August 16, 2022

"Littlefeather’s 60-second plea for justice resulted in immediate and enduring personal backlash. She says that in the wings, John Wayne had to be restrained..."

"... from storming the stage to physically attack her, while in the aftermath, her identity and integrity were impugned (the rumors were so abiding that in 2012, Dennis Miller mocked Elizabeth Warren by calling her 'as much Indian as that stripper chick Brando sent to pick up his Oscar'). Littlefeather, who had acted in a few films before her infamous moment, says that the federal government threatened to shut down any talk shows or productions that put her on the air."

 From "Academy Apologizes to Sacheen Littlefeather for Her Mistreatment at the 1973 Oscars/Nearly 50 years after suffering harassment and discrimination for protesting Native American mistreatment, the activist will be the guest of honor at an evening of healing and Indigenous celebration hosted by the Academy Museum on Sept. 17" (Hollywood Reporter).

From the Academy's apology letter: “The 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.”

81 comments:

Howard said...

Filed under Cancel Culture you people love.

Andrew said...

Does an Indian play the violin?

Wince said...

John Wayne would never "storm the stage to physically attack her."

Shoot her off her horse, maybe, but never storm the stage.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Different century, how progressive.

Saint Croix said...

I don't know how old she was when she pulled that stunt.

But it was a political protest in the middle of the Oscars. Obviously it was going to piss people off. She had to know that!

And this...

John Wayne had to be restrained from storming the stage to physically attack her

that's complete and utter horseshit. John Wayne was a very old man at that time. He was a big man and it would have been hard to "physically restrain" him if he really wanted to attack her. But all she knows is that Wayne wanted to go out on the stage and somebody was holding him back. My best guess is that he wanted to grab the microphone. Which is not nearly the same thing as a physical attack. Are we really supposed to believe that John Wayne would physically attack a woman on stage in front of millions of people watching on TV? Make some more shit up, girlie.

Also, you are relying on the ignorant bigotry of people who are too young to have watched Wayne's films. You're trying to get them to think (or you think) that Wayne "hated the Indians" because he was in all those westerns. So you are peddling prejudice. Damn if I would apologize for that!

As to the allegation that her career was harmed, well, it's incredibly difficult to break into Hollywood and advance in Hollywood, right now thousands of actors have to pretend they are Woke or Liberal or some other bullshit. Hollywood is putting you up on a fucking pedestal now because they are Woke and Liberal and all the rest of the bullshit. And everybody in the audience has to obediently clap. Or else!

If some actor invited Donald Trump to accept his award for him, what do you think would happen to his career? Spare me your crying that your political protest had repercussions. Of course it did.

MadisonMan said...

Judge for yourself: Was there booing? link. Perhaps a second, but mostly applause.
Given the YouTube clip, I question all of the reporting in that Hollywood Reporter article.

Jeff Vader said...

Is there someone, somewhere who actually cares?

Gusty Winds said...

She says that in the wings, John Wayne had to be restrained from storming the stage to physically attack her

Native Americans were mistreated. I give Brando and Woody Allen credit for not showing up to accept the bullshit award. But I don't believe for a second that John Wayne was going to pull a Will Smith on an international television show and physically attack a woman of any race or color. But, I guess Will Smith's behavior makes this a feasible lie.

In 2022 you can exaggerate and embellish on any white guy, dead or alive, and the left will eat it up.

pious agnostic said...

Our long national nightmare is now over!

hiawatha biscayne said...

an evening of healing and indigenous celebration! does that sound good or what?

Temujin said...

I'm sure every Native American nation will be celebrating her late-coming Activist Approval Award. I'm sure it'll ring across the dry, open plains of the reservations, and be heard throughout every casino ringing the Mississippi and in every state of the Union.

She was scorned back then because back then the Academy Awards were still pretty straight forward about movies. Even though we had gone through some Viet Nam protesting, they were not one-upmanship virtue signaling contests, which they are now. And we did not celebrate victimhood- real or wannabe- back then like we do now. We literally celebrate perceived victims, made up victims, and those actively protesting for those victims- even when they entire thing is a performance.

