John Trudell was an American Indian author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After his pregnant wife, three children and mother-in-law were killed in 1979 in a fire at the home of his parents-in-law on the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada, Trudell turned to writing, music and film as a second career. He acted in three films in the 1990s. The documentary Trudell (2005) was made about him and his life as an activist and artist.

Filmography

• 2012Dark Blood — Indian #2
• 2005A Thousand Roads — Narrator (voice)
• 2005America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie — Black Hawk (voice)
• 2005Trudell — Self / Narrator (voice), Music
• 2003Dreamkeeper — Coyote
• Dreamkeeper — Coyote
• 1998Smoke Signals — Randy Peone
• 1996Extreme Measures — Tony
• 1994On Deadly Ground — Johnny Redfeather
• 1992Incident at Oglala — Self - National Spokesperson, American Indian Movement, Music Consultant
• 1992Thunderheart — Jimmy Looks Twice
• 1991Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier — Thanks
• 1989Powwow Highway — Louie Short Hair

Appearances as themselves (9)

• Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Annie Mae — Self - AIM National Chairman (archive footage)
• 2022Lakota Nation vs. United States — Self (archive footage)
• 2017Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World — Self
• 2015Taking Alcatraz — Self (archive footage)
• 2010Reel Injun — Self
• 2009No More Smoke Signals — self
• 2007The 11th Hour — Self
• 1999Making a Noise: A Native American Musical Journey with Robbie Robertson — Self - Santee Sioux
• The West — Self