Actor, author, and musician Chief Dan George was born in present-day North Vancouver as Geswanouth Slahoot (later anglicized as 'Dan Slaholt'), the son of a tribal chief on Burrard Indian Reserve Nº. 3. He is the only Aboriginal actor in Canadian history to date with the right to use the title "Chief", serving as leader of the Squamish First Nation of Burrard Inlet from 1951-63, and retained the honorary title after his term ended. His last name was changed to George when at age 5 he entered a mission boarding school where the use of his native language was discouraged, if not forbidden. Until 1959, he had worked as a longshoreman, logger, bus driver, and itinerant musician. After spending much of his early life as a longshoreman, a construction worker, and a school-bus driver, Chief Dan George auditioned for the role of Ol' Antoine on Cariboo Country (1960), a CBC series, and won the part. He made his screen debut at age 65. On the strength of his performance in the series, and after playing the same part in Smith! (1969), a Disney adaptation of one of the show's episodes based on "Breaking Smith's Quarterhorse", a novella by Paul St. Pierre, and starring Glenn Ford, he was asked to play "Old Lodge Skins" in Little Big Man (1970). This role led to an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in 1970. He continued to appear in films and became an accomplished stage actor. He died in 1981 on the same Indian reserve where he was born in North Vancouver at age 82. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Matt Hodson/Robert Sieger Chief Dan George played old Moses Paul in 'Spirit of the Wind', a film made in 1979 by John Logue and Ralph Liddle that was never released in the US until recently. Chief Dan George's maturity as an actor in this film, his last, playing a scruffy, venerable trainer of sled dogs, provided an aura of authenticity to the strenuous efforts of first-time actor Pius Savage to play George Attla as he learns the art of dog-mushing and prepares to enter his first Rondy competition in Fairbanks. The film has an entirely Native American cast--except for Slim Pickens as the local shopkeeper--and includes a scintillating musical score by Buffy Saint Marie, herself a Native Canadian of the Cree Nation. The Montreal Star wrote, 'Slim Pickens and Chief Dan George show why they are among the most noteworthy character actors ever to have graced the screen.'