Eastwood stepped into the director's chair, he inherited Kaufman's casting choices, including Chief Dan George. It was a fortuitous inheritance. Eastwood had grown up watching Westerns and had built his career on the genre, but he was interested in creating something more complex than the simplistic cowboys-and-Indians narratives of earlier decades. "The Outlaw Josey Wales" would examine the human cost of violence, the aftermath of war, and the possibility of finding family among outcasts. Lone Watie was central to that vision. But there was a challenge no one had fully anticipated: Chief Dan George was now in his late seventies, and memorizing long passages of dialogue was becoming difficult.
During early filming, George would sometimes lose his place in scenes, forget lines, or struggle to deliver the scripted dialogue exactly as written. For some directors, this would have been a problem requiring retakes, cue cards, or possibly even recasting. Eastwood took a different approach. He'd been an actor long enough to know that great performances don't always come from perfect script adherence. He'd seen how spontaneity and authenticity could elevate a scene beyond what the writer imagined. And he recognized that Chief Dan George brought something to the role that no amount of memorized dialogue could replicate: the lived experience of an Indigenous elder who'd witnessed a century of change.
So Eastwood made a decision that would shape some of the film's most memorable moments. "Forget the script," he told George. "Just tell me the story in your own words." He gave George the freedom to improvise, to find his own path through scenes, to draw on his own experiences and way of speaking rather than struggling to match someone else's written dialogue word-for-word.
The result was magic.
In scene after scene, George's natural storytelling ability emerged. When Lone Watie talks about his past, about the Trail of Tears, about loss and survival, you hear the authentic voice of someone who carries that history—not as academic knowledge but as lived reality. The cadence is different from typical Hollywood dialogue. The phrasing reflects how stories are actually told in oral traditions, not how screenwriters imagine they should sound.
One of the film's most powerful moments comes when Lone Watie discusses his experience on the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Cherokee people that killed thousands. The way George delivers those lines—with quiet dignity rather than melodrama, with the weariness of someone who's told this story many times because people need to hear it—carries weight that no scripted dialogue could match. Eastwood's willingness to collaborate rather than dictate created space for George to bring his full self to the role. This wasn't just good direction—it was a form of respect that acknowledged George's authority to tell his own people's story in his own voice.
The film, released in 1976, became both a critical and commercial success. Roger Ebert called it "one of the best Westerns ever made." It earned over $31 million at the box office and has since been recognized as one of the finest films in the genre. Chief Dan George's performance as Lone Watie is frequently cited as one of the film's greatest strengths—a fully dimensional character who brings humor, wisdom, and humanity to every scene. The relationship between Josey Wales and Lone Watie forms the emotional core of the film, two men scarred by war finding companionship in shared loss.
But the significance of George's work extended beyond this single film.
He was born Geswanouth Slahoot in 1899 on the Burrard Reserve in North Vancouver. He became chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in 1951, a position he held with dedication while also working as a longshoreman and, later, pursuing acting. He began performing relatively late in life—his first significant role came when he was in his 60s—but he approached the work with purpose.
For George, acting wasn't just a career. It was a platform for advocacy, a way to present Indigenous people as fully human to audiences who'd been fed decades of dehumanizing stereotypes. Every role was an opportunity to challenge misconceptions, to insist on dignity, to demonstrate that Native Americans were contemporary people with complex lives, not relics of a romanticized past.
He was also an accomplished poet, published author, and speaker who addressed issues facing Indigenous communities. His work often dealt with the pain of cultural loss, the resilience of Indigenous peoples, and the importance of maintaining connection to traditional ways of life even as the world changed.
The Academy Award nomination for "Little Big Man" had been groundbreaking—the first time the film industry formally recognized an Indigenous actor's work at that level. But George didn't win the Oscar. (John Mills won for "Ryan's Daughter.") Still, the nomination itself was significant, opening doors slightly wider for Indigenous actors who came after.
"The Outlaw Josey Wales" would be one of George's final major roles. He continued working sporadically after the film, appearing in a few more projects, but his health was declining. Chief Dan George died on September 23, 1981, at the age of 82. He lived long enough to see his work begin to shift perceptions, to see Indigenous actors starting to claim more space in an industry that had long excluded them, to know that his performances had mattered. His legacy extends beyond his filmography. He demonstrated that it was possible to work within Hollywood while maintaining integrity and advocating for one's people. He proved that Indigenous actors could carry major roles in mainstream films. He showed that authenticity—bringing your real voice, your lived experience, your cultural knowledge—could create more powerful performances than any script.
The collaboration between Chief Dan George and Clint Eastwood on "The Outlaw Josey Wales" stands as an example of what's possible when directors trust their actors enough to let them contribute their full selves to a role. When Eastwood told George to forget the script and tell the stories in his own words, he wasn't just solving a practical problem—he was acknowledging that George's voice, George's way of telling stories, George's lived experience as an Indigenous elder, was more valuable than perfect adherence to written dialogue.
That trust produced scenes that still resonate nearly fifty years later. Moments where you're not watching an actor play a character, but hearing a storyteller share truths that deserve to be heard.
"The Outlaw Josey Wales" remains a landmark Western, a film that transcended genre conventions to examine violence, trauma, reconciliation, and the possibility of finding family among the displaced and dispossessed. At its heart is the friendship between Josey Wales and Lone Watie—two survivors refusing to let loss define them entirely.
And at the heart of that relationship is Chief Dan George's performance, built partially on written dialogue and partially on the stories he told in his own words when Clint Eastwood gave him permission to set the script aside. Sometimes the best direction is simply: tell me the story the way you would tell it.
And sometimes that's when the magic happens.
