The Naked Brando: An Intimate Friendship

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Maria Louise Cruz [1] (November 14, 1946 – October 2, 2022), better known as Sacheen Littlefeather, [2] [3] was an American actress and activist for Native American civil rights who after her death was accused by family members and journalists of being a pretendian. [4] [5] [6] [7] Taylor, Kate (February 25, 2016). "Sacheen Littlefeather, Marlon Brando's one-time Oscars accomplice, on how Hollywood has changed". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022 . Retrieved April 7, 2018.

Brando's Stand-In An Activist". Independent Journal (San Rafael, California). March 29, 1973. p.6. Archived from the original on May 28, 2022 . Retrieved April 4, 2022. Scott, Vernon (April 4, 1984). "scott's world: Best Oscar audience performance". Petaluma Argus-Courier. p.21. Archived from the original on June 1, 2022 . Retrieved April 19, 2022.The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.” – Marlon Brando Littlefeather represented Marlon Brando at the 45th Academy Awards (better known as the Oscars) in 1973, where she– on Brando's behalf– declined the Best Actor award that he won for his performance in The Godfather. The favorite to win, Brando boycotted the ceremony as a protest against Hollywood's portrayal of Native Americans and to draw attention to the standoff at Wounded Knee. During her speech, the audience's response to Brando's boycotting was divided between booing and applause. Saperstein, Pat (October 2, 2022). "Sacheen Littlefeather, Activist Who Took the Stage to Decline Marlon Brando's Oscar, Dies at 75". Variety. Archived from the original on October 3, 2022 . Retrieved October 2, 2022. Some Offers for Sacheen". The San Francisco Examiner. May 20, 1973. p.9. Archived from the original on June 1, 2022 . Retrieved April 19, 2022.

Two-time Oscar winner Brando passed away on July 1, 2004, at the age of 80 to respiratory problems and a failing heart. Today marks his 18th death anniversary, and we pay tribute to the incomprehensible and elusive icon by taking a look at the 10 wildest stories about Brando and his quirks. 10 wildest Marlon Brando stories 10. A mastiff saved Brando from interviews a b c Olson, James Stuart (1990). Historical Dictionary of the 1970s. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.232. ISBN 978-0-313-30543-6. Archived from the original on March 14, 2023 . Retrieved April 8, 2018. Brown, Peter H.; Pinkston, Jim (1988). Oscar Dearest: Six Decades of Scandal, Politics, and Greed Behind Hollywood's Academy Awards, 1927–1986. Perennial Library. ISBN 978-0-06-096091-9. Over the years, Littlefeather described her personal experiences with serious health issues, including internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, and cancer. [9] [32] She reported having tuberculosis at age four and received treatment in an oxygen tent while hospitalized. [59] [132] She stated that she was suicidal and hospitalized in a mental institution for a year. [62] In 1974, she stated that Marlon Brando sent her to a doctor when she was in a lot of pain and helped her recover, so she made the Oscar speech to repay him. [62]

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Achievement Citation". chausa.org. Catholic Health Association of the United States. Archived from the original on March 20, 2022 . Retrieved April 24, 2022. a b Oscars (October 2, 2008). "Marlon Brando's Oscar® win for "The Godfather" ". YouTube. Archived from the original on February 17, 2011 . Retrieved April 8, 2018. Brando's performance was glowingly reviewed by critics. "I thought it would be interesting to play a gangster, maybe for the first time in the movies, who wasn't like those bad guys Edward G. Robinson played, but who is kind of a hero, a man to be respected," Brando recalled in his autobiography. "Also, because he had so much power and unquestioned authority, I thought it would be an interesting contrast to play him as a gentle man, unlike Al Capone, who beat up people with baseball bats." Duvall later marveled to A&E's Biography, "He minimized the sense of beginning. In other words he, like, deemphasized the word action. He would go in front of that camera just like he was before. Cut! It was all the same. There was really no beginning. I learned a lot from watching that." Brando won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, but he declined it, becoming the second actor to refuse a Best Actor award (after George C. Scott for Patton). Brando did not attend the award ceremony; instead, he sent actress Sacheen Littlefeather (who appeared in Plains Indian-style regalia) to decline the Oscar on his behalf. [61] After refusing to touch the statue at the podium, she announced to the crowd that Brando was rejecting the award in protest of "the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry … and on television and movie reruns and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee." The Wounded Knee Occupation of 1973 was occurring at the time of the ceremony. [62] [63] Brando had written a longer speech for her to read but, as she explained, this was not permitted due to time constraints. In the written speech Brando added that he hoped his declining the Oscar would be seen as "an earnest effort to focus attention on an issue that might very well determine whether or not this country has the right to say from this point forward we believe in the inalienable rights of all people to remain free and independent on lands that have supported their life beyond living memory." [64]