Of course John Wayne was in the wings wanting a piece of her. Of course she was disparaged and ridiculed. Not because of what she had to say, but because of how and where she chose to say it. Today, those who go onstage to accept the award graciously, without a cause in their back pocket, are mostly ignored, barely mentioned, and considered boring. One must go onstage carrying a load of a cause, with fire coming out of their mouths, pointing to the viewers to let us know how disappointed they are in us.

Sacheen Littlefeather would be a magazine cover star today. And, she might be again. I look forward to her Elizabeth Warren endorsement.

Misinforminimalism said...

Funny how the John Wayne detail seems not to have come up for 50 years.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Modern progressivism is built on the foundation of people apologizing for things done by others.

Aggie said...

We live in the Age of Aggrandizement by Apology.

Kevin said...

These kinds of apologies are cheap vanity plays.

If they don’t come with a check, they should be mocked.

And they’re not going to come with a check.

B. said...

Marie Cruz is her real name. She’s not an enrolled member of any tribe. Fraud.

Jim said...

As a person of European descent, all I have to say is, “we won. You lost. Get over it.”

Saint Croix said...

People who need an introduction to John Wayne should start with the John Ford stuff.

Stagecoach

Fort Apache

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Those are three amazing John Wayne movies. Start with them.

Wayne played a racist in another John Ford movie, The Searchers. That movie is a little overrated, in my opinion. People rate it high because of politics (it was Ford's attempt to comment on racism in the South). The movie itself is really good (I gave it an A in my book) but it's not one of the best movies ever made, forget about that.

Anyway, it's idiotic to think Wayne is a racist because he played a racist in one of his most famous movies. It's called acting, fuckwits. His wife was from Peru!

My favorite John Wayne movie is actually the criminally underrated Donovan's Reef. That movie is also about race, and different cultures. Amazing movie. It's got so many important things to say about race. But the movie itself is a light comedy and film critics don't give a shit about light comedies. It's Ford's best work. I really liked it the first time I watched it. And it gets more powerful on repeated viewings. Got a race subtext, got a religious subtext, it's a call to respect other cultures, the movie takes a shot at the bluebloods of Boston. It's a fucking amazing movie.

Wayne's best work as an actor is probably She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

Lurker21 said...

Wikipedia:

According to Ann Brebner of the Brebner Agency, which handled Littlefeather's modeling bookings, she was deluged with mail and phone calls after her Oscars appearance, which led to radio and television appearances as well as the opportunity to read for multiple film roles. In the years immediately following the protest, Littlefeather said that it had "had little effect on the course of her career." Later, though, Littlefeather claimed she was blacklisted by the Hollywood community and received threats.

From the rest of the article, it doesn't sound like she was really that serious an actress before her Oscar appearance. It made her career, such as it was. Maybe she just wasn't that talented. Growing older and Hollywood's not making Westerns anymore probably didn't help her any either. Politics aside, though, it looks like she has done some good work for some worthy causes, so I'll give her that.

Drago said...

Misinforminimalism: "Funny how the John Wayne detail seems not to have come up for 50 years."

Just wait until they add the Trump details...and then indict him over them!

Lurker21 said...

She's also had wretched health lately and says she's terminal. Maybe the Academy is doing this to avoid bad publicity in the obits.

Amadeus 48 said...

Meh.

You want to see a classy failure to show up? Look at George C. Scott for "Patton". He said the whole Oscar thing was a phony PR fest bought and paid for by the studios. Then he didn't go to the ceremony, where he won. He had earlier refused an Oscar nomination for "The Hustler".

In 1973 we did not need or want some activist hired by notorious bad boy Marlon Brando to lecture us on our historic national mistreatment of Native Americans. But then we got Vanessa Redgrave denouncing "Zionist Hoodlums" in 1978, so I guess there are worse things.

Like Pauline Kael, I can't believe anyone takes the Oscars seriously. I stand with George C. Scott.

ConradBibby said...

The idea that John Wayne would have physically attacked a young woman, let alone in that setting, is beyond preposterous. It's not that he was an "old man" by 1973 -- I think he was only 63 -- it's that it would have been completely out of character for him. "Young Hollywood" hated John Wayne, of course, because of his support for the Vietnam War and his anticommunist stance in the 1950s, not to mention his winning the Oscar for "True Grit" over Dustin Hoffman or Jon Voight in "Midnight Cowboy."

Saint Croix said...

