Red Wing on AllMovie

A real-life Winnebago Indian princess, Red Wing (born Lillian St. Cyr) was in all likelihood the screen's first Native American star, predating the perhaps better-remembered Princess Mona Darkfeather by several years. Educated at the Carlisle Indian Institute, Red Wing reportedly made her screen debut in 1907. Two years later, she and husband James Young Deer were starring for D.W. Griffith at Biograph and, still as a team, later filmed Native American melodramas for producer Thomas H. Ince at Inceville (today's Santa Monica). Red Wing won accolades for playing Nat-u-rich in Cecil B. De Mille's first version of The Squaw Man (1914) and then supported Adda Gleason in the inevitable Ramona (1916), produced by theater owner W.H. Clune. Like most Native American stars, Red Wing's career was, for all intents and purposes, over by the advent of World War I, but she returned to play a supporting role in Marion Davies' When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922). By then, she had relocated to New York and was devoting most of her time to Native American affairs.