Saginaw Grant, the Native American actor who worked alongside Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger and with Anthony Hopkins in The World’s Fastest Indian, has died. He was 85.
Grant died Wednesday in his sleep of natural causes at a private care facility in Hollywood, his publicist and friend Lani Carmichael told the Associated Press. “His motto in life was always respect one another and don’t talk about one another in a negative way,” she said.
Grant had a recurring role on the 1993-94 CBS series Harts of the West, starring Beau Bridges and his father, Lloyd Bridges, and his character sold a truck to Bryan Cranston’s Walter White in the 2013 Breaking Bad episode “Ozymandias.”
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The actor also popped up on installments of Nash Bridges, Baywatch, My Name Is Earl, Saving Grace, American Horror Story, Shameless, The League, Baskets and Veep.
He played a “holy man” in the well-regarded 1996 indie film Small Time and, after appearing with Hopkins in the New Zealand-set World’s Fastest Indian (2005), did so again in Slipstream (2007).
Born on July 20, 1936, in Pawnee, Oklahoma, Grant attended Ponca Military Academy and served with the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War.
He participated for years in the National Gathering of American Indian Veterans, Joseph Podlasek, the event’s organizer, told the AP. “He thought it was important for Native people to get recognized as veterans,” he said. “He was kind and gentle and very humble.”
Grant began his acting career in the 1980s when he appeared in a Chrysler commercial.
A post on his Facebook page read: “It’s with heavy hearts we announce a warrior has been called home. Saginaw Morgan Grant, the hereditary chief and medicine man of the Sac & Fox tribe, traveled the world speaking of his traditions, his experiences, his sobriety and his faith as both a Native American and a Christian.”
Survivors include his daughter, Lisa; grandchildren Cassandra, Vanessa and Della; great-grandchildren Joseph, Sherry Jo, Stephen and Micah Little Crow; and brothers Austin and Francis.
