Eddie Little Sky
American actor (1926-1997)
Eddie Little Sky (August 15, 1926 – September 5, 1997), also known as Edward Little, was an American actor. A citizen of the Oglala Lakota tribe Eddie had parts in 36 feature films and over 60 television shows, mainly westerns in the role of a Native American. He was one of the first Native American actors to play Native American roles such as his performance in the 1970 film A Man Called Horse.
Career
Little Sky was born as Edsel Wallace Little on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Shannon County, South Dakota to Oglala Lakota parents Wallace Henry Little (1901–1984) and Wileminna Colhoff. He attended the Holy Rosary Indian Mission school as a child. After leaving the United States Navy, where he had served in the Pacific theater during World War II, he began working the rodeo circuit as a bull rider and bareback rider.
Following his work on the 1955 film Chief Crazy Horse, Audie Murphy encouraged Little Sky to become a professional actor; thus Little Sky, along with Jay Silverheels and Chief Dan George became one of the first Native Americans to play Native American roles in films. Hollywood normally used white actors wearing black wigs and dark make-up to play the parts of Native Americans. His first television role was in 1957 on the series Cheyenne in the episode titled The Iron Trail. In 1958 he appeared on Have Gun - Will Travel S2 E13 "The Solid Gold Patrol" as Chief White Bull.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5336234. VIAF identifies the subject as 29146635486241980441. The Library of Congress control number is no2016074996. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 1997, 1970 and 1901.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eddie Little Sky” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.