Sacheen Littlefeather

Littlefeather was an American actress and activist for Native American civil rights. She worked in radio and television commercials, joined the Screen Actors Guild, and participated in events like the 1971 American Indian Festival at Foothill College. In 1970, she was named Miss Vampire USA. Playboy ran a photo feature on her in 1973, which she later called 'strictly a business agreement'.

Her health struggles were significant. At age four she had tuberculosis and was treated in an oxygen tent. Later she experienced internal bleeding, collapsed lungs, and cancer. In 2018, stage IV breast cancer metastasized to her right lung, and she said she was terminal. She studied orthomolecular nutrition and earned a degree from Antioch University in holistic health and nutrition with an emphasis in Native American medicine, which she credited with her recovery.

After the Oscar speech, Littlefeather worked in hospice care and continued activism for Native American issues, including healthcare and unemployment. She also produced films about Native Americans. In 2022, the Academy sent her a statement of apology, read in full at An Evening with Sacheen Littlefeather on September 17, two weeks before her death. She died at her home in Novato, California, on October 2, 2022, at age 75.

In 1973, Littlefeather was married to engineer Michael Rubio. She later had a 32-year relationship with and married Charles Koshiway Johnston, who died in 2021. She once said she went to Sweden to 'see where the white people came from' and noted similarities between foods like Spanish buñuelos and fry bread.

After her death, Navajo writer Jacqueline Keeler interviewed Littlefeather's sisters, who said their family was not Native American and that her claims of Apache and Yaqui ancestry were fabricated. They said their father was of Spanish-Mexican descent. Littlefeather had stated her father was of Apache and Yaqui ancestry and her mother of European descent.