Geraldine Keams is an American actress. She is best known for her work in numerous television series often playing a motherly role. She made her debut in the 1976 Clint Eastwood western The Outlaw Josey Wales as Little Moonlight. In recent years, she is also a successful stage actress and storyteller, taking part in children"s plays about Indian legends.
Background
Geraldine Keams was born on August 19, 1951, in Flagstaff, Arizona, the United States, to Lee and Helen Keams. She was raised on a reservation and is a member of the Navajo Nation.
As a child, she grew up without television and had a community full of gifted storytellers. She grew up under their influence and developed a great fascination for her culture. She became an adventurous explorer by reading books about faraway places and listened to the stories of the Navajo.
Education
Keams attended the University of Arizona, where she studied drama and film. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1978.
Career
Geri Keams is best known as an accomplished film actress. She co-starred with Clint Eastwood in the classic western, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), playing Moonlight. She has co-starred in many films over the years such as The Car (1978) with James Brolin, and Walks Far Woman (1987), with Raquel Welch. She has been featured in many television productions such as, Twin Peaks (1995) and playing Ed’s aunt in Northern Exposure (1998).
Keams served as a consultant on the Disney animated feature, Pocahontas, and Tony Hillerman’s Skinwalkers for PBS. In more recent years she has co-starred in many television productions such as the Disney Channel’s, Buffalo Dreams (2006), Showtime Cable’s, Edge of America (2005) and Comanche Moon (2007) for CBS and Hallmark Entertainment.
She has toured the world with her children’s show, Native Legends Come Alive. She has been featured at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and The Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and is a resident performing and workshop artist for The Los Angeles Music Center.
She has performed and conducted workshops in hundreds of schools, libraries, churches, and museums throughout the country.
Geri is the author of well-known children’s books, Grandmother Spider Brings the Sun, and Snail Girl Brings Water, two illustrated children’s books.
Views
Keams is a supporter of the idea of holism. Holism is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The exact meaning of "holism" depends on context. Smuts originally used "holism" to refer to the tendency in nature to produce wholes from the ordered grouping of unit structures. However, in common usage, "holism" usually refers to the idea that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In this sense, "holism" may also be spelled "wholism", and it may be contrasted with reductionism or atomism. Finally, in the context of holistic medicine, "holism" refers to treating all aspects of a person's health, including psychological and cultural factors, rather than only his/her physical conditions or symptoms. In this sense, holism may also be called "holiatry".