Sacheen Littlefeather: what did sisters say about her heritage in new interview - is she not Native American?

The sisters of late actress and Native American civil rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather have disputed her heritage in an interview following her death.

Littlefeather made Oscars history when she took the stage to decline Marlon Brando’s Academey Award in 1973, receiving an apology for her treatment just two months before she died.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, her sister’s Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi have claimed she was not Native American stating “It is a fraud.” Here’s everything you need to know about what her sisters have said.

Who was Sacheen Littlefeather?

Littlefeather was a Native American actor and activist who is best known for declining Marlon Brando’s Oscar at the 1973 Academy Awards.

She was born Marie Cruz in Salinas, California in 1946 and took the name Sacheen Littlefeather after high school, stating that her father had called her this name and her surname came from the feather she wore in her hair.

Littlefeather was an activist before becoming an actor and was part of the Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969. In the 1970s she joined San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre. She met Marlon Brando through the “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola who was her neighbour.

She died on 2 October, 2022 from stage four breast cancer, just two months after receiving an apology for her treatment at the Academy Awards.

Why did Marlon Brando refuse the Oscar?

Brando declined his Oscar in protest against the portrayal of Native American people in Hollywood films. Instead he asked Littlefeather to attend the ceremony on his behalf, her appearance and subsequent speech would become one of the Oscars most famous moments.

Reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Littlefeather told The Associated Press days after the Oscars: “I spoke from my heart. Those words were written in blood, perhaps my own blood. I felt about like Christ carrying the weight of the cross on his shoulders.”

What did her sisters say in new interview?

Cruz and Orlandi spoke out against their sister in an interview with Jacqueline Keeler in the San Francisco Chronicle. In it they challenged their sister’s claims calling them a “lie”.

Orlandi said: “My father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard.” Whilst Cruz added: “It is a fraud. It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just… insulting to my parents.”

They also challenged Littlefeather’s claims in the The Berkeley Gazette in 1974 that their father was abusive and that they grew up in poverty. Cruz said: “My father was deaf and he had lost his hearing at 9 years old through meningitis.

“He 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.”

They also challenged Littlefeather’s story about how she got her last name stating: “That she danced in front of my father and always wore a feather in her hair, in her head? And that’s when my father called her ‘Littlefeather’? That’s another fantasy.”

Adding: “Sacheen did not like herself. She didn’t like being Mexican. So, yes, it was better for her that way to play someone else. The best way that I could think of summing up my sister is that she created a fantasy. She lived in a fantasy, and she died in a fantasy.”

The two sisters were not notified of Littlefeather’s death, finding out she had passed away online and neither were invited to her funeral.

Was she Native American?

Throughout her life, Littlefeather stated she had both White Mountain Apache and Yaqui Indian heritage through her father.