When John Ford wanted to comment on racism, he used Indians as a proxy for black people.

Which itself is a little racist.

There was some racism in his movie, The Prisoner of Shark Island, which kind of shocked me. That was 1936, one of Ford's early movies. You can see him grow and progress as an artist.

By the time of Donovan's Reef (1964), his last movie with Wayne, Ford had concluded that interracial marriage was fine. And to dismiss children as "half-breeds" is ignorant as fuck.

I could teach a class on John Ford and race. And John Wayne is of course the hero (or anti-hero) in almost all of those movies.

ConradBibby said...

Brando was a complete tool for sending that young lady up there like that. If he wanted to make a statement like that, he should have showed up himself. She had no business being put in that position. He used and exploited her. He used and exploited a Native American because he didn't have the courage of his own convictions. If the Academy should apologize on anyone's behalf, it's Brando.

John henry said...

Wikipedia has a transcript of the full speech. It seems pretty innocuous.

Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I'm Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently, because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry – excuse me... [boos and cheers] and on television in movie re-runs, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee. I beg at this time that I have not intruded upon this evening, and that we will in the future, our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity. Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.

Hard to believe that people would get too upset about this. Yeah, I get that people would get upset about the politicization of the awards. Just a single line that was about indians at all and I can't imagine anything more anodyne.

John LGBTQBNY Henry

ConradBibby said...

Also, why the fuck shouldn't the members of the audience boo when an outsider, who clearly has no idea what she is talking about, is sent up to take the stage at a celebratory function for the sole purpose of disparaging the entire industry that the audience is a part of? Are they supposed to clap and nod in agreement?

Earnest Prole said...



Littlefeather says she was immediately blacklisted in Hollywood.

“I found out from friends in the industry that they had been visited by FBI agents right after the Academy Awards who had threatened to put them out of business if they hired me. In those days [the FBI] planted a lot of seeds in the media,” she says, referring to the FBI’s efforts to infiltrate many of the social movements of the day in divide and conquer tactics to discredit and destroy civil rights groups like the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.

Deplorable.

Saint Croix said...

Marie Cruz is her real name. She’s not an enrolled member of any tribe. Fraud.

ha ha ha

I'd forgotten that.

Marlon Brando (who hated Hollywood) wanted to say "fuck you!" to his industry. So he staged a protest about the Indians. And since he didn't really fucking care, he hired an Hispanic woman to play an Indian on TV.

Dude, you can't make this up.

Marlon Brando (get ready for some lookism!) got so fat that by the time he was in Apocalypse Now, Coppola was freaking out. "Holy shit! Holy shit! We got to film him in the dark!"

That's a great movie, my favorite work from Coppola. But there definitely was some stress in that movie. (His wife shot a lot of footage that winded up in the great documentary, Hearts of Darkness).

Next Adventure said...

This would be more sincere if they also invited Samantha Gailey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_case#:~:text=7%20External%20links-,Rape%20case,Gailey%20(now%20Samantha%20Geimer) to apologize for honoring her rapist.

Birches said...

Wait, so is Brando uncanceled now?

John henry said...

The Hollywood Reporter is directly and solely responsible for the Hollywood Blacklist. The publisher had wanted to become a producer and the Warners, Goldwyns et al would not let him. So he decided to kneecap their talent pool by inventing the "blacklist"

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/blacklist-billy-wilkersons-son-apologizes-391977/

The article that Ann links too seems like more of the same. Several people have called bullshit on the bit about John Wayne. I call bullshit too on the threat to have her arrested if she went over 60 minutes. Removed perhaps but they do that to everyone who goes over time. But "Arrested"?

I call bullshit on the federal government going after her threatening to keep her off the air.

Wounded Knee seemed to get plenty of coverage at the time, even here in Puerto Rico so bullshit on the govt imposed media blackout. The Oscars happened March 27, according to the NY Times, the govt imposed a 2 day blackout in May, a month after the awards.

Hollywood Reporter: Making up shit in 1947, still at it today.

John LGBTQ+ Henry

Howard said...

