Sacheen Littlefeather was celebrated in "An Evening with Sacheen Littlefeather" at the Accademia Museum on September 17, 2022.

Movies

A Native American activist refused the Oscar

October 3, 2022

Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American actress who turned down Marlon Brandon’s Best Actor Oscar in 1973, has died. She was 75 years old.

News from Littlefeather’s death has been shared by the official Twitter account of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Her family confirmed in a statement to USA TODAY that Littlefeather died Sunday “peacefully at home” in Marin County, Calif., “surrounded by loved ones.”

Littlefeather, who was Apache and Yaqui, was born Marie Louise Cruz on November 14, 1946 in Salinas, California. The actress, a graduate of California State University at Hayward who studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, has appeared in such films as 1973’s “Counselor at Crime”, “The Trial of Billy Jack” by 1974 and “Johnny Firecloud” from 1975.

She then co-founded the National American Indian Performing Arts Registry.

“I never thought I would live to see the light of day”:Oscars apologize to Sacheen Littlefeather for mock speech

In 2018, Littlefeather revealed she was battling stage 4 breast cancer.

His death came weeks after he received a long-awaited apology from the Oscars. Nearly 50 years ago, the actress and activist rejected an Oscar on behalf of ‘The Godfather’ star Brando, who boycotted the ceremony to protest Hollywood’s negative portrayals of Native Americans. Littlefeather gave a speech on her behalf, which was mocked and booed by many members of the audience.

On September 17, Littleweather was honored in “An Evening With Sacheen Littlefeather”, presented as a program of “conversation, reflection, healing and celebration” at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles. But Littlefeather had received a private apology from the Academy months before in June.

Related:Sacheen Littlefeather’s apology reminds us that Native Americans are still ‘left behind’ in Hollywood

“The emotional burden you have experienced and the cost of your own career in our industry is irreparable. For too long, the courage you have shown has gone unrecognized,” reads a letter of apology, signed by then Academy President David Rubin. “For that, we offer both our deepest apologies and our heartfelt admiration.”

Littlefeather told The Hollywood Reporter in August that she was “stunned” to receive a formal apology.

“I never thought I would live to see the day I would hear this, experience this,” Littlefeather said. “When I was on the podium in 1973, I was standing there alone.”

But while Hollywood is still striving to make meaningful progress for Native representation, some members of the Native American community have found a public apology to Littlefeather to be the bare minimum.

“Honestly, it’s been 50 years,” Eric Buffalohead, chair of the Department of Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous Studies at the University of Augsburg in Minneapolis, told USA TODAY after the Academy event. “(It) definitely seems too little too late.”

He added, “Hollywood has spent over 100 years portraying Native Americans as a thing of the past, forever stuck in 18th and 19th century settings. The fantasy of Native Americans has replaced the reality of Native Americans in people’s minds. .”

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Littlefeather became the first Native American woman to speak onstage at the Oscars. Dressed in a buckskin dress and loafers, she gave a 60-second speech explaining that Brando could not accept the award because of the “film industry’s treatment of American Indians today.”

The 1973 Oscars took place during the two-month occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota by the American Indian Movement, which Brando referenced in the speech she gave.

As she left the Oscars stage after the speech, “I ran into the stereotypical tomahawk chop, individuals who called me out, and I ignored them all,” she recently told Variety. “I kept walking straight ahead with a few of the armed guards beside me, and I held my head up and was proud to be the first Indigenous woman in Oscars history to make that political statement. .”