Sacheen Littlefeather, who declined Brando’s Oscar, dies at 75

The cause was breast cancer, said Calina Lawrence, her niece and caregiver. Ms. Littlefeather was diagnosed in 2018 with breast cancer that spread to her right lung, according to an article in A.frame, the digital magazine of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

For decades, the Oscars largely steered clear of politics and social issues, acquiring a reputation as Hollywood’s biggest night while serving as a glitzy showcase for the movies and the people who made them. Ms. Littlefeather’s speech helped change that, ushering in an era in which actors and filmmakers increasingly used their acceptance speeches to call out injustice, criticize politicians and urge the industry to diversify its ranks and better represent women and people of color.

The 26-year-old Ms. Littlefeather was the first Native American woman to appear onstage at the Oscars, according to the Academy. Addressing the audience in moccasins and a buckskin dress, she explained that Brando, an activist for Native American rights, had written “a very long speech” but that she was unable to deliver it “because of time.” She later said that the show’s producer, Howard W. Koch, had threatened to have her arrested if she spoke for more than a minute.

Onstage, she called out offensive cliches of American Indians perpetuated on film and television and drew attention to “recent happenings at Wounded Knee,” where a dispute over corruption at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota led to a standoff with federal authorities.

Her speech was interrupted once by a mix of boos and applause, and she later recalled looking out at the overwhelmingly White audience — “a sea of Clorox,” as she put it — and seeing the tomahawk chop, a racist gesture. By the end of the night, Brando’s front door had been pierced by two bullets, according to Ms. Littlefeather.

“I went up there thinking I could make a difference,” she told People magazine in 1990. “I was very naive. I told people about oppression. They said, ‘You’re ruining our evening.’ ”

Ms. Littlefeather had known Brando for about a year when she stepped onto the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on his behalf, declining the award he had received for playing Mafia boss Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.”

Waiting in the wings, according to Ms. Littlefeather and Oscars telecast director Marty Pasetta, was western star John Wayne, who allegedly tried to rush onstage and attack Ms. Littlefeather but was held back by six security officers. That account was later dismissed as a Hollywood fable by film historian Farran Smith Nehme and Wayne biographer Scott Eyman, who noted that the actor was in poor health and that the “six security men” were mentioned only years later.

Regardless, the general reaction to Ms. Littlefeather’s remarks was…