John Wayne was thirty-one-years old, married, and supporting three children when the war began. His newfound stardom was a realization of a dream he was not in a hurry to relinquish to a uniform. Throughout the war, Ford urged the young actor “to get in it,” and each time Wayne would beg off until he finished “just one more picture.” Ford was disappointed to say the least, and he let Wayne know it. Wayne was growing richer as other men died. As the war continued, Ford’s strong disappointment fueled a growing conflict between the men and fostered a sense of guilt within Wayne. Wayne’s decision to stay out of the service would haunt him for the rest of his life

Tom T. said...

She's being used again and doesn't seem to realize it.

Sebastian said...

"the federal government threatened to shut down any talk shows or productions that put her on the air"

How?

Good of the commenters here to call BS on the Wayne smear. Which raises the question: do progs ever attack any righty in good faith, like, without obvious BS?

John henry said...

Blogger Saint Croix said...

And to dismiss children as "half-breeds" is ignorant as fuck.

Agree. Littlefeather is a halfbreed Father of Apache lineage, mother European. But we should not mention it.

If she wants to identify as Indian, fine by me. People can identify as anything these days and she is certainly more Indian than Bruce Jenner is woman.

John LGBTQ+ Henry

dbp said...

So, let's summarize:

1. There wasn't that much booing.
2. There's no evidence that John Wayne did anything at the ceremony.
3. The event most likely boosted the career of the (debatably) Native American actress/model
4. Had there been a really awful reception to the stunt; It was utterly predictable and shouldn't have been any kind of surprize to an adult.

Ice Nine said...

Later on in the show, Clint Eastwood went on stage to present the Best Film award and mocked Littlefeather, saying he was presenting the award on behalf of “all the cowboys shot in all the John Ford Westerns.”

That was perfect.

Wilbur said...

I was wondering why Dennis Miller called her a "stripper". Turns out she did a spread in Playboy in 1973. Bless her heart.

Ampersand said...

The Academy is the world's leading producer of high quality apologies. Visit its new museum in Los Angeles to experience a multiplicity of apologies to women, gays, indigenous people, Japanese, African Americans, Chinese, and others. The museum squeezes in a few exhibits that genuinely evoke the magic and glamor of film. But try to ignore that and spend a day in meaningless moral purification.

Joe Smith said...

"We are heap big sorry."

-- Liz Grab-Um-All-Guns Warren

Joe Smith said...

'Filed under Cancel Culture you people love.'

In a clash of cultures, the technologically deficient, yet-to-invent-the-wheel, stone-age culture lost.

Get over it.

Mark said...

In multiple films, John Wayne's character sympathized with the Native Americans and recognized injustices done to them (same with Blacks).

In The Searchers, it is hard to tell Ethan's real feelings about the Natives, although many have been quick to label him racist. But it is rather understandable that he would not take too kindly to family members having been raped, tortured, massacred and kidnapped, only to be sexually abused by the band that took the women. Even when such women were rescued, they were often severely traumatized. So you need to factor all that into his psyche in what he felt about the Native Americans. Often in war people will treat the enemy as "other" and even find petty reasons to dislike them. Shooting the eyes out of the dead Indian was no different than the folks who say to add some pork to dead Islamic terrorists' graves.

Mark said...

It's not that he was an "old man" by 1973 -- I think he was only 63 -- it's that it would have been completely out of character for him.

Of course, 63 back then was a lot older than it is today. But Wayne also was experiencing the beginnings of the cancer that would kill him a few years afterward.

Mark said...

Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status (classified as 3-A – family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit.[39] Wayne did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him, since he was their only A-list actor under contract. Herbert J. Yates, president of Republic, threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract,[40] and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process, requesting Wayne's further deferment.[41]

U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application[42] to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, and had been accepted within the U.S. Army's allotted billet to the OSS.


Posted with just the quote since apparently we don't bother to cite sources anymore.

Mark said...

What Howard left out:

As the war continued, Ford’s strong disappointment fueled a growing conflict between the men...Between the end of the war in 1945 and Ford’s death in 1972, the two men made twelve films together.

Like many in entertainment, John Wayne most certainly did more for the war effort by remaining in movies and touring with USO than if he had a formal military rank. Same with baseball.

Robert Cook said...

My favorite John Wayne movie is THE SHOOTIST.

Mark said...

When Clint Eastwood presented the Best Picture award, he remarked that he was presenting it "on behalf of all the cowboys shot in John Ford westerns over the years."[63]
Michael Caine, the night's co-host, criticized Brando for "letting some poor little Indian girl take the boos" instead of "[standing] up and [doing] it himself."[63]....

