Rodd Redwing

Roderic Redwing (born Webb Richardson; August 24, 1904 – May 29, 1971) was an American trickshooter, stunt performer, and actor known for his work in Western films. He was known as a top gun, knife, tomahawk, whip, and drill instructor in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Though he presented himself as Chickasaw Native American, he was actually African American without any known Indigenous ancestry, a fact not widely revealed until after his death.

Biography
Redwing was born Webb Richardson on August 24, 1904, to Black parents in Tennessee. His father, Ulysses William Richardson (b. 1873),  was an elevator man. His mother, Lillian Webb (b. 1878), was a manicurist and hairdresser. Lillian divorced her husband William in 1920. Webb moved to New York City to attend New York University and pursue a career in acting; he appeared in the 1929 musical Malinda in Greenwich Village, with a cast of African American performers.

Native American persona
Webb later changed his name to Roderic "Rodd" Redwing, adopted a fictitious Native-American identity (a phenomenon sometimes now referred to as Pretendian), and reported his birthplace as New York City. Such a deception was not uncommon in early 20th-century America, where Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance (born Sylvester Clark Long) had fooled New York high society. Redwing claimed that his mother was from a Chickasaw reservation in Oklahoma, and that his father was a stage actor. Some sources reported that he used the Hindi-sounding name Roderick Rajpurkaii, Jr., and said his father was a Brahmin mind reader from India.

Career in Hollywood
As Redwing, he was one of the top gun, knife, tomahawk, and whip instructors in Hollywood. After claiming that he began in films in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1931 Western The Squaw Man (although no cast list shows that he acted in that movie), Redwing soon became a gun-handling coach to Alan Ladd, Ronald Reagan, Burt Lancaster, Glenn Ford, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, Charlton Heston, Dean Martin, Fred MacMurray, and many other actors. He performed Alan Ladd's fancy gunspinning seen in the film Shane during the climatic showdown.

Between 1951 and 1967, Redwing appeared in more than a dozen television programs, including a guest appearance on the CBS celebrity quiz show, What's My Line?. He played the role of Mr. Brother, a Cheyenne friend and informer of Marshal Wyatt Earp's, in eight episodes of the television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

Death
After filming his part in Red Sun, Redwing died at the age of 66. On a flight from Spain to Los Angeles, he suffered a heart attack and died 35 minutes later, just before the plane landed. The urn containing his ashes was buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Filmography

 White Hunter (1936) - Farid (uncredited)
 Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942) - Native (uncredited)
 When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1942) - Egyptian Clerk (uncredited)
 Daredevils of the West (1943) - Indian (uncredited)
 Frontier Fury (1943) - Captured Indian (uncredited)
 The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) - Javanese Orderly (uncredited)
 Sonora Stagecoach (1944) - Indian (uncredited)
 Rainbow Island (1944) - Queen's Guard (uncredited)
 Objective, Burma! (1945) - Sgt. Chattu (uncredited)
 Out of the Depths (1945) - Mike Rawhide
 The Scarlet Horseman (1946) - Comanche Warrior (uncredited)
 Singin' in the Corn (1946) - Indian Brave
 Unconquered (1947) - Indian (uncredited)
 The Last Round-Up (1947) - Louie (uncredited)
 Intrigue (1947) - Spy in Editor's Office (uncredited)
 Key Largo (1948) - John Osceola (uncredited)
 Song of India (1949) - Kumari (uncredited)
 We Were Strangers (1949) - (uncredited)
 Riders of the Pony Express (1949) - Bearclaw - Henchman 
 Laramie (1949) - Indian Lookout (uncredited)
 Rope of Sand (1949) - Oscar - Waiter (uncredited)
 Apache Chief (1949) - Tewa
 Samson and Delilah (1949) - Temple Spectator (uncredited)
 Cargo to Capetown (1950) - Native Cab Driver (uncredited)
 Kim (1950) - Creighton's Servant (uncredited)
 The Redhead and the Cowboy (1951) - Betien - Indian Guard (uncredited)
 Little Big Horn (1951) - Cpl. Arika
 Thunder in the East (1951) - Hassam (uncredited)
 Buffalo Bill in Tomahawk Territory (1952) - Running Deer 
 Rancho Notorious (1952) - Rio
 Hellgate (1952) - Pima (uncredited)
 Son of Geronimo (1952) - Porico, Son of Geronimo
 The Pathfinder (1952) - Chief Arrowhead
 Winning of the West (1953) - Pete Littlewolf (uncredited)
 Last of the Comanches (1953) - Indian (uncredited)
 Conquest of Cochise (1953) - Red Knife
 Saginaw Trail (1953) - Huron Chief (uncredited)
 Flight to Tangier (1953) - Police Orderly 
 Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) - Luis - Expedition Foreman (uncredited)
 The Naked Jungle (1954) - Indian (uncredited)
 Gunfighters of the Northwest (1954) - Bear Tooth
 Elephant Walk (1954) - Servant (uncredited)
 Cattle Queen of Montana (1954) - Powhani
 The Twinkle in God's Eye (1955) - Indian (uncredited)
 The Treasure of Pancho Villa (1955) - Yaqui Tracker (uncredited)
 Jaguar (1956) - Porter #1
 The Ten Commandments (1956) - Taskmaster / Hebrew at Golden Calf
 The Mole People (1956) - Nazar
 Copper Sky (1957) - Indian (uncredited)
 The Sad Sack (1957) - Bartender (uncredited)
 The Flame Barrier (1958) - Waumi
 Heller in Pink Tights (1960) - Indian (uncredited)
 Flaming Star (1960) - Indian Warrior
 One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
 Sergeants 3 (1962) - Irregular
 4 for Texas (1963) - Indian (uncredited)
 The Virginian (1964 episode "The Intruders") - Black Feather's Brave
 Apache Uprising (1965) - Archie Whitewater
 Johnny Reno (1966) - Indian Brave
 The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) - White Buffalo (uncredited)
 Shalako (1968) - Chato's Father
 Charro! (1969) - Lige
 Red Sun (1971)

See also 

 Iron Eyes Cody
 Sacheen Littlefeather

References

External links

1904 births
1972 deaths
American male film actors
American people who self-identify as being of Native American descent
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Male actors from Tennessee
20th-century American male actors
American stunt performers
African-American male actors
Impostors