Don Marks

Donald Dean "Don" Marks (June 19, 1953 – January 30, 2016) was a Canadian writer, director and producer in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Marks was once a street youth before being adopted by a First Nations family. From 1974 to 1976, he was co-ordinator of the War Resister Information Program in Winnipeg, providing assistance for Americans who moved to Canada to avoid service in the Vietnam War. Marks gained notoriety during a North American wide media tour to publicize WRIP's activities and by leading a class action lawsuit against President Gerald Ford. Don worked with such notables as Hunter S. Thompson, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Bella Abzug and others to organize an amnesty for war resistors, He was a candidate for the Manitoba Liberal Party in the 1977 provincial election, and received 769 votes (15.63%) for a third-place finish in Point Douglas. He was a weekend news and sports anchor at CKND-TV during the mid-1980s. He died in Winnipeg at the age of 62 on January 30, 2016 from liver disease.

Marks is not aboriginal by background, but was raised by an indigenous family. Elijah Harper once said of Marks, "I don't view him as a white person. As a matter of fact, I view him as a brother, like you do when you get to know a person and become comfortable talking with him." In 1982, he collaborated with Bill Brittain in preparing an original stage musical called InDEO, which examines aspects of native life before and after European conquest and featured rock, classical, blues, folk, opera and native traditional music. Live performances featured the singer Shingoose in a lead role. Marks and Shingoose subsequently collaborated in the partnership Native Multimedia Productions Inc., and worked together in several television ventures. They created the First Nations-themed show Full Circle (later First Nations Magazine) in 1986. Three years later, they worked as co-executive producers of the CTV variety show Indian Time, featuring Buffy Sainte Marie, Charlie Hill, Max Gail and Tom Jackson which received an American Indian Film Festival Spirit Award and a 1989 Gemini nomination for Best Canadian Variety Program. Marks later directed Indian Time 2: Fly With Eagles for Global TV in 1991, which earned Marks another Gemini nomination for Best Director (Toronto Star, 9 August 1992), and wrote and directed First Nations for CKND in 1993, both in collaboration with Shingoose. The latter work examined aspects of aboriginal life in Winnipeg.

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