According to Ann Brebner of the Brebner Agency, which handled Littlefeather's modeling bookings, she was deluged with mail and phone calls after her Oscars appearance, which led to radio and television appearances as well as the opportunity to read for multiple film roles.[66] In the years immediately following the protest, Littlefeather said that it had "had little effect on the course of her career."[42] Later, though, Littlefeather claimed she was blacklisted by the Hollywood community and received threats.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacheen_Littlefeather

I'm surprised the Academy's letter (of June 2022) didn't attack Donald Trump for all the vitriol directed at Littlefeather in 1972.

stutefish said...

The Oscars were conceived as a publicity stunt. They are and always have been theater. Brando and Littlefeather was performing controversy at the time. The academy is performing repentance now.

gilbar said...

so, let me get this straight:
Marie Louise Cruz, was born to a white lady, and a chicano dad.. The dad, Senor Cruz; SAID that he had indian ancestry (maybe he did! Most mexicans DO!). She was raised by her white grandparents, from the age of FOUR.

As a rebellious teenager she self identified as indian and chose the name Sacheen Littlefeather
She Also decided; that Indian Lives Matter (ILM), and became active sleeping with AIM members.
While this was going on;
she was modeling, including tryouts with Playboy, which she failed to get.. because she "wasn't sexy"

Then, Sacheen (Marie) dressed in full hollywood indian fashion, and invaded the Oscars.
After that, for the NEXT 50 YEARS, she rode that horse as her claim to fame.

They NOW say, that this mexican nobody, that "wasn't sexy" enough for Playboy, was blacklisted because of her massive fame.. Am i missing anything?


M said...

She was and still is a professional “activist”. Which means you can’t believe a word she says. That she claims a Wayne, who was a an old and very sick man and would be dead in a few years, was going to stomp out on the stage and attack her shows that like all “activists” she is an hysterical, vain fantasist that makes everything about her.

As for Brando, he is an anti American POS who you shouldn’t trust around your underage kids, your wallet or a pile of coke. That this woman was manipulated by Brando and is still mad at everyone else just shows what a tool she is. John Wayne was an imperfect man but a great patriot who loved this country. All the hippie boomers who denigrated him will be long forgotten while Wayne will be remembered as long as humans still watch films. The taming of the American West and the films made by the people who experienced it or were born right after and listened to the stories from people who did as Wayne did will live forever.

M said...

Mark said...
In multiple films, John Wayne's character sympathized with the Native Americans and recognized injustices done to them (same with Blacks).

In The Searchers, it is hard to tell Ethan's real feelings about the Natives, although many have been quick to label him racist. But it is rather understandable that he would not take too kindly to family members having been raped, tortured, massacred and kidnapped, only to be sexually abused by the band that took the women. Even when such women were rescued, they were often severely traumatized. So you need to factor all that into his psyche in what he felt about the Native Americans. Often in war people will treat the enemy as "other" and even find petty reasons to dislike them. Shooting the eyes out of the dead Indian was no different than the folks who say to add some pork to dead Islamic terrorists' graves.

Wayne was born in 1907. He would have known a LOT of people who had negative interactions with Indians. A lot of people in the mid west and west still had parents or grandparents that had personal, very negative interactions with Indians. The stupid Boomers were the first generation that hadn’t grown up listening to stories from their grandma about the rapes, murders and women and kids taken as slaves by Indians. Once again a generation of ignorant, spoilt children dismissed other people’s experiences to replace them with their own prejudices that made them feel warm and fuzzy. It’s funny that millennials and Zoomers hate Boomers. They are all the same.

Joe Smith said...

'She's also had wretched health lately and says she's terminal.'

We're all terminal...

JAORE said...

In the second grade a girl named Sally said I had cootie.

Where is MY apology?

Good God, people stop deep, hard rock mining for ancient slights.

Static Ping said...

It would be more meaningful if anyone cared about the Oscars anymore. I have no idea what the reigning Best Picture is and have zero interest in finding out.

Darcy said...

What a horrible smear of the great American John Wayne. I couldn't care less about Littlefeather because of this.

Howard said...

Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and Ted Williams couldn't be reached to comment.

