Melanie Olmsted Memorial Interpretation of Yellowstone

Several characters have been killed off throughout the Yellowstone series, even the start of the pilot’s unexpected death when Lee Dutton meets his fate by the end of the episode. In other words, we learned that series creator and writer Taylor Sheridan isn’t afraid to kill off even beloved characters — as was the case with the Season 5, Part 2 premiere, which featured John Dutton’s highly controversial death scene.

While the deaths of fictional characters usually get fans up in arms, the real tragedy is that the series also lost some of the people associated with its production. The premiere Spurs maker Billy Ray Clapper was honored at Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2while the season 2 finale also ended with a tribute to Melanie Olmstead. But while Clapper made a cameo appearance in the season 5, part 2 premiere, Olmstead never appeared in the series. In fact, she was never officially credited as having worked on the series in any capacity.

So who was this mysterious person who never appeared on camera and whose work at Yellowstone remains somewhat of a mystery? Here’s everything we know about Melanie Olmstead and her devotion at the end of the Season 2 finale.

Season 2, Episode 10 “Sins of the Father” includes a tribute to Melanie Olmstead, which appears before the credits with a dedication that reads, “In Memory of Melanie Olmstead 1968-2019.” Olmsted IMDb lists his first job as a location assistant on Billy Baldwin’s 2000 film Prime Suspect. But otherwise, her page is full of leading credits starting in 2004 and ending in 2020, though the IMDb page is hardly an exhaustive list. Olmstead has writing credits on such projects as Ari Astaire’s The Hereditary in 2018, Disney’s John Carter in 2012 and Windy River in 2017, a film written and directed by Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan.

Moreover, all of these films were filmed in Utah, where Yellowstone was filmed several times and often at Utah Film Studios in Park City. So while her IMDb doesn’t list “Yellowstone,” fans can safely assume that Olmstead worked on the series in some capacity. Other sites report that Olmstead served as the series’ transportation and location manager, but there is no official source for this, and the actual credits at the end of each episode in seasons one and two list Morgan Asdell as the series’ transportation coordinator.

While Olmstead’s involvement in Yellowstone and how she died remain a mystery, she clearly had enough of an impact on the series and those who make it to warrant a dedication.