Sacheen Littlefeather

About Sacheen Littlefeather

Maria Louise Cruz (November 14, 1946 – October 2, 2022), better known as Sacheen Littlefeather, was an American actress and activist for Native American civil rights who, after her death, was accused by family members and journalists of being a pretendian, falsely claiming Native American heritage.

Littlefeather represented Marlon Brando at the 45th Academy Awards (better known as the Oscars) in 1973, where she – on Brando's behalf – declined the Best Actor award that he won for his performance in The Godfather. The favorite to win, Brando boycotted the ceremony as a protest against Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and to draw attention to the standoff at Wounded Knee. During her speech, the audience's response to Brando's boycotting was divided between booing and applause.

In 1973, Littlefeather was married to engineer Michael Rubio. She was later in a 32 year long relationship with and married Charles Koshiway Johnston, who died in 2021.

Littlefeather studied orthomolecular nutrition and later said that she had "wanted to see where all the 'white' food came from" so she went to Sweden and lived in Stockholm. She stated that she wanted to travel in Europe to "see where the white people came from" just as people are "always going to reservations to see where the Indians came from". While traveling, she became interested in the food of other cultures and noted similarities between foods such as Spanish buñuelos and American Indian fry bread as well as Russian pirozhki and the meat pies made by her Kiowa friends.

Over the years, Littlefeather described her personal experiences with serious health issues, including internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, and cancer. She reported having tuberculosis at age four and received treatment in an oxygen tent while hospitalized. She stated that she was suicidal and hospitalized in a mental institution for a year. In 1974, she stated that Marlon Brando sent her to a doctor when she was in a lot of pain and helped her recover, so she made the Oscar speech to repay him.

At the age of 29 her lungs collapsed. After recovering, she received a degree from Antioch University in holistic health and nutrition with an emphasis in Native American medicine, a practice she credited with her recovery. In 1991, Littlefeather was reported to be recovering from radical cancer surgery. A 1999 article stated she had developed colon cancer in the early 1990s.

In 2018, Littlefeather developed stage IV breast cancer, a recurrence of the breast cancer from which she was reported to be in remission in 2012. She said in a 2021 interview that the cancer had metastasized to her right lung and that she was terminal.

Littlefeather died at her home in Novato, California, on October 2, 2022, at the age of 75.

After the Academy Award speech, Littlefeather worked in hospice care. She continued her activism for Native American issues including healthcare and unemployment, and produced films about Native Americans. In June 2022, the Academy sent Littlefeather a statement of apology that was read in full at An Evening with Sacheen Littlefeather on September 17, two weeks before her death.

Littlefeather said her father was of Apache and Yaqui ancestry and her mother was of European descent. Shortly after Littlefeather's death, Navajo writer and activist Jacqueline Keeler interviewed Littlefeather's two sisters, who said that their family is not Native American and that Littlefeather fabricated her Native American ancestry. They also said that their father, who was born in Oxnard, California, was of Spanish-Mexican descent and had no tribal ties.

Aspiring to become an actress, Littlefeather picked up several radio and television commercial credits and joined the Screen Actors Guild.[8][9] She later said that she "learned early in life that there was probably a place for me in the dramatic art field, acting ... if you have a parent who's deaf, you naturally have to act out messages to them", referring to communicating with her father. In 1970, as "Sacheen Littlefeather of Alcatraz", she was named Miss Vampire USA, a promotion for House of Dark Shadows.

While living in the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1970s, Littlefeather participated in the 1971 American Indian Festival at Foothill College, judged a local 1972 beauty pageant as "Princess Littlefeather", and organized a 1972 American Indian Festival at the Palace of Fine Arts. She worked at a radio station, KFRC, for about six months and did freelance reporting for PBS member station KQED.

Playboy magazine planned a spread called "10 Little Indians" in 1972, and one of the models was Littlefeather, but the spread was cancelled. A year later in October 1973, due to her Academy Award appearance fame, they ran the photographs of Littlefeather as a stand-alone feature. Littlefeather was personally criticized for what was seen as exploitation of her fame, but she explained that it was "strictly a business agreement" to earn the money needed to attend the World Theater Festival in Nancy, France. Looking back at the photo shoot, Littlefeather later said, "I was young and dumb."

In January 1973, she appeared in "Make-up for Minority Women' and was identified as a professional model. As a spokesperson for the National American Indian Council, she protested President Richard Nixon's budget cuts to federal Indian programs in February 1973. On March 6, 1973, she participated in a meeting between the Federal Communications Commission and members of several minority groups about the representation of minorities on television. In an interview published just before her Academy Awards appearance, she stated that she had helped send two Indian nurses to Wounded Knee and that she had relinquished her United States citizenship, along with seven Native Americans.

In 1975, Littlefeather reported that she was working on a movie script about Edward S. Curtis with Cap Weinberger, Jr, who had written an article about Curtis for Smithsonian magazine. She emceed an evening performance at the United National Indian Tribal Youth conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1976. She continued to pursue acting opportunities, such as touring with the "Red Earth Theater Company".