OSEU 7: David Bald Eagle Tells About His Hollywood Career

I played in two or three, and I'd worked with Disney for a while, and right on the set I just worked with them, and I was a gunslinger, you know, and then the smog started to bother me. It was just okay, but it started to bother me, just getting into my eyes and everything, just getting worse, so I told the agent that was with me, and she said, well, if it's better for you, if you want to quit, I'll still stay on as your agent, she said, but if we need you, we'll call you. So I said, I'm going home, and I just packed up my stuff, got in my car and took off. Didn't look back, I didn't look back, I just kept on coming. I got back home, and I went out to my dad's place, ranch, back at the old place, and told him about my eyesight and everything, and here the Hollywood called me and told me I could work from home. If I wanted to work with the movies and work from home, we'll contact you as soon as we get a part for you. Your agent will take care of all of you. She's still your agent, so I said, okay. So that's how it came about. Can you tell us again how many movies you've made, and what are two or three of those movies that are your favorites? Well, my first movie was Clark Gable and Claribel. They were pretty good friends of mine, and then I got acquainted with Earl Flynn, and played a couple of pictures with him, Crazy Horse and Captain Blood. And all together, we played in Indian movies and Western movies, mostly War Bonnet, and with Victor Maturigan, and War Drums, and River of No Return with Marilyn, and I did wheel drive with, what's his name, John Wayne. I remember him as One-Shot John. The reason I called him One-Shot John was, and that little thing stuck with him for a while. I was making a picture, and there was supposed to be a river, a shallow river,... and yelling and all this, coming across that river, and John was supposed to shoot one, and that leader was supposed to fall into the water. But they didn't tell him just exactly who they selected as the leader, so when they started to cross, boy, they were whooping and yelling, across that river, they gave him a signal, so they nodded at him, so they pointed at him just like this, so John, he took, bang, he took one shot, and about ten of them fell. The director was really mad, but I called him One-Shot John, you know. He... a while. But we had some things like that happen, you know, during our pictures, boo-boos. It's still good. We had a lot of fun though, those times. And we played in the... Arrow, Flaming Arrow, and Warbird. We had some pretty good ones. Q. And how was it you came to meet Marilyn Monroe? It was my agent, the one that said, could you come over and play in that River of No Return? So I said, yeah, so I went over. They sent me the script, And here, I didn't know that she was going to be there at first. I studied my part of it. And when I got over there, she was there. So, were you going to play Marilyn Monroe? She said, yes. And then one weekend, something happened to the machine. I don't know. They had to go back to Hollywood to get parts. It wasn't like this. In those days, they had reels. And something happened to the reels or something. They had to go back to Hollywood to get another machine or something. And they left there for the weekend. So I jumped in my car, and I thought I'd go to Durango just to go dancing, you know. I started out, and somebody hollered at me. So I looked back in here to see Marilyn. She says, where are you going? So I said, I'm going down to Durango for a weekend. I said, wait a minute, she said. She went into her stateroom. And here she comes out with a small suitcase. Let's go, she says. So we went to Durango, about 200 miles, I guess. We went. There was a big band playing there. And we danced. We had a lot of fun. We just stayed at the motel there. And we danced, danced. That's all we did. But when she was really happy, oh, golly, this is the first time nobody came up, autographs or anything. She said she had a lot of fun. She said she had dark ribbed glasses, you know, dark glasses without really any kind of focus. bandana. And her hair was braided, you know. And they thought she was just an ordinary girl. Nobody asked me if they could call me Francis or something. So that's what I did. I called her Francis. But we had a lot of fun. Nobody messed around with us for autographs or anything, you know. Boy, we had a lot of fun there for two days. And then the third we had to go back, back to the set. So we had to go. And then we went dancing after that in Hollywood. I don't know how many dances we went to. But I went to his funeral, to her funeral, too, and way afterwards, of course. There were a bunch of Hollywood people there. But so he boasted. And I looked around me, but there was nobody around me. So I went like that. And here he said, nodding his head. So I went over there. He said, you better go see your friend for the last time. She used to talk about you. So I went over there. She was in her, in a casket. Yeah, she was, she was a heck of a nice girl. She was not like they say she is in the newspaper and all that stuff. She's been killed. But she was not a gopie or anything like that, like they say she is. She wasn't that way. I was with her. But she was a good friend. Any other questions? I think we just did something remarkable, this whole last several hours has been remarkable. There's one thing I'd like to say, too. The people don't realize that there's about three different ways of life that we're living here on the reservation. There's a good part of it and there's a bad part of it. And there's some people who are really not our people that run into governments. And none, no Indian president or chairman or anything has been running our government. And none of the Indian people have anything to do with the government. They gave us, they gave the Indian, the government they made, the federal department, they got in there and at first, in 1934, they gave that government, they brought that government on. Has any other, any other, anybody else that you interviewed said anything about it? About which government? The government, the different government. No. Okay. So this government came into view. At first, when it first started, 1934, the first two chairmen were Indians, full-blood Indian people, men. When their time was up, the non-Indians took over, calling it an Indian government. But we came out of there and they gave them 50 years to improve these reservations. They gave them 50 years, the government. Came along and they didn't do anything, just the same old reservation. And they were going to take that government away from them then. But they begged and begged and begged, so they gave them 25 more years to upgrade this reservation. If you can't do it, that's the end. So they, 25 years. It was up last year. It