Rodd Redwing


Rodd Redwing, also known as Roderic Redwing or Rodric Redwing, claimed to be a Native American actor and was noted as a quick-draw artist with six-guns.
Recent research on Redwing shows that in the United States Census 1940, his birthplace was listed as India and not New York City. Other sources say his real name was Roderick Rajpurkaii Jr.

Biography

Redwing 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 The Squaw Man, 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 on CBS's celebrity quiz show, What's My Line?
In eight episodes of the ABC/Desilu western television series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Redwing appeared in the part of "Mr. Brother," a Cheyenne friend and informer of deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp. Rico Alaniz similarly appeared with Redwing in the role of the Cheyenne "Mr. Cousin." In the 1958 episode "One," "Mr. Brother" is killed by the four-man Dry Gulch Gang. Several episodes of the series are spent as Marshal Earp hunts down the gang, one of whom has been given a haven by his girlfriend, the daughter of a rancher. All of the gang are ultimately hanged.

Film credits

After filming his part in The 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.