Book Cover

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Did you know that Rodney Grant's great grandfather was Non-kahhega? He was better known as Ulysses S. Grant? Did you know Graham Greene had a pet raccoon named Minnie Gribbitz? Did you know that Wes Studi spoke at President Bill Clinton's inauguration? Did you know that Will Sampson was a 6 feet 7 inch tall Navy pilot who was a very talented artist? How about the fact that Jay Silverheels' father was the most decorated Canadian soldier in World War I? Chief John War Eagle actually spoke very good Sioux? Did you know Iron Eyes Cody's wife Birdie was a very popular model for the Native American woman who will most likely become the first Native American Roman Catholic saint, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha? Did you know Chief Dan George was first a very popular Canadian singer who released at least three records? Speaking of singing did you know that Chief Yowlache was a Basso Cante singer? Did you know that Chief John Big Tree was the model for both the Indian Head nickel and the Pontiac hood ornament? These are just a few of the facts you'll learn in this collection of biographies about the ten best known Native American film stars.

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“I remember a wonderful teacher I had. His name was Denis F. Carey and he taught me US History and US Government. It was from him I learned how European contact with the indigenous Native Peoples’ societies in the Americas found widely divergent cultures struggling to understand and sometimes dominate each other. Conflicts and misunderstandings often resulted in violence. Europeans believed themselves on a civilizing or dominating mission, helped by their vastly superior weapons technology. Where they settled in number, they coerced the labor of indigenous people. Most peoples believe their culture and people superior to all others; the indigenous societies and Europeans were no different. I learned how the indigenous societies of America speaking over 350 different languages have all but disappeared. I loved the Westerns of the 1950’s and 1960’s but often Native Peoples were little more than set decorations. Often even their learning characters got NO credit after the film had finished. The best Native Peoples roles in films were often given to white actors, who thanks to make-up became red men. Rick & Jim’s THE REAL REEL INDIANS was my humble effort to give credit where credit was truly long over-due. You can not change the world Mr. Carey once told me, but you can do something about what goes on in your own home, in your own town and often in your own state!  Rick & Jim’s THE REAL REEL INDIANS was my sincere effort to make a small difference, where I could.”

“I recall as a child being told by both of my parents that I was a Native American and I grew up thinking that. When I got well into my twenties I began making a serious study of my family (the Payne, Williams, Clark & Rhys families) genealogy and history. I learned the four bloodlines that make me up are largely of Welsh heritage. I learned too on the Payne side there was a great great grandmother who was Native American, making me at best about 1/32^nd Native American. I keep looking and hoping to find more Native Americans in the woodpile of my roots.”

 “ I am a liberal Democrat so not too many words are NOT in my vocabulary but here are a few; hate, prejudice, discrimination, intolerance and racism. I simply do not like them. American Indians, Native People or Native Americans have experienced each of these words to the point of almost disappearing as a direct result of them. Rick & Jim’s THE REAL REEL INDIANS is my sincere and heartfelt effort to make up for some of that.”

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Key Benefits 

• Can you name ten white film stars? Can you name ten black  film stars? Can you name ten Asian film stars? Can you name ten Native American film stars? I can, answer each of these questions in the affirmative, and with this book you will be able to at least name 10 Native American film stars...some day I will write about another ten, like Tantoo Cardinal and Adam Beach.
• America's Native Peoples are a national treasure and learning about some of their most famous citizens, helps you see America in a new and exciting way.
• If you Westerns and America's only true genre of movies, then this book is an absolute must!

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Artwork By: James Robert "Jim" Griffin

Richard A. Payne

Jim Griffin is a great artist who made even me look pretty darn good!

It is Rick’s favorite picture of himself.  

Rick & Jim's Real Reel Indians ARTWORK

-The life of Rodney Grant is that of a very virile and handsome Omaha man. I wanted Jim Griffin to capture that. I really like Oneida Graham Greene and had Jim do three very different illustrations of him. He is a very thoughtful man, with a wide range or emotions and a great sense of humor, this had to be captured and it took three very different illustrations. He is the only actor that I needed an extra illustration for.

Rick & Jim's Real Reel Indians ARTWORK

-Wes Studi is Cherokee from Oklahoma . He is married to the daughter of a truly great character actor named Jack Albertson. Wes is a veteran of the Vietnam War. Will Sampson and I meet in Aspen Colorado . He is a very large and very strong Muskogee man. He is also a very talented artist, who could draw anything. Had his health not abandoned him we would have worked together on a Michael Koury film.

