 |
Geraldine Keams | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 19, 1951 Flagstaff, Arizona, U.S. |
| Years active | 1976–present |
Geraldine Keams (born August 19, 1951) is a Native American (Navajo Nation) actress. She is best known for her work in numerous television series, often playing a maternal role. [1]
Keams was born on August 19, 1951, in Flagstaff, Arizona. She was raised on the Navajo reservation then went to the University of Arizona, where she studied drama and film.
After graduating from college, Keams moved to New York City to pursue theater. [2] In New York, she wrote and performed with Hanay Geiogamah's (Kiowa/Delaware) Native American Theater Ensemble at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. [3] She adapted a Navajo creation story for the 1972 production Na Haaz Zan and also performed in Geiogamah's Body Indian. [4] The ensemble took both pieces on tour in 1972 and 1973, performing at the University of New Mexico, the College of Santa Fe, Haskell Indian Junior College, the Walker Art Center, the American Indian Center in Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution, Rough Rock Demonstration School in Chinle, Arizona, Springfield College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Dartmouth College, and the University at Buffalo, among other places. [5]
Keams made her film debut playing Little Moonlight in Clint Eastwood's western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).
In 2021, she had a recurring role in the Peacock sitcom Rutherford Falls , about relationships between a fictional Native American tribe and the New England town it borders. Showrunner Sierra Teller Ornelas described Keams as "Navajo royalty", saying, "When she walked on the set, I was starstruck". [6]
In addition to her film work, Keams gives live performances and workshops. She is a resident artist at the Los Angeles Music Center. Keams currently resides in Pasadena, California.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1976 | The Outlaw Josey Wales | Little Moonlight | film |
| 1977 | The Car | Donna | film |
| 1982 | Born to the Wind | Wind Woman | television series |
| 1991 | Twin Peaks | Irene Littlehorse | television series |
| 1991 | Northern Exposure | Great Aunt | television series |
| 1993 | Shadowhunter | Doctor | TV movie |
| 1996 | The Secret of Lizard Woman | Lizard Woman | television series |
| 2001 | Dharma & Greg | Meditation Leader | television series |
| 2002 | The Slaughter Rule | Gretchen Two Dogs | film |
| 2002 | Angels Don't Sleep Here | Arlene Grey Eagle | film |
| 2002 | Skinwalkers | Gina | TV movie |
| 2003 | DreamKeeper | Iktome's Wife | TV movie |
| 2003 | Edge of America | Mother Tsosie | TV movie |
| 2003 | Scrambled | Dora | film |
| 2005 | A Thousand Roads | short film | |
| 2005 | Buffalo Dreams | Abuela Rose | TV movie |
| 2008 | Comanche Moon | Hema | mini-series |
| 2010 | Pickin' and Grinnin' | Hopi Woman | film |
| 2010 | Faster | Preacher's Wife | film |
| 2012 | Arcadia | Security Guard | film |
| 2021 | Rutherford Falls | Rayanne | television series [6] |
| 2021 | Reservation Dogs | Mabel | television series |
Keams Canyon is a census-designated place (CDP) in Navajo County, Arizona, United States, on the Hopi Reservation. The population was 304 at the 2010 census.
Samuel Shepard Rogers III was an American actor, playwright, author, director and screenwriter whose career spanned half a century. He won 10 Obie Awards for writing and directing, the most by any writer or director. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs. Shepard received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film The Right Stuff. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award as a master American dramatist in 2009. New York magazine described Shepard as "the greatest American playwright of his generation."
Nampeyo was a Hopi-Tewa potter who lived on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. Her Tewa name was also spelled Num-pa-yu, meaning "snake that does not bite". Her name is also cited as "Nung-beh-yong," Tewa for Sand Snake.
Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald was an Irish stage, film, and television actress. She was an Academy Award and Tony Award nominee, and an Emmy Award winner. She was a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame and, in 2020, was listed at number 30 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors.
Ellen Stewart was an American theatre director and producer and the founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. During the 1950s, she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
American Indian Dance Theatre is a professional performing arts company presenting the dances and songs of Native Americans in the United States and the First Nations of Canada.
Joel Rudolf Zwick is an American film director, television director, and theater director. He worked on the television series Perfect Strangers, Full House, and Family Matters, and directed the films My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Second Sight, and Fat Albert.
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an Off-Off-Broadway theater founded in 1961 by African-American theatre director, producer, and fashion designer Ellen Stewart. Located in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, the theater began in the basement boutique where Stewart sold her fashion designs. Stewart turned the space into a theater at night, focusing on the work of young playwrights.
Carson Wilford Leach was an American theatre director, set designer, film director, screenwriter, and professor.
Marguerite Duffy, known professionally as Megan Terry, was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist.
Leonard Melfi was an American playwright and actor whose work has been widely produced on the American stage.
Charles Allan Hill was one of the first Native American stand-up comedians, to appear on major television shows such as the Richard Pryor Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Show with David Letterman, Roseanne and Moesha. He was a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, with heritage from the Mohawk and Cree Nations. He wrote for the television series Roseanne and co-produced and hosted a Showtime special called The American Indian Comedy Slam: Goin Native No Reservations Needed. Charlie Hill was the first Native stand-up comedian ever to perform on national television, making his network debut on the Richard Pryor Show in 1977. He then went on to become the first Native comedian to perform on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson among many other National late night talk shows. Charlie performed across Turtle Island for hundreds of Tribal communities and Nations throughout his career.
Andy Wolk is an American television and theatre director.
Jean-Claude van Itallie was a Belgian-born American playwright, performer, and theatre workshop teacher. He is best known for his 1966 anti-Vietnam War play America Hurrah;The Serpent, an ensemble play he wrote with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre; his theatrical adaptation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; and his translations of Anton Chekhov's plays.
Hanay Geiogamah is a Native American playwright, television and movie producer, and artistic director. He is a professor emeritus of the school of theater, film, and television at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also served as the director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center from 2002 to 2009. Geiogamah was born in Oklahoma and is Kiowa and a Delaware Nation descendant. He is a widely known Native American playwright and one of the few Native American producers of both television and film in Hollywood.
Ed Di Lello is an American composer, choreographer, theatre director, dancer, and actor who made work during the 1970s and 1980s. He is currently an attorney practicing in New York City. Di Lello was born in New York City to Vincent and Angela, and received a bachelor's degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1974.
Early Native American culture was rich with ceremonies, rituals and storytelling. The stories that inspire Native American theatre have been around for hundreds of years, but did not gain formal recognition by colonial America. This lack of recognition lasted until the 1930s when Lynn Riggs, a playwright of Cherokee descent, brought Native Theatre into the spotlight through the Six Nations Reserve Forest Theatre in Ontario. Through these events, Native Theatre has been introduced to mainstream society and contemporary Native American Theater was born. Indigenous American cultures have been a major aspect of Chicano drama.
Sierra Nizhoni Teller Ornelas is a Native American showrunner, screenwriter, filmmaker and weaver from Tucson, Arizona. She is one of three co-creators of the scripted NBC (Peacock) comedy series Rutherford Falls, alongside Ed Helms and Mike Schur.
Alexander MacGregor Stephen was a Scottish miner who emigrated from Scotland to the United States. During his life in the United States, he spent time with the Hopi of First Mesa observing their daily lives.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
