Kimberly Guerrero

Kimberly Norris Guerrero, born in 1967 in Oklahoma, is an American actress, screenwriter, college professor, motivational speaker, and Native American activist. A citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation with Salish–Kootenai heritage, she was born to Linda Standing Cloud and adopted at five months of age by the Norris family, who raised her in Idabel, Oklahoma. Her adoptive mother, Kay Norris, introduced her to Native American culture early in her childhood, arranging for her to begin learning native dance and song from the local Choctaw community by age six. As a high school student at Idabel High School, Guerrero was a cheerleader and won the title of Miss Oklahoma Teen at the 1985 statewide pageant, subsequently winning the national title that same year. Drawn to acting from childhood, she attended UCLA after graduation and earned a degree in History.

Guerrero made her professional acting debut in 1991 in the mini-series Son of the Morning Star, portraying Kate Bighead, General George Armstrong Custer's American Indian wife. Her next role came through her university mentor, Professor Hanay Geiogamah, on the soap opera As the World Turns, followed by an appearance in the TNT mini-series Geronimo. She accumulated more than two dozen screen credits over the course of her career, with her roles frequently centering on Indigenous women. Among her most recognized television appearances is the character Winona, Jerry Seinfeld's Native American girlfriend, in the Seinfeld episode "The Cigar Store Indian." She has also guest starred in Grey's Anatomy, Walker Texas Ranger, Bones, Charmed, The Sopranos, and IT: Welcome to Derry, and played two separate characters across the run of the A&E drama Longmire. She portrayed Sheriff Nina White in the ABC prime-time series Blood & Oil and played Bernice Blackburn in the first season of the Amazon Prime Video series The Wilds in 2020.

Her film and long-form television work includes a recurring role in the 1995 eight-part mini-series 500 Nations and the role of Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller in The Cherokee Word for Water, a portrayal she reprised on a separate occasion. Her depiction of Mankiller drew praise from Gloria Steinem, a friend of Chief Mankiller and prominent female activist. Guerrero also starred alongside Ernest Borgnine in the first installment of the Frozen Stupid television movie franchise and in the film Barn Red. As a screenwriter, she has worked since 1999 with the goal of countering stereotypical depictions of Native Americans in Hollywood. In 2001, she wrote and directed the short film Standing Cloud, which features her niece, actress and artist Nathalie Standingcloud.

Guerrero's stage career has taken her to prominent venues including the off-Broadway Public Theater, the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, the Royal National Theatre in London, and the Old Globe in San Diego. Her most significant theatrical credit is originating the role of Johnna Monevata, the Native American housekeeper, in the initial two-year run of August: Osage County, the Tony Award-winning play first presented by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. That production transferred to Broadway in 2007 and subsequently played in London and Sydney. As a screenwriter, Guerrero has been a finalist for the Rockefeller New Media Fellowship, the ABC-Disney Television Writing Fellowship, and the Humanitas Award in Screenwriting.

In academia, Guerrero holds a professorship in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production at the University of California, Riverside, where she also serves as a Graduate Advisor for Screenwriters and Playwrights in UCR's MFA Program for Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. She and her husband, actor and music composer Johnny Guerrero, reside in Southern California. Together they co-founded the Akatubi Film and Music Academy, an organization dedicated to training Native and non-Native youth in tribal communities who are pursuing careers in film and music. Guerrero also co-founded the StyleHorse Collective, an organization that uses film, music, and online production to tell the life stories of Indigenous communities and individuals. She is the sister-in-law of Dan Guerrero, former athletic director at UCLA.