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Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American activist who famously turned down Marlon Brando’s Oscar for The Godfather, passed away at the age of 75. The Native American activist died on Sunday, only two months after the Academy issued a formal apology for her maltreatment at the 1973 Academy Awards. Everything you need to know about the actor is right here.
Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American activist who denied Marlon Brando’s Oscar for “The Godfather” on his behalf at the 1973 Academy Awards, died on Sunday at the age of 75, according to the Academy of Motion Pictures. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, she died around noon on Sunday at her Northern California home, surrounded by her loved ones.
What Was Sacheen Littlefeather Name?
Sacheen Littlefeather, also known as Sacheen Littlefeather-Mills, was born in the Arizona Navajo Nation in 1946. She is a Native American rights activist who has been working for these causes since she was a youngster.
The daughter of an Apache and Yaqui father and a white mother, she was neglected due to her mother’s mental illness and her father’s drinking problems, so she was taken away by her grandparents at the age of three and nurtured more comfortably. She witnessed her father beating up her mother as a child. “I think that made me who I am,” you would remark nowadays.
After her father died, Littlefeather began visiting reservations in Arizona when she was 17 years old. “I truly had a breakthrough, going back into our customs, our heritage, with other urban Indian people.” The elderly folks who came from various reservations were so delighted to meet and greet us that they would say things like, ‘You look like you could be in an old image again.’ It was fantastic.”
By her early twenties, Littlefeather was working at a San Francisco radio station and chairing a Native American affirmative action committee. She also investigated the portrayal of Native Americans on television and in sports. When she overheard Marlon Brando discussing native rights.
She has been an activist since she was 14 years old when she was a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). She became a member of that organization’s national executive board in 1973, which resulted in her imprisonment on multiple occasions. When she was freed from prison in 1980, Littlefeather established the National Indian Women’s Hall of Fame Foundation to honor great Native American women leaders.
What Happened During The Oscars?
Alice Marchak, Brando’s assistant, accompanied Littlefeather. She arrived on stage wearing an Apache buckskin gown and declined the Oscar trophy Moore presented her. and then read: “Hello. Sacheen Littlefeather is my name. My name is Apache, and I’m the president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee.
This evening, I’m representing Marlon Brando, and he has requested me to tell you in a very long speech, which I can’t share with you because of the time constraint, but I will gladly share it with the press after the session. He can’t accept it right now.
There has been rampant mishandling of American Indian images in everything from movies to TV reruns. I want to be clear that these complaints are not coincidental, but arise from my worry about how the film and television industries handle this group. Our hearts and minds will be met with love and kindness.
Later, it was revealed that John Wayne was waiting in the wings and had to be restrained by six security officers to keep him from pushing her off the platform. Brando’s original speech was 739 words long, but the awards ceremony’s team told Littlefeather to restrict it to 60 seconds. At the press conference, she read the entire speech.
The Academy apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather, who turned down Marlon Brando’s Oscar nomination. little feather-actor-and-activist-who-declined-Marlon-Brando’s-oscar-dies-aged-75 On June 4, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather, Marlon Brando’s 1969 Oscar winner, for mistreating her during a 1970 ceremony.
On September 17, she met with Academy officials in person at their Los Angeles museum to receive the apology on behalf of her late father, who had initially declined it 42 years ago, and to deliver an emotional address. It has taken a long time, but the Academy is now moving toward inclusivity. As Littlefeather told the press, she was taken aback by the news: “I never believed I’d see or experience it.”
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