Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American actress and activist who died earlier this month at the age of 75, was revealed as an ethnic imposter by her two Hispanic sisters.
The model-turned-activist earned instant fame in 1973 when she substituted for Marlon Brando at the Academy Awards. The actor, who had received the award for best actor for his part in “The Godfather,” permitted Littlefeather to speak on his behalf against the treatment of Native Americans in Hollywood.
Littlefeather, who claimed to be an Apache descendant, discussed the condition of Native Americans in Hollywood. She endured years of racial hostility from the crowd.
Nearly 50 years after that moment on stage, The Academy issued Sacheen an apology letter, and she agreed to attend an event in mid-September to publicly accept the apology.
According to her siblings, the only problem with Littlefeather’s hitherto unchallenged life tale was that it was completely false.
In a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Littlefeather’s biological sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi, reveal their sibling’s half-century long deception.
Orlandi told the publication, “It is a falsehood.” My father was exactly who he was. His family originated in Mexico. My father was born in Oxnard.
Cruz agreed, stating, “It is a hoax.”
It is offensive to the culture of the indigenous people. Furthermore, it is demeaning to my parents.
Orlandi hypothesized that when Littlefeather entered the entertainment industry, she felt that it was more prestigious to be an American Indian than it was to be Hispanic – her actual ancestry.
Littlefeather also spoke to the Chronicle shortly before her passing about her renowned Oscars address.
“I spoke from the heart, not for me, as an Indian woman, but for we and us, for all Indian people,”
I needed to tell the truth. Whether or not it was acceptable, it had to be said in the name of Native people,’ she stated.
Littlefeather was born under the name Maria Louise Cruz in Salinas, California.
Her parents were Manuel Ybarra Cruz and Gertrude Barnitz.
A study of her father’s ancestry revealed no indication that his extended family had ties to Native American nations in the United States.
The author of the Chronicle article, Jacqueline Keener, a Diné/Dakota Native American, has compiled a list of alleged “Pretendians,” a term coined to describe non-Native Americans who pose as such for personal advantage.
Littlefeather’s lifelong deception that she was a White Mountain Apache Native American began when she was a student at San Jose State in the late 1960s, according to Keener.
She was beginning her career as a model at the time.
She was recognized as Sacheen Littlefeather in a photograph published in the Oakland Tribune on January 14, 1971.
Throughout her life, she claimed on multiple times that she was raised by a white mother and a Native American father in a cabin near Salinas without an indoor toilet.
She claimed that her aggressive Apache drunken father terrified the family.
Cruz relates an entirely different tale: ‘My father was deaf and had lost his hearing at age 9 due to meningitis.
“He was born impoverished. His father, George Cruz, was a violent alcoholic who frequently assaulted him. And he was placed in foster homes and with relatives. But my sister Sacheen assumed responsibility for his fate.
Orlandi said her father ‘never drank.’
‘My dad never smoked. She also criticized him and said that my father was mentally ill. My father had no mental illness.
She stated that the household did have a toilet.
Littlefeather lied about her family and her origin throughout the majority of her life, in addition to speaking on behalf of a group over which she had no authority.
In 1972, Hugh Hefner commissioned photographs of Littlefeather and nine other naked Native women riding horses in the wilderness.
Hefner ultimately rejected the photographs because they were not “erotic enough.”
Littlefeather told a journalist at the time that she initially agreed to participate in the photoshoot because “everyone says black is beautiful, and we wanted to prove that red is, too.”
Several months after her Oscars moment, Sacheen said she was blacklisted from the entertainment world because to her advocacy.
The sisters claim that their intention in coming forward following the death of their sister is to restore the truth about their parents, whom they characterize as good, hardworking people.
Orlandi told Keener that ‘Sacheen did not like her. She didn’t like being Mexican.’ Therefore, it made logical for Littlefeather to spend the majority of her life “playing someone else.”
“The best way I can think of to describe my sister is by saying that she built a fantasy. She said that she lived and died in a fantasy world.