Sacheen Littlefeather, the activist who rejected Oscar Brando, has died at the age of 75

Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache activist and actress who refused to accept the Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando at the 1973 Academy Awards, sparked ridicule on stage in an act that broke through the awards show and highlighted her criticism of Hollywood for its portrayal. Of the Native Americans, he may have died. She was 75 years old.

her death It was announced on Sunday From the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Her death came a few weeks after the academy I apologize to Mrs. Littlefeather About her treatment during the Oscars. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter In August, Ms Littlefeather said she was “shocked” by the apology. “I never thought I would live to see the day when I would hear this, and experience it,” she said.

When 26-year-old Mrs. Little Feather raised her right hand that night inside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles — an apparent signal to award presenters, audiences, and the millions watching on TV that she did not wish to ceremoniously accept a gleaming gold statue — it was one of the most famous The disruptive moments in the history of the Oscars.

Mrs. Littlefeather said on the stage, after enduring a chorus of boos and some cheers from the crowd.

She wore a sparkly suede dress, moccasin shoes, and a hair tie, and her appearance at the 45th Academy Awards, at age 26, marked the first time a Native American woman had ever stood on stage at the ceremony. But the backlash and criticism was immediate: Actor John Wayne was very unstable This is a display productMarty Bassetta said security guards should restrain him from storming the stage.

I told The Hollywood Reporter In August: “When I was on the podium in 1973, I stood there alone.”

Mrs. Littlefeather, whose birth name was Mary Cruz, was born on November 14, 1946, in Salinas, California, to a father of the White Mountain Apache and Yaqui tribes of Arizona and a French, German-Dutch mother, according to her. website. After high school, she took the name Sacheen Littlefeather “to reflect her natural heritage,” the site states.

Her website said she participated in Native American occupation of Alcatraz Islandwhich began in 1969 in defiance of the government, which they said had long held their rights.

Her acting career began at the American Institute Theater in San Francisco in the early 1970s. She would go on to play roles in films such as “The Trial of Billy Jack” and “Winterhawk”.

Ms. Little Feather said in an interview with the Academy that she was planning to watch the awards on TV when she got a call the night before the party from Mr. Brando, who has been nominated for his performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather. “

The two became friends through her neighbor, director Francis Ford Coppola. Mr. Brando asked her to refuse the award on his behalf if he won and gave it Speech Read only in case.

With only about 15 minutes left on the program, Mrs. Littlefeather arrives at the party with little information on how the night will work.

An Academy Awards producer noticed the pages in Mrs. Little Feather’s hand and told her she would be arrested if her comments lasted more than 60 seconds.

Then Mr. Brando won.

In the speech, Ms. Little Feather also drew attention to the federal government Confrontation with the Native Americans in the affected knee.

She later recalled that while giving the speech, she “focused on the mouths and jaws that were opening up in the audience, and there were quite a few.”

She recalled that the audience looked like a “sea of ​​Clorox” because there were “very few people of color.”

She said that some members of the public had done a so-called “tomahawk cut” on her and that when she went to Mr. Brando’s house later, people shot into the entrance where she was standing.

Last month, Mrs. Little Feather spoke on an Academy-hosted program titled “An evening with Sacheen Littlefeather,“Remember how you defended justice in the arts.

“I didn’t represent myself,” she said. “I was representing all the Aboriginal voices out there, all the Aboriginal people, because we’d never heard that way before.”

And when I spoke these words, the audience applauded.

“I had to pay to get in, and that was fine,” she said. “Because those doors have to be open.”

After learning that the academy would formally apologize to her, Ms Little Feather said it felt “like a big purge”.

“It is as if the sacred circle completes itself,” she said, “before I go on in this life.”