In 1988, she served as the secretary and community member-at-large on the interim board of directors of the American Indian AIDS Institute of San Francisco. [113] Around this same time period, Littlefeather worked at the Gift of Love AIDS hospice in San Francisco, which was founded in 1988 by Mother Teresa, and had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa during at least one of her five visits to the facility before her death in 1997. [114] [115] She campaigned against obesity, alcoholism, and diabetes, and specifically assisted Native Americans with AIDS. [116] In 1990, it was reported that Littlefeather's brother had died of AIDS. [42] [117] Obituaries for Littlefeather's father and maternal grandmother do not mention a biological son in the family, only Littlefeather and her two younger sisters. [12] [118] Riley, Miles (May 17, 1976). "I Believe television program: Father Harry Schlitt and Sacheen Littlefeather". California Revealed. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022 . Retrieved April 6, 2022. a b "It's Oscar Time—Do You Know Where Sacheen Littlefeather Is?". People. March 26, 1990. Archived from the original on August 16, 2022 . Retrieved April 7, 2018.

10 wildest Marlon Brando stories

Sacheen Littlefeather, who gave Marlon Brando's Oscar rejection speech, dies at 75". WGCU PBS & NPR for Southwest Florida. October 3, 2022. Archived from the original on March 15, 2023 . Retrieved March 15, 2023. Early in his career, Brando began using cue cards instead of memorizing his lines. Despite the objections of several of the film directors he worked with, Brando felt that this helped bring realism and spontaneity to his performances. He felt otherwise he would appear to be reciting a writer's speech. [22] [23] In the TV documentary The Making of Superman: The Movie, Brando explained: "If you don't know what the words are but you have a general idea of what they are, then you look at the cue card and it gives you the feeling to the viewer, hopefully, that the person is really searching for what he is going to say—that he doesn't know what to say". Some, however, thought Brando used the cards out of laziness or an inability to memorize his lines. Once, on the set of The Godfather, Brando was asked why he wanted his lines printed out. He responded: "Because I can read them that way." [24] Rise to fame: 1951–1954 Belmondo found the script offensive and, in Bertolucci's words, “a piece of obscenity”, and Delon would only agree to take on the role if he could also serve as a producer, something that the director peremptorily refused. Then, quite by chance, Bertolucci was in Rome having dinner with the Italian head of Paramount, who was raving about Brando’s performance in The Godfather, and the director thought “yeah, that’s the one”.

Pitts, Michael R. (2013). Western Movies: A Guide to 5,105 Feature Films. McFarland & Company. p.310. ISBN 978-1-4766-0090-1. Archived from the original on March 14, 2023 . Retrieved April 8, 2018. After I had some success, Lee Strasberg tried to take credit for teaching me how to act. He never taught me anything. He would have claimed credit for the sun and the moon if he believed he could get away with it. He was an ambitious, selfish man who exploited the people who attended the Actors Studio and tried to project himself as an acting oracle and guru. Some people worshipped him, but I never knew why. I sometimes went to the Actors Studio on Saturday mornings because Elia Kazan was teaching, and there were usually a lot of good-looking girls, but Strasberg never taught me acting. Stella (Adler) did—and later Kazan. [10] Brando's notoriety, his troubled family life and his obesity attracted more attention than his later acting career. He gained a great deal of weight in the 1970s; by the early-to-mid-1990s, he weighed over 300 pounds (140kg) and suffered from Type 2 diabetes. He had a history of weight fluctuation throughout his career that, by and large, he attributed to his years of stress-related overeating, followed by compensatory dieting. He also earned a reputation for being difficult on the set, often unwilling or unable to memorize his lines and less interested in taking direction than in confronting the film director with odd demands. He also dabbled with some innovation in his last years. He had several patents issued in his name from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, all of which involve a method of tensioning drumheads, between June 2002 and November 2004 (for example, see U.S. Patent 6,812,392). [88] His assistant, Alice Marchak, resigned from her role due to his eccentric and unpredictable behavior. [89] Roger Ebert (July 3, 2004). "Brando was a rebel in the movies, a character in life". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on September 10, 2005 . Retrieved October 25, 2022. That Littlefeather was later identified as Maria Cruz, an actress who was not an Indian, only compounded his notoriety. [See clarification below on Ms. Littlefeather.]After Brando's death, the novel Fan-Tan was released. Brando conceived the novel with director Donald Cammell in 1979, but it was not released until 2005. [87] Final years and death Others have disagreed. Since its release, everyone from Martin Scorsese to Brad Pitt has praised Brando’s performance, with Scorsese describing the role as “the purest poetry imaginable, in dynamic motion”, and Pitt saying that it is the part that he would most have liked to play, remarking: “Brando. That one hurts.” Strauss, Bob (April 14, 1991). "Indian activist optimistic: Littlefeather says 'Wolves' has helped". Leader-Telegram. pp.57–58. Archived from the original on May 4, 2022 . Retrieved May 3, 2022. She worked with Mother Teresa's Gift of Love Center in San Francisco and learned deep-tissue therapy and shiatsu massage techniques. Berry, Jane (January 15, 1987). "The Indian Way: Traditional Indian medicine joins science in the hospital". Tucson Citizen. p.13. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022 . Retrieved April 24, 2022.