The Native American activist who shocked Oscar-goers

Sacheen Littlefeather 1946–2022

The Academy Awards were not known for political grandstanding when Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage in 1973. Marlon Brando had asked the actress, model, and Native American activist to represent him should he win an Oscar for The Godfather. Littlefeather greeted the presenters but declined Brando’s trophy, explaining he was refusing the award to protest Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans and express solidarity with the American Indian occupation of Wounded Knee, S.D. Boos, and then applause, erupted. Littlefeather said John Wayne had to be restrained from pulling her off the stage, though historians have disputed her account. “I told people about oppression,” Littlefeather said in a 1990 interview. “They said, ‘You’re ruining our evening.’”

Littlefeather was born Marie Cruz, the daughter of an Apache-Yaqui father and a white mother, “in the back of a pickup truck” headed to Salinas, Calif. said The Telegraph (U.K.). She took her new name after high school, and in 1970 participated in a Native occupation of Alcatraz Island. Littlefeather won small parts in movies such as 1971’s The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight and befriended Brando the following year. The Oscars incident brought visibility to Native American issues but tanked her career.

Littlefeather retrained as a health consultant and by the 1980s was “working with Mother Teresa on behalf of AIDS patients,” said The Hollywood Reporter. Last June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologized for her treatment. “I never stood up onstage in 1973 for any kind of accolades,” Littlefeather said. “I only stood there because my ancestors were with me, and I spoke the truth.”