Rick & Jim's Real Reel Indians ARTWORK

-Jay Silverheels (Mohawk) was an athlete; wrestling, lacrosse, Golden Gloves boxing and horse racing; I had to have an illustration that showed off his great build and powerful body. Sioux John War Eagle was an actor who could hold his own with any actor, including the star of Disney’s Tonka, Sal Mineo.

Rick & Jim's Real Reel Indians ARTWORK

-Iron Eyes Cody was as Indian as Quanah Parker was. He may have well been born white, but grew up from the age of 5 years on playing the roles of Native Americans, and in truth lived his entire life as one. If a white child was taken by Indian people and raised as one, he was considered by them to be one of them. This is exactly how I saw my friend Iron Eyes Cody. Coast Salish Chief Dan George was a great Native American actor. He appeared in films with some of Hollywood ’s most famous white actors and always held his own. I met him when I was in my very early twenties in Vancouver , B.C. Canada and he made a lasting impression on me.

Rick & Jim's Real Reel Indians ARTWORK

-Yakima Indian Daniel Simmons was best known as Chief Yowlache, who got famous as the side-kick to Percy Kilbride’s Pa Kettle in the Ma & Pa Kettle films of the 1940’s. The man was a talented singer who sang for the US President. Seneca Indian Chief John Big Tree was already a famous face and the model for the Indian Head Nickel and the Pontiac car head ornament, when he was casted as the  noble red man in so many westerns of the 1930’s and 1940’s. He did have a great face.

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-I  now regret I didn’t put at least one Indian actress in Rick & Jim’s Real Reel Indians, for example the wonderful and talented Tantoo Cardinal, or perhaps Dawn Little Sky or the truly wonderful Elaine Miles, who I got to met at a Denver art show. She is a talented beader who produces some wonderful work.  

-Iron Eyes Cody was a very dear friend that I first met in Southern California in 1965, thanks to my father’s younger brother, my uncle James Payne who was a grip at Paramount Studios.  

-Iron Eyes Cody visited me many times in his later years. He came often to our home in Colorado and I got to watch many of his movies with him…great fun! 

-He also came up to sign copies of Rick & Jim’s Real Reel Indians with Jim Griffin and me.  

-He used the trip to present me with an Iron Eyes Cody Award for my efforts on behalf of Native American children. He and Republican Colorado Attorney General Gail Norton presented the award at a Nightwalker fund raiser in Ft. Collins in 1994. Once Iron Eyes Cody came to Fort Collins primarily to visit kids at Lincoln Junior High School where I worked. 

-I have never known if he was kidding me or not, but I will forever remember this night. I had met Colorado Attorney General Gale Ann Norton when I invited her to come to Lincoln Junior High School . It was the words that Iron Eyes Cody whispered to me that made me laugh so hard I nearly wet myself. “Damn, an attorney and a general with a body like that!” I have to wonder how Iron Eyes Cody would have felt when Gale Norton (born March 11, 19 54) served as the 48th United States Secretary of Interior, under  President George W. Bush.

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Rick & Jim’s THE REAL REEL INDIANS NOTES

 My Native American Heritage:

 Most Americans are proud of whatever Native American blood they have in them. If you were to visit the homes of my siblings, you would indeed find evidence of their pride in our Native American Heritage.  I have never been able to find the Indian blood in the Clark or Rhys families (my mother), but I have found the daughter of an Indian chief who married my paternal grandfather’s grandfather. I believe she was a member of the Wyndot tribe. I believe their may also be some Cherokee blood and some Blackfoot blood as well, but I have not been able to prove that. I am sure of the fact that I am 1/32^nd Native American, maybe more but I can not prove it. I wrote the book Rick & Jim’s THE REAL REEL INDIANS, in honor of my Native American Heritage.  

I love to wear items from my own collections.

