The Sacheen Littlefeather story: Did John Wayne assault a Native American activist at the 1973 Oscars?
Every few years, there is an Oscar scandal that takes place live on stage for the world to see. In recent years, the most standout incidents have been the envelope mixup that caused La La Land to be announced as ‘Best Picture’ instead of Moonlight, and Will Smith’s rogue slapping of Chris Rock. Even by these juicy standards, however, the 1973 Oscars were pretty messy.
The basic facts continue to be well known. Marlon Brando won the ‘Best Actor’ award for his performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. He boycotted the show and sent activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his stead. When she took to the stage to announce that Brando would not accept the award due to Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans, she was met with stunned silence, boos, and a smattering of applause.
However, the specifics of the story, such as who Littlefeather was, what she actually said, and how she was treated by the luminaries in the room after she left the stage, are often glossed over. The mystery and myth-making around the event has grown over the years, and one of the most persistent rumours is that John Wayne was so enraged by Littlefeather’s speech that he either physically assaulted her or tried to physically assault her and had to be restrained by no fewer than six bodyguards.
Although many of his fans would insist that Wayne was a man of integrity, many others could point to plenty of evidence to the contrary. It’s also hard to underestimate just how poorly handled the Littlefeather speech was by the people in attendance at the ceremony.
So, what really happened at the 1973 Oscars?
For starters, we should talk about why Brando boycotted the event. He wasn’t just troubled by the historical displacement and mass murder of Native Americans at the hands of the US government and its antecedents. He was protesting a standoff that was happening at that very moment. In February 1973, about 200 demonstrators from the Oglala Lakota Nation and the American Indian Movement took control of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which had been the location of one of the bloodiest massacres of Native Americans at the hands of the US government in the 1890s.
The protesters had a long list of demands, but one of them involved the federal government’s continuing disregard for the treaty it had struck with Native American nations. At the time that the Oscars were taking place in March of 1973, the occupation was still in full swing. It continued until one of the government’s snipers shot an Oglala man through the heart. A truce was agreed shortly thereafter in May of 1973.
Brando wasn’t the only famous figure who took a public stand on the occupation. Jane Fonda, Johnny Cash, Angela Davis, and the entire Congressional Black Caucus spoke up in support of the Wounded Knee demonstrators. On Oscar night, however, the sentiment seemed to skew heavily toward the government.
Littlefeather was a 26-year-old activist from California who identified as being of Apache descent. Following her death in 2022, her sisters and independent researchers asserted that there was no evidence that she had Native American heritage on either her mother’s or father’s side, which has added yet another muddying factor to the Oscars incident. Still, she spent her entire adult life advocating for Native American rights, and when she took to the stage in 1973, she was acting as Brando’s spokesperson.
Her speech at the ceremony was relatively short, and she explained that Brando had written a much longer version that she would later provide to the press. She introduced herself as an Apache and the president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee and said that she was representing Brando and declining the award on his behalf.
“The reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee,” she said. “I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening, and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.”
It’s a fairly innocuous speech, especially in comparison to Brando’s fiery extended declaration that was later published in The New York Times. Still, she was met with widespread condemnation the moment the words left her mouth. Clint Eastwood took to the stage shortly thereafter to present the award for ‘Best Picture’ and said, “I don’t know if I should present this award on behalf of all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford westerns over the years.” But it was John Wayne’s alleged contribution that has had the longest legacy.
Did John Wayne assault Sacheen Littlefeather?
Again, it’s worth beginning this answer with some context. Wayne was – and remains – an icon of conservatism and, let’s be honest, outright bigotry. As he infamously stated in an interview with Playboy, “I believe in white supremacy.” The full quote is even worse. When asked about the firing of activist Angela Davis from her university post over her political affiliations, he said, “We can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.”
The horror of that statement has overshadowed a comment he made during the interview about Native Americans. When asked how he felt about how Hollywood had historically marginalised the Native American experience in movies, Wayne said, “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them, if that’s what you’re asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”
With this context, it seems highly likely that, when Littlefeather made her speech at the Oscars, the ageing actor was triggered. In 2022, when the Academy offered her a formal and long-overdue apology, Littlefeather revealed that the western star “came forth in a rage to physically assault and take me off the stage,” and that he had to be “restrained by six security men in order for that not to happen.”
There is no film footage of this happening, and, as film historian Farran Nehme pointed out in a deep dive on the alleged incident, it is unlikely that it did. Wayne was frail at the time. He’d been diagnosed with cancer in 1964 and had one of his lungs removed. As a result, he was in poor health for more than a decade, and he struggled through the final phase of his career until his death in 1979. It’s highly improbable that six security guards would have been necessary to restrain him. One, possibly, but not six.
Whether he did try to assault Littlefeather is less certain. He was a virulent racist, but he wasn’t known for being physically combative. It’s likely that he responded poorly to Littlefeather’s speech, but assault is harder to infer.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out John Wayne Newsletter
All the latest stories about John Wayne from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.