Sacheen Littlefeather (( Marie Louise Cruz ))

Marie Louise Cruz (born November 14, 1946), known as Sacheen Littlefeather, is an Apache actress and activist for Native American rights.

On March 27, 1973, she represented Marlon Brando at the 45th Academy Awards to decline the Best Actor award for his performance in The Godfather.

The favorite to win, Brando boycotted the ceremony in protest of Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and to draw attention to the standoff at Wounded Knee.

During her speech, the audience was divided between jeers and applause.

Half-Native American (both White Mountain Apache and Yaqui) and half-white, Littlefeather had sought to become an actress.

She was involved in the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz and learned about her heritage.

After the Academy Award speech, she worked in hospice care, continued activism for a number of health-related and Native American issues, and produced films about Native Americans.

Early life and career

Sacheen Cruz Littlefeather was born Marie Louise Cruz on November 14, 1946, in Salinas, California.

Her mother was a leather stamper from Phoenix, Arizona, of French, German, and Dutch descent.

Her father was a child of an alcoholic father who beat him and he grew up in foster homes, among relatives, poor, and suffered from a tumor on his hearing nerves resulting from loud head noises.

He later met her mother as a saddle Maker in Arizona.

Her father died of cancer at 44 years of age in 1966 and is buried at our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Salinas.

A tombstone was erected in his honor by his wife's request and placed by their youngest daughter.

The Church is now a historical monument by the Monterey Historical Society.

Her mother and two sisters were subject to their father’s rage & beatings.

Her father was born in the desert and is from the White Mountain Apache and Yaqui tribes. The couple moved to California while her mother was pregnant.

They opened up their own business.

"Cruz Saddlery" and her parents are also remembered in Salinas Valley.

She was primarily raised by her maternal grandparents, Marie and Barney, and was Catholic as a child.

Sometimes she lived with her mother; she recalls a trip through Mississippi when she was told to use the "black" water fountains and a sign that read, "No Dogs or Indians Allowed".

While she attended California State College at Hayward (now California State University, East Bay), she continued to look into her Native American identity.

In Oakland, she worked with the Intertribal Friendship House.

In 1969, she became a member of Indians of All Tribes and participated in the occupation of Alcatraz, when she adopted the name Sacheen Littlefeather.

She learned more about Native American customs from elders and other protesters.

On a full scholarship to the American Conservatory Theater, she began acting education. Aspiring to become an actress, Littlefeather picked up several radio and television commercial credits and joined the Screen Actors Guild.

In 1970, she was named Miss Vampire USA, a promotion for Dark Shadows.

Playboy magazine planned a spread called "10 Little Indians" in 1972, and one of the models was Littlefeather, but Playboy editors cancelled its publication due to the Wounded Knee incident.

A year later in October 1973, after 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. Looking back at the photo shoot, Littlefeather later said, "I was young and dumb.

Academy Awards speech, 1973

Littlefeather got in contact with actor Marlon Brando through her neighbor, director Francis Ford Coppola.

She wrote Brando a letter, asking about his interest in Native American issues, and he called the radio station where she worked a year later

Brando had worked as an activist with the American Indian Movement (AIM) since the 1960s and into the 1970s.

In Washington, D.C., where Littlefeather was presenting to the Federal Communications Commission about minorities, they met and found in common their involvement with AIM.

In 1972, Brando played Vito Corleone in The Godfather, which is considered one of the greatest films of all time.

For the performance, he was nominated for Best Actor for the role at the 45th Academy Awards, which were presented on March 27, 1973, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California.

But before the ceremony, Brando decided that – as the favorite to win – he would boycott as a protest led by AIM against the ongoing siege at Wounded Knee and his views on how Native Americans were represented in American films.

He called Littlefeather and asked her to appear on his behalf.

"I was a spokesperson, so to speak, for the stereotype of Native Americans in film and television," she later said.

At the ceremony

Littlefeather joined the audience minutes before the award for Best Actor was announced. She was accompanied by Brando's secretary, Alice Marchak, and wore an Apache buckskin dress.

Producer Howard W. Koch, she would later say, told her that she had 60 seconds to deliver the speech or else be removed from the stage; she had planned to read a 4-page speech written by Brando.

The Best Actor award was presented by actors Liv Ullmann and Roger Moore.

After giving brief remarks and announcing the five nominees, they declared Brando to be the winner.

Littlefeather walked on stage and raised her hand to decline the Oscar trophy that Moore offered her.

Deviating from the prepared speech she clutched, she said the following:

Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather.

I'm Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee.

I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently, because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry – excuse me [boos and cheers] – and on television in movie re-runs, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.

I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening, and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity.

Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando. [applause]

Moore escorted Littlefeather off-stage, past several people critical of her, and to the press. At the press conference, Littlefeather read to journalists the speech that Brando had prepared; The New York Times published the full text the next day.

That Unfinished Oscar Speech

By MARLON BRANDO

For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ''Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together.

Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.''

When they laid down their arms, we murdered them.

We lied to them.

We cheated them out of their lands.

We starved them into signing fraudulent agreements that we called treaties which we never kept.

We turned them into beggars on a continent that gave life for as long as life can remember. And by any interpretation of history, however twisted, we did not do right.

We were not lawful nor were we just in what we did.

