Alex Rice
Encyclopedia
Alexandrea Kawisenhawe Rice born in 1972 in Kahnawake, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada, is a First Nation
Aboriginal peoples in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....

 actress.

Early life

Alex Rice is a Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk
Mohawk nation
Mohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...

) born in 1972 in Kahnawake, Quebec, and is proud of her Mohawk heritage. She is also a member of the Rice family
Kahnawake surnames
The Mohawk Nation reserve of Kahnawake, near Montreal, Quebec, Canada, includes residents with surnames of Mohawk, French, Scots and English ancestry, reflecting the adoption of European children into the community, as well as intermarriage with local colonial settlers over the life of the early...

 of Kahnawake, having descended from Edmund Rice
Edmund Rice (1638)
Edmund Rice , was an early immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony who was born in Suffolk, England, and lived in Stanstead, Suffolk and Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire prior to sailing with his family to America. He arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in summer or fall of 1638, presumed to be first...

 an early immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...

. Though she was born on the Kahnawake reserve in Canada, Rice spend the majority of her childhood in Brooklyn, New York among a community of Mohawk ironworkers
Boerum Hill
Boerum Hill is a small neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn that occupies 36 blocks bounded by State Street to the north, 4th Avenue to the east, Smith Street to the west, and Warren Street to the south. Commercial strips line Smith Street and Atlantic...

, where she trained to become a professional dancer at local dance studios and developed a passion for acting when she landed a part in an educational video produced at her grammar school. She attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help High School in Brooklyn. Rice and her mother Melody Rice moved back to Kanawake in 1990 after the death of her father and her graduation from high school. She attended Dawson College
Dawson College
Dawson College was the first English CEGEP and is located in Westmount, just west of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Dawson College is located near the heart of downtown Montreal in a former nunnery on 4.85 hectares of green space...

 and Concordia University
Concordia University
Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...

, in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, where she earned a degree in library science.

Career

Rice first traveled to California in 1996 to attend a modeling convention and landed her first entertainment job working behind the scenes at the Judge Judy
Judge Judy
Judge Judy is an American court show featuring former family court judge Judith Sheindlin arbitrating over small claims cases in small claims court...

show. Her first feature film was the 2001 independent film The Doe Boy
The Doe Boy
The Doe Boy is a 2001 independent drama film written and directed by Randy Redroad. It was selected as the United States winner of the Sundance Film Festival/NHK International Filmmakers Award in 2000...

that garnered several international film festival awards. She is perhaps best known for her recurring role as Janet Pete in the films Skinwalkers
Skinwalkers (2002 film)
Skinwalkers is a 2002 mystery television film based on the novel by Tony Hillerman, one of a series of mysteries set against contemporary Navajo life in the Southwest. It starred Adam Beach as Jim Chee and Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn...

(2002), Dreamkeeper
Dreamkeeper
Dreamkeeper is a 2003 film written by John Fusco and directed by Steve Barron. The main plot of the film is the conflict between a Lakota elder and storyteller named Pete Chasing Horse and his Lakota grandson, Shane Chasing Horse...

(2003), Coyote Waits
Coyote Waits
Coyote Waits is a novel by Tony Hillerman. It was adapted as a TV film, which aired in 2003.-Coyote Waits :The plot involves rock formation vandalism, a dead policeman, an elderly Navajo accused of his murder, a bottle of expensive scotch, and a book on Navajo witchcraft beliefs.This book...

(2003), and A Thief of Time (2004). She has appeared in other films including Lewis and Clark: Great Journey West, On The Corner, A Thousand Roads, the IMAX
IMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...

 release of Sacagawea, Johnny Tootall
Johnny Tootall
Johnny Tootall is a 2005 television film written and directed by Shirley Cheechoo and was filmed around Vancouver Island, British Columbia with the Ahousaht Nations people...

and The New World. She has also appeared on various television series including Spin City
Spin City
Spin City is an American sitcom television series that aired from September 17, 1996 until April 30, 2002 on the ABC network. Created by Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence, the show was based on a fictional local government running New York City, and originally starred Michael J. Fox as Mike...

, CSI
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...

, Strong Medicine
Strong Medicine
Strong Medicine is a medical drama with a focus on feminist politics, health issues and class conflict. The television series aired on the Lifetime network from 2000 to 2006. It is distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The series was created and produced in part by comedienne and...

and The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...

.

Rice played Sue Clearwater in the third installment of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, released in 2010.

Awards

Special honors and awards include the Motion Pictures Award presented by the American Indian Film Institute for Best Actress (2003) for her reprisal of Janet Pete in Coyote Waits, and the First American Award (2005) for her work in A Thief In Time, presented by the First Americans in the Arts Committee.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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