Maria Louise Cruz (November 14, 1946 – October 2, 2022), better known as Sacheen Littlefeather, was an American-born actress and activist for Native American civil rights. After her death, she was accused by family members and journalists of falsely claiming to have Native American ancestry.

Littlefeather represented Marlon Brando at the 45th Academy Awards (the Oscars) in 1973, where on Brando's declined the Best Actor award that he won for his performance in The Godfather. The favorite to win the award, 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 boycott was divided between booing and applause.

After the Academy Awards speech, Littlefeather worked in hospice care. She continued her activism for Native American issues, especially including healthcare and unemployment. She also 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.

Early life

Littlefeather was born Marie Louise Cruz or Maria Louise Cruz Her mother, Geroldine Marie Cruz (née Barnitz), was a leather stamper of French, German, and Dutch descent, and was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California.

Littlefeather repeatedly claimed that her father had White Mountain Apache and Yaqui ancestry. After high school, she attended Hartnell Junior College and studied elementary education.

Littlefeather said that around age 19, she spent a year in a psychiatric hospital after previously hearing voices that pushed her to a suicide attempt, recounting what happened during a three-hour visual history interview in 2022 with the director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. According to Littlefeather, the institution was a "hell hole" and doctors used what she said was "psychodrama" role-playing her parents "while black-hooded figures listened in a dim-lit room" to help her "reconstruct memories of childhood abuse and abandonment." Littlefeather said she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She said she had been treated with thorazine and other medications but "mostly stabilized with much help" from the San Francisco Bay Area Native American community. In 1969, she joined the United Bay Indian Council. She claimed to have participated part-time in the occupation of Alcatraz in 1970, though this claim has been disputed. She learned more about Native American customs from elders and other protesters, such as Adam Fortunate Eagle (then known as Adam Nordwall). however, according to an article published after Littlefeather's death, activist LaNada War Jack, who was at Alcatraz, said Littlefeather was not there.

Accounts of abusive childhood

In interviews, Littlefeather said she had a difficult childhood. In a 1974 interview, she stated that her mother left her father when she was four and took her to live with her maternal grandparents. In 1988, she stated that her parents lived next door to her maternal grandparents, Marie and Gerold "Barney" Barnitz, while she and her two younger sisters lived with those grandparents. She characterized this as either being "adopted", or in foster care. She said her mother and two sisters were subject to their father's rage and beatings.

In an opinion piece following her death, Navajo writer and activist Jacqueline Keeler wrote that Littlefeather's sisters disputed that their father had been abusive and that Littlefeather's account of her childhood seemed to have been taken from that of her father, who had grown up in poverty and whose own father was abusive.

Early career

Aspiring to become an actress, Littlefeather picked up several radio and television commercial credits and joined the Screen Actors Guild.

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, Looking back at the photo shoot, Littlefeather later said, "I was young and dumb." 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".

1973 Academy Awards speech

Background

thumb|[[Marlon Brando at the March on Washington in 1963]]

Accounts of how Littlefeather initially met Marlon Brando vary. In one of her first interviews after the speech, she mentioned that they met "through his interest in the Indian movement". An account from the night of the Oscar ceremony describes Francis Ford Coppola observing Littlefeather on a TV monitor backstage and stating "Sacheen Littlefeather. She lives in San Francisco. She's a friend of mine that I introduced to B[...] She's an Indian princess."

A 1974 article about a Littlefeather interview stated that she was working for a San Francisco radio station when she applied for work with Coppola and that he then referred her to Brando, "knowing Brando's interest in the Indian". At the time of the Oscars, she had known Brando for nearly a year. Later accounts describe Coppola as Littlefeather's neighbor in San Francisco.

In a 2021 interview, Littlefeather said that she got to know Coppola while hiking the hills of San Francisco and she got Brando's address from him. Subsequently, she wrote Brando a letter, asking about his interest in Native American issues. In that account, he called the radio station where she worked months after she sent the letter. Littlefeather also said that she met Brando in Washington, D.C., where she was presenting to the Federal Communications Commission about minorities. For the performance he was nominated for Best Actor at the 45th Academy Awards, which were presented on March 27, 1973, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. Before the ceremony, Brando decided that—as the favorite to win so she condensed it all into 60 seconds. Koch recalled that he permitted her to stay and make her speech after she promised not to make a scene.

The Best Actor award was presented by Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann and British actor Roger Moore. After giving brief remarks and announcing the five nominees, they declared Brando as the winner. Littlefeather walked onto the stage and raised her hand to decline the Oscar trophy that Moore offered her. Deviating from the prepared speech, she said the following:

Works cited

Further reading

  • Text, audio, video of the Academy Award speech
  • Text of the undelivered speech from The New York Times
  • Image of Sacheen Littlefeather standing before an Oscar statue holding Marlon Brando's statement at the 45th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, California, 1973. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.