{"id":1709321,"date":"2022-10-24T15:48:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T19:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1709321"},"modified":"2022-10-24T15:48:30","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T19:48:30","slug":"family-of-sacheen-littlefeather-who-rejected-marlon-brandos-oscar-says-her-native-american-heritage-is-a-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/family-of-sacheen-littlefeather-who-rejected-marlon-brandos-oscar-says-her-native-american-heritage-is-a-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Of Sacheen Littlefeather, Who Rejected Marlon Brando\u2019s Oscar, Says Her Native American Heritage \u2018Is A Lie\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffamily-of-sacheen-littlefeather-who-rejected-marlon-brandos-oscar-says-her-native-american-heritage-is-a-lie%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1709321&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Sacheen Littlefeather, the activist actress who rejected Marlon Brando\u2019s \u2018Godfather\u2019 Oscar in 1973, allegedly lied about her Native American heritage \u2013 according to her two biological sisters.<\/p>\n<p>Littlefeather, who died earlier this month, made headlines in August after the Academy of Arts and Sciences <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/snyde\/ny-academy-awards-apologizes-sacheen-littlefeather-refused-marlon-brando-oscar-20220816-d5cdes2rgze3bgrc25yzrcmlwy-story.html\">apologized<\/a> to her for the treatment she received during the 1973 Oscars. Back then, she appeared on stage in traditional Native dress and lamented the mistreatment of Native Americans by Hollywood and other industries. As she spoke, the audience booed, and presenters went on to mock her.<\/p>\n<p>But while she may have experienced adversity almost fifty years ago, Littlefeather became an activist icon with massive public support in the decades that followed, the San Francisco Chronicle <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/opinion\/openforum\/article\/Sacheen-Littlefeather-oscar-Native-pretendian-17520648.php\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, however, her relatives are calling out what they claim is a \u201cfraud\u201d \u2013 her story of being raised by a violent father of White Mountain Apache and Yaqui Indian descent. Her biological sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi, reached out to the Chronicle to say Littlefeather wasn\u2019t Native American at all.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a lie,\u201d Orlandi told the outlet. \u201cMy father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard [California].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a fraud,\u201d Cruz said. \u201cIt\u2019s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it\u2019s just \u2026 insulting to my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sisters told the outlet in separate interviews that they knew of no Native American ancestry and that they identified as Spanish on their father\u2019s side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, you\u2019re not gonna be a Mexican American princess,\u201d Orlandi said of her sister\u2019s adoption of an alleged fraudulent identity. \u201cYou\u2019re gonna be an American Indian princess. It was more prestigious to be an American Indian than it was to be Hispanic in her mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Chronicle noted that Littlefeather\u2019s claim to be of White Mountain Apache heritage was always odd, given the fact that she was born in Salinas, California \u2013 the same place where author John Steinbeck was born \u2013 with the name Marie Louise Cruz to parents Manuel Ybarra Cruz and Gertrude Barnitz. The Chronicle looked through her father\u2019s ancestry and found no Native heritage but did find records in Mexico, with no relatives listing their race as Native American or American Indian on any official forms.<\/p>\n<p>The Chronicle noted that just about every detail from her claims to have grown up in a poor Native American family was false. She apparently began using the identity in the 1960s as a student at San Jose State University when she was trying to become a model. Later, in 1974, she told the Berkeley Gazette that she was \u201can urban Indian.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNever saw a reservation till I was 17,\u201d she told the outlet, according to the Chronicle. \u201cI lived in a shack in Salinas, Cal. I remember the day we got a toilet, and I brought the neighborhood kids in and gave them the tour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her sister Trudy, however, said they had a toilet growing up and never lived in a shack, saying the description \u201cinfuriates\u201d her.<\/p>\n<p>Both sisters insisted Littlefeather stole their father\u2019s life story when making up her identity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy father was deaf and he had lost his hearing at 9 years old through meningitis,\u201d Cruz told the Chronicle.\u00a0\u201cHe was born into poverty. His father, George Cruz, was an alcoholic who was violent and used to beat him. And he was passed to foster homes and family. But my sister Sacheen took what happened to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another supposed lie from Littlefeather, whose ancestry wasn\u2019t questioned in her recent obituaries, was the claim that she participated in the Native American occupation protest to reclaim Alcatraz Island in 1969. LaNada Warjack, a student leader of the 18-month protest, told the Chronicle that Littlefeather was never at Alcatraz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe never really knew her until the Oscar night,\u201d Warjack told the outlet. \u201cWe thought that was really cool. That same year she did a spread in Playboy magazine. We knew no Native would do that. Especially during the 70s \u2026The last thing we as Native women wanted anyone to think of us was as sex objects.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In August, another of Littlefeather\u2019s claims came under scrutiny \u2013 one she had told many times over the decades. She insisted that famed actor John Wayne was \u201cin the wings\u201d at the 1973 Oscars and had to be held back by six security men to prevent him from attacking her. Film writer and historian Farran Smith Nehme looked into the claim extensively and discovered it absolutely <a href=\"https:\/\/selfstyledsiren.substack.com\/p\/john-wayne-and-the-six-security-men\">could not have happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sacheen Littlefeather, the activist actress who rejected Marlon Brando\u2019s \u2018Godfather\u2019 Oscar in 1973, allegedly lied about her Native American heritage \u2013 according to her two biological sisters. Littlefeather, who died earlier this month, made headlines in August after the Academy of Arts and Sciences apologized to her for the treatment she received during the 1973 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1709324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1709321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1709324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}