Lillian St. Cyr
| Red Wing (Lillian St. Cyr) | |
|---|---|
Who's Who in the Film World, 1914
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| Born |
Lillian St. Cyr February 13, 1873 Winnebago Reservation, Nebraska, United States |
| Died | March 13, 1974 (aged 101) New York City, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1908 - 1921 |
| Spouse(s) |
James Young Deer (1906-19??) Joe Eaglefoot (1925-1929) |
Red Wing (born Lillian Margaret St. Cyr; February 13, 1873 – March 12, 1974) was an American actress of the silent era. She and her husband James Young Deer have been dubbed by some as the first Native American Hollywood "power couple." She was born on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska.
Lillian attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, which enrolled students from a variety of Native American tribes. She moved to Washington, D.C. to work as a domestic servant for Kansas Senator Chester I. Long and his wife. There she met and married J. Younger Johnson (James Young Deer) on April 9, 1906. Young Deer was of mixed European, African-American, and Delaware Indian ancestry (according to St. Cyr) and was a member of the Nanticoke tribe. A native of Washington, D.C., Young Deer served in the US Navy during the Spanish–American War.
After they married, the couple performed a Western act in various venues around New York City and Philadelphia. In 1908, St. Cyr appeared in two short film, Kalem's The White Squaw and Lubin's The Falling Arrow. In the summer of 1909, they worked as technical advisers and as extras for two films directed by D.W. Griffith. St. Cyr also appeared in Vitagraph's Red Wing's Gratitude that Fall as the character Princess Red Wing. Concurrently, they worked for Bison films (New York Motion Picture Co.), which relocated from New York City to Edendale, in the Fall of 1909.
St. Cyr is best known for her lead role in The Squaw Man (1914) by producer/director Cecil B. DeMille and co-directed by Oscar Apfel, released in 1914. This was followed by a role with cowboy star Tom Mix in In the Days of the Thundering Herd (1914) and another in Fighting Bob (1915). The 1916 version of Ramona, about Native Americans and Spanish colonists in early California, featured St. Cyr as Ramona's mother.
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