Actress and Indigenous activist: Sacheen Littlefeather died at 75

It’s taken Hollywood almost fifty years to acknowledge Sacheen Littlefeather’s greatest performance. Just last August, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles apologized for its reaction after the 1973 Academy Awards, when the then 26-year-old Indigenous actress and activist accepted Marlon Brando’s Oscar for his role in The Godfather” declined.

By not attending the ceremony, the actor wanted to protest Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans. Littlefeather’s protest note was accompanied by applause, but also by boos.

Now, Sacheen Littlefeather, born Marie Cruz, has died in Novato, California, at the age of 75, just weeks after being rehabilitated by the Academy. After her banishment from the American film industry, the actress hardly received any offers for roles and instead increasingly campaigned for the rights of indigenous Americans.

According to her website, she took part in the 1969 occupation of the prison island of Alcatraz by a group of Native Americans in protest against US government policies.

Littlefeather was born to a member of the Apache ethnic group and a German-Dutch mother. In the early 1970s she began working at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

She came to her most famous appearance rather by accident through contact with Francis Ford Coppola, who lived in her neighborhood at the time. Littlefeather accepted the late apology. At an August event in her honor, she described this recognition of her struggle as a “circle that closes before I die.”

For years, Hollywood has been trying to right the unequal treatment of cultural minorities. In 1973, Sacheen Littlefeather likened Oscar audiences to bleach as she gazed into the faces of all-white people. She told the press at the time: “Remember that if you stand by your truth, you keep my voice alive.” (tsp)

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