The most surprising moment in Oscars history now has a new twist. The San Fransisco Chronicle published an investigative report on Saturday that argues Sacheen Littlefeather, the American Indian activist who Marlon Brando dispatched to refuse his Best Actor Academy Award for The Godfather, was an “ethnic fraud.” According to her sisters, Littlefeather, who died earlier this month shortly after receiving an official apology from the Academy, was not, as she claimed to be, of Apache heritage, but half-Mexican. They also said she did not grow up with an abusive father, or in terrible poverty. “Of course we had a toilet,” her sister Trudy Orlandi said, debunking a longstanding claim. 

Littlefeather’s two sisters, Orlandi and Rosalind Cruz, approached Native American journalist and activist Jacqueline Keeler, who is known for co-creating the #NotYourMascot hashtag in 2013 (which helped finally put an end to Washington D.C.’s football team’s former name) and has for years maintained a “Pretendians” list, exposing people who make false claims of American Indian heritage.

The Chronicle article goes into great detail about Sacheen Littlefeather’s family tree. Born Marie Louise Cruz (nicknamed “Deb”), Keeler says there is no evidence to suggest anything but white heritage on her mother’s side and Mexican on her father’s. It was restoring their father’s name that ultimately inspired the sisters to come forward, they said. The Oxnard, California-born man, “never drank,” according to Orlandi, and was not mentally ill, refuting her sister’s claims. 

Littlefeather said that she was given her name during the Native American occupation at Alcatraz, but Keeler’s investigation shows that she was never actually there. (Activist LaNada Warjack, who was on the island for the entire 18 months, said she never heard of her until the Oscars.) Moreover, Keeler wrote Littlefeather’s claim that Sacheen means “little bear” in Navajo is untrue. (“Shush yazh” would be the correct translation.) Also, Navajo people, Keeler said, do not name people after animals. 

The sisters recalled that they used to make clothing at a local 4-H club, and used materials from the Sacheen Ribbon company, and suspect this was the name’s actual inspiration.

Marlon Brando met Littlefeather through Francis Ford Coppola. At the time, she was trying to break into Hollywood and had already done a shoot for Playboy, which would ultimately be published after her appearance at the Academy Awards. (LaNada Warjack told Keeler that while she felt the Oscars action was impressive, the photo spread was suspicious: “The last thing we as Native women wanted anyone to think of us was as sex objects.”)

At the 1973 ceremony, she wore traditional clothing and made a short statement about Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans. Raquel Welch and Clint Eastwood both made snide comments afterward, and Littlefeather later said she was blacklisted from the industry. She also claimed that John Wayne had to be held back by security men to prevent him from assaulting her on stage, a story that film historian Farran Smith Nehme has gone to great efforts to debunk. 

The Academy’s apology to Littlefeather said that “[t]he emotional burden you have lived through and the cost to your own career in our industry are irreparable. For too long, the courage you showed has been unacknowledged. For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.” In Saturday’s Chronicle story, the Littlefeather’s sisters said it was troubling to see her “venerated as a saint.”