Red Wing (actress)

As a child, Lilian was raised Roman Catholic; her first language was , a Siouan language. She was sent East to attend the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania between 1894 and 1902. It enrolled students as boarders from a variety of Native American tribes in an effort to assimilate them to American mainstream life, requiring them to speak English, wear mainstream style clothes, and observe Christianity.{{Cite web |title=Lilian St. Cyr Student Information Card {{!}} Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center |url=https://carlisleindian.dickinson.edu/student_files/lilian-st-cyr-student-information-card |access-date=2023-02-17 |website=carlisleindian.dickinson.edu}}

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 James Younger Johnson, nicknamed James Young Deer, on April 9, 1906. Young Deer was a member of the Nanticoke tribe. According to St. Cyr, of mixed Delaware Indian (Lenape), European, and African-American ancestry. (A native of Washington, D.C., Young Deer served in the US Navy during the Spanish–American War.{{Cite web|last=Aleiss|first=Angela|url=http://brightlightsfilm.com/80/80-james-young-deer-silent-movies-pathe-producer-black-native-american-indian-aleiss.php#.UtkhP_ucs6w|title=Who Was the Real James Young Deer?|date=May 2013|work=Bright Lights Film Journal|access-date=January 17, 2014}}

After they married, the couple performed a Western act in various venues around New York City and Philadelphia.One Reel a Week by Fred J. Balshofer and Arthur C. Miller In 1908, St. Cyr appeared in the Kalem Company's The White Squaw. That was followed in May 1909 by Lubin's The Falling Arrow. In the summer of 1909 the couple worked as technical advisers and extras for the films The Mended Lute and Indian Runner's Romance, both directed by D. W. Griffith.{{cite book|last=Aleiss|first=Angela|title=Hollywood's Native Americans: Stories of Identity and Resistance|year=2022|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport, CT/London|page=8}}

St. Cyr also appeared in the Vitagraph Studios' Red Wing's Gratitude that fall as the character "Princess Red Wing", which she adopted as a stage name. Concurrently, they worked for Bison films (New York Motion Picture Company), which relocated from New York City to Edendale in the fall of 1909.{{cite book|last=Aleiss|first=Angela|title=Making the White Man's Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies |year=2005|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport, CT/London|page=16}}

St. Cyr is best known for her feature role in The Squaw Man (1914) by producer/director Cecil B. DeMille and co-director Oscar Apfel. The movie starred Dustin Farnum and Monroe Salisbury. DeMille's first choice had been Mona Darkfeather, but she was already under contract with the Kalem Company and had to turn down the offer.The San Francisco Dramatic Review, January 10, 1914, p. 11 St. Cyr was the second Native American woman to appear in a film. Jesse Cornplanter had the lead in the feature film Hiawatha, released in 1913, a year before The Squaw Man.

After the movie with DeMille, St. Cyr had a role with cowboy star Tom Mix in the Western In the Days of the Thundering Herd (1914) and another in Fighting Bob (1915). She was featured in a small role in the 1916 version of Ramona, about Native Americans and Spanish colonists in early California. She played the girl's mother.{{cite web|last=Aleiss|first=Angela|url=http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/28/lillian-st-cyr-story-part-2-squaw-man-and-hollywood-years-153784|title=The Lillian St. Cyr Story, Part 2: 'Squaw Man' and the Hollywood Years|date=February 28, 2014|work=Indian Country Today Media Network|access-date=March 8, 2014}}

From 1908 to 1921, St. Cyr performed in more than 35 short Western films. She retired from acting in the 1920s and returned to New York City to settle. She was buried in the Roman Catholic St. Augustine Cemetery in Thurston County, Nebraska, near the Winnebago Reservation.

"Red Wing," a popular song of 1907 by Kerry Mills and Thurland Chattaway, was said to have been performed by St. Cyr and was associated with her. However, film historians question this.{{cite journal|last=O'Connor|first=Mark|url=http://americanstrings.blogspot.com/2011/07/red-wing.html?m=1|title=Red Wing|publisher=New American School of String Playing|volume=II|date=July 15, 2011|journal=The O'Connor Method - A New American School of String Playing|access-date=July 8, 2013}}

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{{cite web|url=http://newspaperrock.bluecorncomics.com/2008/12/young-deer-and-red-wing.html|title=Young Deer and Red Wing|work=newspaperrock|access-date=11 August 2010}}

{{cite web|url=http://www.nsea.org/news/StCyrYoungDeerProfile.htm|title=Profile: Lillian St. Cyr (Princess Red Wing) and James Young Deer|work=nsea.org|access-date=11 August 2010}}

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• {{IMDb name|0934969|Red Wing}}
• {{AFI person|199894-Princess-RedWing|Princess Red Wing}}

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Category:19th-century births

Category:1974 deaths

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:Actresses from Nebraska

Category:American silent film actresses

Category:Native American actresses

Category:People from Thurston County, Nebraska

Category:Carlisle Indian Industrial School alumni

Category:20th-century Native American women

Category:20th-century Native American people

Category:Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska people

Category:Native American people from Nebraska