Ray Mala: The First Inuit Hollywood Star

I never knew that Time magazine was in the business of naming “Top Ten Alaskans”, but in 2009 the Iñupiaq actor Ray Mala (Ray Agnaqsiaq Wise, 1906-1952) made the list.

The son of a Iñupiaq mother and a Russian Jewish father, Mala lucked into the film industry when explorers came through his native village on film shoots. Still a teenager, he worked before and behind the cameras on German film-maker Frank Kleinschmidt’s Primitive Love in 1921, and then joined the Dane Knud Rasmussen’s project The Great Sled Journey as a cameraman through 1924. Unusual in the film business, especially as it began to industrialize in the ’30s and ’30s, Mala alternated between acting and various crew positions throughout his career.

Some of you may look at the title of this post and say “What About Nanook of the North?” Well it’s true that Robert Flaherty shot in the frozen north as early as the teens, but Allakariallak, who “played” Nanook was not really an actor and never left Canada.

Whereas Mala moved to Hollywood in 1925 and began working in the biz. Initially he was a cameraman for Fox. Then came two onscreen roles tailor made for someone with his background: Universal’s Igloo (1932) and MGM’s Eskimo (1933). His character’s name was Mala in the second film; it became his professional name as well going forward. For a brief time, Mala enjoyed other starring roles, as in Last of the Pagans (1935), based on Melville’sTypee, and in Republic serials like Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island (1937) and Hawk of the Wilderness (1938).

Obviously after the first couple of films, opportunities to play Inuit characters dried up. Over his career he would also play lots of Pacific Islanders and Native Americans of the Lower 48. He quickly dropped from star status, too, once the novelty had worn off. Most of his screen roles were small supporting parts in features and serials like The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickock (1938), Union Pacific (1939), Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940), South of Pago Pago (1940), Northwest Mounted Police (1940), and The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942).

For the next decade he worked in uncredited posts in the camera department, on pictures like Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Laura (1944), The Fan (1949), Meet Me After the Show (1951), and Les Misérables (1952).

Mala returned to screen acting one last time as the Inuit sidekick to Guy Madison in the Columbia Cold War thriller Red Snow (1952), which was set in Alaska. He died of a heart-related episode while still on set at the age of 45. In 2018, his remains were removed from the Hollywood cemetery where they had previously been interred, and were laid to rest in his native land.