Did Sacheen Littlefeather share true story about John Wayne trying to attack her?

Before the sisters of Sacheen Littlefeather came forward in a damning report over the weekend to allege that the late activist was an “ethnic fraud” who faked her Native American ancestry, a film historian raised other questions about her adherence to the truth.

The historian, Farran Smith Nehme, challenged aspects of the claim made by Littlefeather and others that John Wayne threatened to assault her at the 1973 Academy Awards, after she famously took to the stage to refuse Marlon Brando’s best actor Oscar to protest the negative stereotyping of Native Americans in film and TV portrayals.

The story about Wayne threatening to attack Littlefeather has become Hollywood lore. In the story, the well-known Hollywood conservative, who expressed racist views and starred in Westerns that showcased negative stereotypes, became so irate over her speech that he started to charge on stage to attack her. “Six security men” had to hold him back, Littlefeather said in an interview in August. 

Littlefeather’s claims about Wayne recently gained momentum, before the 75-year-old died last month of metastatic breast cancer and ahead of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences issuing a formal apology for the way she was treated at the 45th Oscars ceremony.

In addition to facing Wayne’s alleged hostility, the Salinas-born activist was booed while refusing Brando’s Oscar for his performance in “The Godfather,” the Hollywood Reporter said. People in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion mocked her with so-called “tomahawk-chop” gestures, she said, and the once-aspiring actor said the U.S. government threatened to shut down any talk shows or productions that featured her.

In a post published in August on her Self-Styled Siren site, Nehme specifically challenged the idea that Wayne threatened violence or that “six security men” were needed to stop him from assaulting Littlefeather. Meanwhile, this past weekend, Littlefeather’s sisters, Trudy Orlandi and Rosalind Cruz, came forward in a column for the San Francisco Chronicle to say that she was not of Apache heritage, as she claimed, but had a Mexican father.

Sacheen Littlefeather became famous as the “Apache” actress and activist who accepted Marlon Brando’s Oscar.

According to her biological sisters, “Littlefeather isn’t Native at all.” And that wasn’t the only thing she lied about. https://t.co/ZFC8l5xxGL

— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) October 22, 2022

Orlandi and Cruz were talking to Native American journalist and activist Jacqueline Keeler, who has become known for her controversial efforts to expose false claims of American Indian heritage through her “Pretendians” list. Orlando and Cruz told Keeler that their sister was born Marie Louise Cruz and did not grow up with an abusive father or in terrible poverty. Keeler said her investigation showed that Littlefeather’s relatives identified as White, Caucasian or Mexican in legal records going back to the 1800s, and White Mountain Apache officials found no record of her or family members being enrolled in their tribe. Keeler argued that Littlefeather’s claims of affiliation with the White Mountain Apaches began after she was a student at San Jose State in the late 1960s, and local Bay Area news outlets reported on her burgeoning modeling career.

Meanwhile, Littlefeather recently helped amplify the story about Wayne being held back by six security men in interviews she gave to The Guardian and to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Littlefeather told the Academy’s A.Frame blog in August: “(John Wayne) did not like what I was saying up at the podium. So, he came forth in a rage to physically assault and take me off the stage. And he had to be restrained by six security men in order for that not to happen.”

Sacheen Littlefeather said that John Wayne tried to approach her after at the 1973 Oscars: “He came forth in a rage to physically assault and take me off the stage. And he had to be restrained by six security men in order for that not to happen.” https://t.co/5GVEhPpux7 pic.twitter.com/RyXr98exwh

— IndieWire (@IndieWire) August 19, 2022

Wayne may have been backstage while Littlefeather spoke because he was waiting to introduce the show’s finale after “The Godfather” was named best picture, Nehme said.

For her investigation of these claims, Nehme said she pored through 50-year-old news accounts about the 1973 Oscars ceremony, reviewed video clips of the ceremony and spoke to Wayne’s biographer. Nehme’s concluded that Wayne probably was irked by Littlefeather’s speech and expressed his displeasure. But she said there’s no evidence that six security guards needed to hold him back, “lest he race onstage and attack like he’s King Kong.”

Nehme offers a number of reasons why “it never happened,” even as she acknowledges that Wayne did a lot to earn his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most notable reactionaries. First, she said there wouldn’t have been time for a scuffle to take place. Only one minute and 45 seconds elapsed from the time that Brando’s name was read for best actor to when Littlefeather left the stage. During that minute and 45 seconds, Littlefeather walked up to the stage and delivered her speech, which was a 60-second condensed version of eight pages of the actor’s prepared remarks.

“(Brando) very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” Littlefeather said in a calm tone that she maintained during her time at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The audience began to boo when Littlefeather said, “The reasons for this … are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.”

Nehme said video clips show that Littlefeather was politely escorted off-stage by Roger Moore and Liv Ullman, who had presented the best actor Oscar. The minimalist set design for the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that night allowed for TV audiences to see actors move off stage. Wayne isn’t visible backstage, ready to charge, Nehme said. She also quoted famed Hollywood publicist Dick Guttman who recalled how he and Moore maneuvered to get Littlefeather onto an elevator so she could get up to the fourth-floor press room.

While Littlefeather was likely in the press room, handing out copies of Brando’s full speech, Wayne walked onto the Oscars stage to introduce the finale. He invited all the winners and presenters — including Liza Minelli, Clint Eastwood, Natalie Wood and Robert Wager — to come out and sing what turned out to be a rousing but awkward chorus of “You Ought to Be in Pictures.”

Nehme said Wayne “looked pretty calm” for a man who supposedly “caused backstage mayhem moments ago.” More to the point, Wayne walked slowly as he descended stairs to the stage, Nehmee said. That shouldn’t be surprising, given that Wayne was 65 and had undergone lung cancer surgery in 1964. Wayne sometimes had difficulty breathing and simply wasn’t “in fighting shape,” according to Nehme.

While the one-time USC football player played “manly roles” in his Westerns and war films, he wasn’t known as “a brawler … he didn’t run around punching activists,” Nehme said. His biographer, Scott Eyman, told Nehme that Wayne probably “would have been pissed off by Brando’s rejection of an award Wayne and his generation had considerable respect for.” But Eyman said that “nobody” who knew Wayne ever believed the “six security men” story because he was “not physically aggressive.” Among other things, Wayne apparently did all he could to avoid active service in World War II.

Littlefeather wasn’t the only person to share the “six security men” story, according to Nehme. From Littlefeather’s wording in her interviews, it’s unclear whether she she personally saw Wayne backstage or she was repeating a story she heard from someone else. When interviewed by The Guardian in 2021, Littlefeather also said she was dealing with terminal breast cancer that had spread to her right lung. “I’m very very ill,” she said.