was up, nothing has ever been done but raise their own wages, the councilmen. That's where all the money went. And we get 7% of it. And they get 90% of it. So, now they're on the edge. The state is stepping in to take over. I don't blame them. But if the government really kept their word, we kept ours. We said we'll never take arms again, fight no more. That's what crazy was. That's what the promise made. And we're still living up to it, putting away our weapons. But they took our weapons away from us and they started killing us. I got a wounded knee. But that's a conspiracy. That's not Red Cloud's conspiracy. They brought that on to kill Bigfoot. They killed Crazy Horse and they killed Sitting Bull. And they did not kill White Bull, my grandfather, because he was over here. He kept a low profile, never talked. They left him alone. But they're still, after the 25 years was up, they're still there. But the government does not realize, they don't remember. I don't think they remember that that was a deal that they made. The Obamas don't seem to know about it. But now, since the Indian people wrote to Obama explaining this from here, explaining it to them, now he's on to it. So the state took over here in Rosebud. And next is Standing Rock and Cheyenne River. But nobody tells us about it. They're keeping it from the Indian people. They think we don't know what we know about it. Anything they hear. But we're keeping a low profile. We don't want to bring it up. They can't blame us, the traditional people, because they're the one that's bringing it on to themselves by not improving the responsibility that they've given that they didn't do it. So they can't. They couldn't blame us. If we had it, it would have been different. We could have taken care of the people, or we just could have been way down, instead of way up like they got. They're getting $4,000 a month, and they work four days out of the month. So that's how much money they're getting. But if we, the chiefs, if we had it, we never did get any money for what we do. And we do what the people want us to do. So we still do that for nothing. We don't get paid for it. But that's okay. At least the people are realizing that. Those are the things that I wanted to bring up. Well, thank you. You did a great job. Great job, really. Thank you so much. When folks go to Sweat Lodge and they pray. Are you getting this? Oh, okay. When they go to Sweat Lodge, they sing, they smoke pipes, and they sing and they pray for themselves, the men do, because they have no way to purify themselves. So that's what they do. They have a ceremony inside of the Sweat Lodge. They really sweat it out. But women don't have to. They cannot go with the men in the Sweat Lodge. That's prohibited. Prohibition. They go to Sweat Lodge, the women do, but they don't hold any ceremony. They just sweat, that's all. Because women purify themselves every month. They purify every month, so they don't have to purify themselves. That's the reason why men and women go separately to Sweat Lodge. Never together. It's against the Sioux Nation. When the Chiefs take over, they're going to bring all that back. They're going to have, they can't be having Sundances like they're having now, all over, about ten, ten or ten, ten each one, ten Sundances. You know, they have just, and then they sit alongside the shade and smoke, smoke and drink pop and eat ice cream or something during the Sundances. If my grandfather's ever seen that, they'd cry. But in those days, and when the Chiefs take over, all that's going to stop. They're going to have a Sundance society that they're going to have to come get permission to Sundance. And they're going to ask them, why, how are you going to dance? Why are you going to dance? For the people or for yourself? These are the questions we're going to give them. And if it's for themselves, you'll have to wait until the next group has Sundance for the people, what the people need. It's going to be pretty strict. They do things the right way. That's why we're having all this drought and all that stuff. Never like the good old days where the grass used to be green. And people doing things wrong is the reason why we're having earthquakes and cyclones and hurricanes all around us. Where we live, nothing happens. Tornadoes have jumped over this place. They went over, hit near Puckinney, and it went off. But it never tore up anything. But, along Texas, one time, New York, Los Angeles. One time I was making a speech, I told them, I said, you know what, we should reclaim this country. Reclaim this country, all but New York, Texas, and Los Angeles. Why? Why don't you want to claim this? It's too far gone, I said. It's just too far gone, so we don't want to claim that. Why don't you want to claim it? If we claim those, we'll be in hurricanes and cyclones and everything. That's why they're getting after them, because of that. But what we believe, the Indian people believe, strongly, it's coming to. My grandfather told me, white people have been running this country since immigration. They've been running it. But the day the color changes, the white people have been running it. The day the color changes, they're going to lose America. That's what my grandfather said. They're going to lose America. America, they're going to lose it. And, he says, it used to be red, white, and blue. Red, white, and blue. You see that, he said. Red, Indian people. White, the white people. Blue, the universe. Red, white, and blue. Today, it's black and white. So there's no red in it. But if they let us have it, we'll turn back the clock, he says. So this must be kind of an exciting time, in some ways, for you, to think about turning back the clock. How do you feel about that? Well, if they had cable here, when they came, lived our Indian way of life, it would still be okay. The country would be all right. But they changed it. Rules and regulations, law, it's not ours. Everything has been changed by books. We do things by nature, herbs, history, and everything. Our history has never been told. Indian history has never been told. Only verbally to grandkids. If that, our history, we know European history really well, because it's been taught every day, European history. But our history has never been told in books or anything. Most of them don't know their own history. Indian kids, they don't know their own history, their language or anything. Everything is forgotten. That's the reason why. Josie, when she first came here, she didn't know anything. One thing, she always, everything, when she first came here, everything, now, now, now, now, everything has to be on time, everything. Now she's been here for a while, and all that is gone. And she always says, what Good old Indian time. Good answer. So it's that way. She forgot that now, now, now deal. That's why when she starts it, I never pay attention.