David Gulpilil
Acting
Biography
David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu AM, known professionally as David Gulpilil and posthumously for cultural reasons as David Dalaithngu for three days, was an Aboriginal Australian (Yolŋu) actor and dancer, known for the films Walkabout, Storm Boy, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and The Tracker.
Born: July 1, 1953
Place of Birth: Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia
Known For
Love of an Icon: The Legend of Crocodile Dundee
Nearly 40 years on, Crocodile Dundee remains Australia’s biggest film—what made it a cultural icon, and why does it still mean so much today?
The Leftovers
When 2% of the world's population abruptly disappears without explanation, the world struggles to understand just what they're supposed to do about it. This is the story of the people who didn't make the cut.
The Right Stuff
At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.
Walkabout
Under the pretense of having a picnic, a geologist takes his teenage daughter and 6-year-old son into the Australian outback and attempts to shoot them. When he fails, he turns the gun on himself, and the two city-bred children must contend with harsh wilderness alone. They are saved by a chance encounter with an Aboriginal boy who shows them how to survive, and in the process underscores the disharmony between nature and modern life.
Charlie's Country
Blackfella Charlie is getting older, and he's out of sorts. The intervention is making life more difficult on his remote community, what with the proper policing of whitefella laws that don't generally make much sense, and Charlie's kin and ken seeming more interested in going along with things than doing anything about it. So Charlie takes off, to live the old way, but in doing so sets off a chain of events in his life that has him return to his community chastened, and somewhat the wiser.
The Proposition
In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.
Rabbit-Proof Fence
In 1931, three Aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff, and set off on a trek across the Outback.
Storm Boy
Mike is a lonely Australian boy living in a coastal wilderness with his reclusive father. In search of friendship he encounters an Aboriginal native loner and the two form a bond in the care of orphaned pelicans.
Faraway Downs
The story of an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, who inherits a large cattle ranch in Australia after her husband dies. When Australian cattle barons plot to take her land, she joins forces with a cattle drover to protect her ranch.
The Tracker
Somewhere in Australia in the early 20th century outback, an Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman. Three white men are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced Indigenous man.
Filmography
as Self (archive footage)
as King George
as Self
as Daku
as Jimmy
as Self / Narrator
as Christopher Sunday
as Charlie
as Jagamarra
as King George
as The Storyteller
as Burrimmilla
as Jacko
as Granddad
as The Tracker
as Self
as Moodoo
as Rainman
as Shaman
as Second Man in Desert
as Manulpuy
as David
as Adjaral
as Neville Bell
as Aborigine
as Self
as Chris Lee
as Fingerbone
as Billy
as Self
as Black Boy