 (Courtesy of Ken Jones) Above is Chief Thunderbird, (1866 - 1946), and his full name was Richard Davis Thunderbird. He was Cheyenne, attended the Carlisle Indian School, and also worked on the Miller Bros. 101 Ranch show. The Southwest Museum in Los Angeles is the repository of much of the clothing and costumes that Chief Thunderbird wore in films, and that material was donated by his wife. His first film credits begin around 1915 in Pearl White serials. Among his later roles was that of 'Sitting Bull' in ANNIE OAKLEY (RKO, 1935) which starred Barbara Stanwyck. Chief Thunderbird appeared in other features including: FOR THE SERVICE, NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE, LAUGHING BOY, SILLIE BILLIES, CYCLONE OF THE SADDLE, and FIGHTING PIONEERS; and he also appeared in serials: BATTLING WITH BUFFALO BILL, HEROES OF THE WEST, THE INDIANS ARE COMING, RUSTLERS OF RED DOG, WHITE EAGLE, WILD WEST DAYS and OVERLAND WITH KIT CARSON. You may want to go to the In Search Of ... page on the Old Corral, and then to the California Death Index. There you will find a record for: Richard Davis Thunderbird, born 8/6/1866 in Montana, Mother's maiden name of Wallo, Father's last name of Bear, and he passed away 4/6/1946. In other biographies of Thunderbird - as well as long ago versions of this webpage - there was speculation that he also used the screen name of "Chick Davis". Recent findings indicate that Chick Davis was a different person and his real name was Jerome Kennerly.
 (Courtesy of Les Adams) Above from L-to-R are Chief Thunder Cloud, Francis Walker, Edward Keane (cavalry uniform), Jack Ingram, Buck Jones, Beth Marion, and Chief Thunderbird (billed 8th as 'Chief Big Bear') in a still from Buck's FOR THE SERVICE (Universal, 1936).
Wikipedia biography of Chief Thunderbird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Thunderbird Find A Grave website has a photo of the marker for Chief Richard Davis Thunderbird at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11461/chief-thunderbird There's an 1898 photo of "Richard Davis, Interpreter (Cheyenne)" at the Omaha Public Library website: https://digital.omahalibrary.org/digital/collection/p16747coll2/id/27 The Southwest Museum of the American Indian at the Autry National Center has dozens of photos of Chief Thunderbird. Careful - some photos are incorrectly listed as him, but are of other Native American actors: https://collections.theautry.org/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=keyword;keyword=chief%20thunderbird;dtype=d |
Although some of the data is incomplete or inaccurate, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has information on Chief Thunderbird: