Sacheen Littlefeather, famous for declining Marlon Brando’s Oscar, dies weeks after accepting Academy apology
Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native American civil rights activist and actress who famously declined Marlon Brando’s 1973 Oscar, has died at 75, the Academy of Motion Pictures has announced.
She revealed in 2018 that she was suffering from breast cancer.
Littlefeather died at her home in Novato, northern California, surrounded by her loved ones, The Hollywood Reporter said, quoting a statement sent out by her caretaker.
In 1973, she was booed offstage at the Academy Awards after she turned down Marlon Brando’s award for best actor.
She had refused to take the statuette from Roger Moore and begun a speech about the film industry’s mistreatment of Native Americans. She was made to leave the stage after speaking for just a minute.
She said she was subsequently boycotted by the film industry for decades.
Earlier this year, the Academy apologised to her in an open letter, acknowledging that her appearance had indeed led to her being “professionally boycotted, personally attacked and harassed, and discriminated against for the last 50 years”.
David Rubin, its president, offered his “deepest apologies and sincere admiration”.
Littlefeather officially accepted the apology during an Academy event held in her honour held on 17 September in Los Angeles.
Welcomed to the stage to rapturous applause, she said: “I am accepting this apology not only for me alone, but an acknowledgement not only for me, but all of our [Native American] nation. Our nation needs to hear this apology.”
She said some audience members had mocked her with the chopping sound of a tomahawk
Looking back at the 1973 ceremony, to which she had worn a traditional buckskin dress, she said the audience had booed her as she started to speak and some had mocked her with the chopping sound of a tomahawk and the whoops of “Indians”.
The actor John Wayne had been “ready to attack me”, she said, and “held back by six security guards”.
Littlefeather would not take the statuette from Roger Moore. Photo: TS/Keystone USA/Rex/Shutterstock
Brando turned down the Oscar for his iconic role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
He later told US television he felt it was a “marvellous opportunity” to speak to tens of millions of people as the “American Indian hasn’t been able to have his voice heard anywhere in the history of the United States”.
In a 2021 interview with The Guardian, Littlefeather, who had suffered from several serious health issues during her life, said she had been receiving chemotherapy for some time. She described cancer as “a full-time job”.
Looking forward to her death, she said: “I’m going to another place. I’m going to the world of my ancestors. I’m saying goodbye to you… I’ve earned the right to be my true self.”
Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenter posted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
McCall with 2002 Big Brother winner Kate Lawler. Pic: Rex Features
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
McCall with her MBE, alongside her partner Michael Douglas and her daughter Holly Robertson. Pic: PA
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
The author on her 21st birthday. Pic: Bradford Enterprises/PA
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Pic: Caroll Taveras/Bradford Enterprises/PA
Taylor Bradford with her husband Robert in 1993. Pic: PA
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.
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The couple were married for 55 years until he died from a stroke in 2019.
Following a private funeral in New York, the author will be buried alongside her late husband at the city’s Westchester Hills Cemetery.
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