For them, we do not have to restore these people, we do not have to live up to some agreements, because it is given to us by virtue of our power to attack the rights of others, to take their property, to take their lives when they are trying to defend their land and liberty, and to make their virtues a crime and our own vices virtues.

But there is one thing which is beyond the reach of this perversity and that is the tremendous verdict of history.

And history will surely judge us.

But do we care?

What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice?

It would seem that the respect for principle and the love of one's neighbor have become dysfunctional in this country of ours, and that all we have done, all that we have succeeded in accomplishing with our power is simply annihilating the hopes of the newborn countries in this world, as well as friends and enemies alike, that we're not humane, and that we do not live up to our agreements.

Perhaps at this moment you are saying to yourself what the hell has all this got to do with the Academy Awards?

Why is this woman standing up here, ruining our evening, invading our lives with things that don't concern us, and that we don't care about?

Wasting our time and money and intruding in our homes.

I think the answer to those unspoken questions is that the motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing his as savage, hostile and evil.

It's hard enough for children to grow up in this world.

When Indian children watch television, and they watch films, and when they see their race depicted as they are in films, their minds become injured in ways we can never know.

Recently there have been a few faltering steps to correct this situation, but too faltering and too few, so I, as a member in this profession, do not feel that I can as a citizen of the United States accept an award here tonight.

I think awards in this country at this time are inappropriate to be received or given until the condition of the American Indian is drastically altered.

If we are not our brother's keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.

I would have been here tonight to speak to you directly, but I felt that perhaps I could be of better use if I went to Wounded Knee to help forestall in whatever way I can the establishment of a peace which would be dishonorable as long as the rivers shall run and the grass shall grow.

I would hope that those who are listening would not look upon this as a rude intrusion, but as an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory.

Thank you for your kindness and your courtesy to Miss Littlefeather.

Thank you and good night.

This statement was written by Marlon Brando for delivery at the Academy Awards ceremony where Mr. Brando refused an Oscar. The speaker, who read only a part of it, was Shasheen Littlefeather.

Later that night, before she announced the Best Actress winner, Raquel Welch said, "I hope the winner doesn't have a cause."

When Clint Eastwood presented the Best Picture award, he remarked that he was presenting it "on behalf of all the cowboys shot in John Ford westerns over the years."

Michael Caine, the night's co-host, criticized Brando for "Letting some poor little Indian girl take the boos" instead of "[standing] up and [doing] it himself".

Reception and legacy

The audience in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was divided between applause and jeers.

Brando and Littlefeather's protest was generally considered inappropriate for the awards ceremony.

"I was distressed that people should have booed and whistled and stomped, even though perhaps it was directed at myself," Brando later told Dick Cavett.

"They should have at least had the courtesy to listen to her."

Her appearance prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rule out future proxy acceptance of Academy Awards.

Littlefeather claims that she was blacklisted by the Hollywood community and received threats.

In addition, she says, media reports published several falsehoods, such as that she was not Native American or had rented the outfit for the occasion.

She has said that the federal government encouraged the blacklisting in order to abate Native American activism after Wounded Knee.

The speech was credited with bringing attention back to the Wounded Knee standoff, on which a media blackout had been imposed.

Coretta Scott King called Littlefeather to thank her for the speech.

In 2014, the 87th ceremony of the Academy Awards drew criticism for lack of diversity in nominations; actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who boycotted the ceremony, cited Littlefeather as inspiration to do so.

After giving the speech, Littlefeather spent two days in Los Angeles before returning to San Francisco.

When she visited Marlon Brando's house after the Academy Awards, while they were talking, bullets were fired into his front door.

At age 29 her lungs collapsed, and after recovering, she received a degree in health and a minor in Native American medicine, a practice she had used to recover.

Studying nutrition, she lived in Stockholm for some time and then traveled Europe, interested in the food of other cultures.

Later, she taught at St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson, Arizona, and worked with the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.

In 1979, she co-founded the National American Indian Performing Arts Registry, which later helped several actors join the production of Dances with Wolves.

She shared an Emmy Award as an advisor to PBS's Dance in America: Song for Dead Warriors (1984).

She also worked on the PBS shows Remember Me Forever and The Americas Before Columbus (both 1992), and she has produced films on Native American health.

In 2009, she gave testimony in the documentary Reel Injun about Native Americans in film.

She continued doing activism and became a respected member of California's Native American community.

In the 1980s, she led prayer circles for Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American Catholic saint.

In 1988, she worked with Mother Teresa helping AIDS patients in hospice care, later founding the American Indian AIDS Institute of San Francisco.

She campaigned against obesity, alcoholism, and diabetes, and specifically assisted Native Americans with AIDS, including her brother.

In 2015, Littlefeather reported that unauthorized persons were using her name and image to raise money for what was ostensibly a fundraiser for the Lakota nation.

However, the money was never donated to any campaign.

In March 2018, a spokesperson announced that Littlefeather had developed stage 4 breast cancer.

As of April 2018, Littlefeather resides in Northern California.

Movies

1973 Counselor at Crime Played > Maggie Cameo

1973 The Laughing Policeman>Minor Role

1974 Freebie and the Bean> Minor Role

1974 The Trial of Billy Jack>played Patsy Littlejohn

1975 Johnny Firecloud>played Nenya

1975 Winterhawk>played Pale Flower

1978 Shoot the Sun Down>played Navajo Woman

2009 Reel Injun Herself Documentary

2018 Sacheen Herself Short documentary