How old is russell means

Means died Monday at his home in Porcupine, S. Diagnosed with esophageal cancer in July and told that it had spread too far for surgery, Means refused to undergo heavy doses of radiation and chemotherapy.

Instead, he reportedly battled the disease with traditional native remedies and received treatments at an alternative cancer center in Scottsdale, Ariz. And I believe like my dad believed. Means had been declared cancer-free in April but suffered a recurrence of the disease in his lungs and died after contracting pneumonia, Morris said.

An Oglala Sioux born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Means in his activist prime was called strident, defiant, volatile, arrogant and aggressive. He was frequently arrested and claimed to have been the target of numerous assassination attempts. A onetime con artist, dance-school instructor and computer programmer, Means was executive director of the government-funded Cleveland American Indian Center when he met Dennis Banks and other AIM founders in And in he participated in the seven-day occupation and trashing of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.

Native American Actors. Thomas and the Magic Railroad LA premiere. Thomas and the Magic Railroad premiere. Brando premiere. Cartoon character voice actors and voice actresses in memoriam. See all related lists ». Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDb page. Find out more at IMDbPro ». How Much Have You Seen? How much of Russell Means's work have you seen?

User Polls Abs-solutely Fantastic! Native American Actors See more polls ». Known For. The Last of the Mohicans Chingachgook. Natural Born Killers Old Indian. In August , Means announced he had inoperable throat cancer and told the Associated Press he was eschewing mainstream medicines in favour of traditional Native American treatments.

He also voiced Chief Powhatan in Disney's animated movie Pocahontas. He also made two albums of protest music with lyrics he wrote - Electric Warrior and The Radical. Means's acting career then blossomed. In more than 30 films and television movies he played such heroes as Jim Thorpe and Sitting Bull, as well as sending himself up in the TV comedy Duckman.

Means published an autobiography, Where White Men Fear to Tread , in which he defended the use of violent confrontation: "It told the world that John Wayne hadn't killed us all. In Means was arrested in Denver for blocking the city's Columbus Day parade — which he accused of celebrating genocide — and, following the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the same year, he tried to unilaterally declare an independent Lakota nation.

Divorced four times, he is survived by his fifth wife, Pearl, and 10 children. Russell Means obituary. Champion of Native American rights across five decades.