Russell Means as Dodds

Russell was born an Oglala Lakota Indian on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was the first national director of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and is described as the most famous American Indian since Sitting Bull through civil rights actions greater in scope than those of Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. All that is today spoken about from that era is Marlon Brando turning down the Oscar for the Godfather in solidarity with the Wounded Knee occupation that Russell instigated and was taking place at the time on Pine Ridge (the US government fired 130,000 bullets in on a small community there over 71 days).

 

Through the rest of the seventies Means spent much of his time in court fighting the US governments attempts to incarcerate him for his role as a civil rights activist and he survived numerous attempts on his life. Russell’s other achievements include being Larry Flynt’s running mate for US president in 1984. In 1987, he joined the US Libertarian party and announced his candidacy for the party's presidential nomination. (He narrowly lost the nomination to Congressman Ron Paul.) He has championed the rights of indigenous peoples in other countries as well as the US. In a televised speech to the 2000 Libertarian Party National Convention, Means said that he prefers the label "Indian" to the more politically correct "Native American." "Everyone who is born in America is a native American" he said. His acting career started at the top as third lead in Last of the Mohicans after Daniel Day Lewis and Madeline Stowe. His credits also include Natural Born Killers, Pochahontas and Curb your Enthusiasm.