Body found near White River in Auburn likely missing actress

Auburn police said a body found Thursday over a cliff in a wooded area near the White River likely was that of missing actress Misty Upham.

Police spokesman Steve Stocker said there is a “good chance” the body is that of Upham, although no official identification or determination of gender has been made.

Upham, an actress known for her roles in “August: Osage County” and “Django Unchained,” had been missing for more than a week.

Her parents reported Upham, 32, missing Oct. 6 after she disappeared from the Auburn area, police said. She has been listed as a missing person in the Washington Crime Information Center database.

The day before she was reported missing, Upham’s family called police to say she was at their home in south Auburn and was suicidal. When officers arrived, they were told she had already left. Officers checked the area but did not find her.

Upham’s career was going well, and she wasn’t worried about money, her family said.

She struggled with mental illness most of her life and managed it well, they said, until she moved to Washington earlier this year to help care for her father, who had suffered a stroke.

Her family said she wasn’t able to get her same medication after she moved, causing her to slip into bouts of depression and panic attacks. Her family believes that she mixed alcohol with medication, which sent her into a psychotic episode.

Upham was best known for her role in the 2013 film “August: Osage County,” where she acted alongside Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and Ewan McGregor.

She played Johnna Monevata, a Cheyenne housekeeper who takes care of Violet, played by Streep. The highly acclaimed film was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.

Upham was born on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. Her family moved to Seattle when she was 8 and she attended schools throughout King County. Moving to the city allowed her to escape the violence of the reservation and pursue her dreams of acting, she said.

“I needed to lose the reservation,” she told Distinctly Montana Magazine earlier this year. “I needed to leave. My idea was to go to the nearest city and go to the first theater I could find. I would watch movies, take breaks, and eat.”

Her break came at a showcase at Seattle’s Nippon Kan Theatre shortly after high school, when she wrote, directed and acted in a play that someone filmed and sent to a casting director in L.A.

The casting director called the next day and asked her to submit a portfolio. Within a month she landed her first role in Chris Eyre’s 2002 film “Skins,” filmed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Her next major role was in “Frozen River,” where she played a Mohawk woman who helps smuggle immigrants across the Canadian border. Her portrayal won the 2008 EDA Female Focus award for best newcomer.

In 2012, she co-starred with Benicio del Toro in “Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian,” based on the true story of a friendship between a Blackfoot man and a French psychoanalyst.

Upham told Indian Country Today Media Network she was excited to play a Blackfoot woman, and that she was planning on savoring every moment of a filming a romantic scene with del Toro.

A direct descendent of Chief Heavy Runner, Upham was proud of her Native heritage and a proponent of Native communities’ economic development and self-determination, her family said.

She refused to play roles that portrayed Native Americans in a stereotypical way. She agreed to act in “Frozen River” because of the complexity of her character, “a Native American who’s not in Buckskin.”

She founded the Indigo Children Troupe, a nonprofit that works to bring the arts to indigenous people. She wanted to give back to the Native community by providing opportunities to others who wanted to act.

“Acting saved my life. I recognize that,” she told Indian Country Today Media Network in February.

This story was originally published October 16, 2014 at 2:18 PM.