My father (Eugene R. Payne) grew up in North Texas and Oklahoma , where his grandfather and great grandfather had settled lived and died and are buried. My father was born in Oklahoma or Indian Territory in America . He looked like an Indian, well over 6 feet tall and a stout built and red colored skin and a large Indian nose. It was easy to believe as a child that he was an Indian. He was a hard working and hard playing man who truly lived every second of every day. He fathered many children, over 18 with my mother, four with an earlier wife and many with ladies he had affairs with. He loved to smoke, drink and gamble. If he wasn’t Native American, he sure should have been. He loved the out of doors and wildlife. He loved to hunt and fish. He loved a good Western book or movie. This also influenced me writing this book. 

 1. Eugene Russell Payne (DAD) 1914-1980    2. Aubrey Hamilton Payne (Grandpa) 1877-1954

I was named for my father’s father. I try hard to honor this man…he claimed to be at least half Native American. He lived in Missouri , Oklahoma , Texas and Arkansas all of his life. Most of his life he was a dirt farmer, but he could also track men and animals and he traded livestock most of his life as well. I carry his name “Aubrey” and try to bring to the name honor and respect. This also influenced me writing this book.

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My Native American Friends:

In my home is a great deal of Native American Artwork and hundreds of books about Native American people and their culture and their history. I think I have DVDs, VHS films of every major Native American film ever made. I also have many records and tapes of their music. Researching them is about researching me. It was and is a labor of love. I hope my children and grandchildren one day appreciate the effort.

An Apache Artist, me and Linda Aguilar a Chumash woman.       A 2 yr. old Navaho child and me in 1994.

I have written many articles for magazines and Native American publications about Native American people like; Linda Aguilar (California Chumash Tribe), Robert Little Hawk and so many others. I have done fund raising for various Native American causes, and I have advocated for select Native Americans like Leonard Peltier. As a child I had many Native American friends, from the very old to the very young. I loved their art, their music, their languages, their culture and everything thing about them.

Fabiana Mata 1-20-12 to 1978

My best friend had a grandmother, Fabiana Mata, who was very well known locally as a herbalist, who could heal most common ills. A curandero (or curandera for a female) is a traditional folk healer or shaman in Hispanic America. One lady referred to her as a Materia Medica, which works too. I also heard her called a “Yerberos” (or “Yerberas for a female”) which are primarily herbalists. She was Mexican and Tarahumara Indian, but she spoke mostly Spanish. She had a solid understanding of the practice of Katjambia, which I would have loved to speak with her about more.

The Tarahumara or Raramuri Indians were one of the many, original inhabitants or native aboriginal people of the area that is now Mexico . They are disappearing even faster than the Native Peoples of America. There are still more than 60,000 Tarahumara speakers in Mexico , mostly in Chihuahua . I have made a study of Native Languages and this is one of the best surviving. There are actually several different dialects of Tarahumara or Raramuri which are so different from each other that it is difficult for speakers of one to understand speakers of the other.  

In any event her name was Fabiana Mata and I know for an absolute fact that Katjambia works! I will tell you this also influenced me writing this book. I was deep into research about her and her Native roots, when I decided to actually write this book. This woman has some powerful medicine working for her. She can work it from the hereafter as well as she did in life. I don not care if you believe me or not, I KNOW this to be true. I am grateful she was a strong Roman Catholic and adhered to her faith. The truth is she was a good and very decent, kind and loving, very hard working and “good” person. Someday I will write a couple of books about her and her family.

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NOTE: The Sioux don’t speak Sioux, they speak Lakota and the Navaho don’t speak Navaho they speak  Dineh or Diné…it is wrong to confuse the name of their tribe with the name of their language…but for white people this is a common practice as people from England do speak English.

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This book came out of a manuscript I had written with a large number of Native American film star biographies. I had dreams of signing with a big publisher and making a ton of money so I could support some very worthy Native American causes and charities; THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE NATIVE AMERICAN, FUTURES FOR CHILDREN, OGALALA LAKOTA COLLEGE, THE RED CLOUD INDIAN SCHOOL, THE NAVAHO NATION HEALTH FOUNDATION and IRON EYES CODY SCHOOLS. It is my hope that readers and fans of mine will check these organizations help them to help others and give generously to support their fine work.

You can contact celebrity artist James Griffin at: http://www.griffinltd.com/index.html

Pricing

This book originally sold for $7.95 and then it went out of print and the price went crazy, I see it selling on the inter-net for over $100! It is a beautiful book and worth every penny. I have some extra copies and I will gladly sell them for $25 each autographed, and plus another $10 for postage and handling.