44 years ago, Brando’s protest
Marlon Brando became involved with the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early 1970s. In 1973, he decided to make a statement about the Wounded Knee incident and contacted AIM about providing a person to accept the Oscar for him. Dennis Banks and Russell Means picked Sacheen Littlefeather. She wore an Apache dress on the occasion.
Littlefeather represented Brando and his boycott of the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather (1972), as a way to protest the ongoing siege at Wounded Knee and Hollywood and television’s’s misrepresentation of American Indians. Brando had written a 15-page speech for Littlefeather to give at the ceremony, but when the producer met her backstage he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 60 seconds. Her on-stage comments were therefore improvised as she refused to accept the award.
She then went backstage and read the entire speech to the press. In his autobiography My Word Is My Bond, Roger Moore (who presented the award and had recently been announced as the new “James Bond, Agent 007”) stated he took the Oscar home with him and kept it in his possession until it was collected by an armed guard sent by the Academy. Moore also stated this to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.
The incident prompted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rule out future proxy acceptance of Academy Awards.