8/16/22, 10:11 AM
Blogger Mark said...
What Howard left out:

Like many in entertainment, John Wayne most certainly did more for the war effort by remaining in movies and touring with USO than if he had a formal military rank. Same with baseball.

Leland said...

Seems a much more minor issue to apologize for than the numerous awards and accolades the Academy gave to Harvey Weinstein while it was an "open-secret" how he treated actresses. I don't care that they already issued an apology. They allowed Weinstein's (and many others) behavior to continue for years. They should be criticized for years and not just let off with an apology.

Michael K said...

Wayne's best work as an actor is probably She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

And in that movie he is seen talking to the Indian chief about trying to cool off the young bucks who want to fight. The army ends up stealing their horses so they can't get into trouble.

Josephbleau said...

“U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application[42] to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, and had been accepted within the U.S. Army's allotted billet to the OSS.”

I don’t think he would have been a very good under cover agent, “Mein Herr, I believe I have seen you somewhere before.”

Michael K said...

Like many in entertainment, John Wayne most certainly did more for the war effort by remaining in movies and touring with USO than if he had a formal military rank. Same with baseball.

Both Wayne and Ward Bond, who is also frequently criticized by the Howards of the world, had had previous injuries that would have prevented them from combat arms. Wayne from football and Bond from a severe car wreck that badly injured one leg. Ford used to indulge his cruelty by making Bond do things that hurt his bad leg.

madAsHell said...

In 1973, I was in high school, and I remember being appalled at Brando's cavalier behavior.

Fast forward, and today I think Brando showed the Academy Award Institute the respect it deserves.

n.n said...

They pitted women against men, then women against babies, and so it progresses. Leverage, nothing but leverage manufactured from plausible, but improbable handmade tales.

Tina Trent said...

Another activist with a white mom and an abusive minority dad, raised by her white grandparents before she decides there's more ca-ching in selectively denying her entire identity and upbringing by identifying solely with the one parent who abandoned and rejected her. And Dennis Miller is right: she whored her own self to Playboy. Nobody forced her to strip down and play naked Indian "princess."

Of course, good as The Godfather was artistically, the real prejudice here was the glorification of Coppola and Brando and Pacino black-facing Italians as a bunch of mobsters when Italians were the mob's primary victims. My grandfather, a street sweeper at five and then a plumber, had to pay off the mob every week for the privilege of working in the worst parts of NYC. He even had to get permission to move his family to safer places. The day the mob released him from his many decades of entirely un-prosecuted and forgotten indentured servitude, he had a massive stroke and never walked or talked clearly again. But he could spit whenever Coppola or the Dodgers came on tv. Late-stage Brando happily pimped himself out to that type of injustice while playing the Zapata or American Indian victim is pretty rich irony. What a passel of assholes.

Jupiter said...

"Wayne’s decision to stay out of the service would haunt him for the rest of his life."

OK, Howie, which war did you get killed in?

Rollo said...

John Wayne's second and third wives were Mexican and Peruvian, so some of his children may also be part Indian.

But of course, 50 years ago John Wayne was blamed for everything by everybody from Ron Kovic to Garry Wills.

PM said...

1. Sacheen helped ratchet up the trend of making political points at the Oscars™, a tradition taken too seriously by Mr. Smith Goes To Chris Rock.

2. Wayne's best to me: Red River. Most charming, rare for him: Angel and the Badman.

Mark said...

Ford used to indulge his cruelty by making Bond do things that hurt his bad leg

Ford was known for needling his actors. I wouldn't be surprised if he did with Wayne after knowing that Wayne wanted to, but the studio interfered.

But why get (and tell) "the rest of the story" when you can tell a partial story and smear someone?

Mark said...

All three of Wayne's wives were Taco.

Howard said...

Jupiter, funny you should ask.

I dropped out of college and enlisted in the Marines after Ronnie Rayguns defeated Jimma. The hostages we're released while we were in boot camp. Four guys in my radar section were killed when we were training at NAS El Centro. They were coming back from the bar in Brawley and t-boned a flatbed agricultural truck stalled on the highway. I went to the bar with them the night before but stayed in the barracks on that fateful night. We were drilling with our sister squadron from Massachusetts and they were told one of the dead was a tall blonde surveyor and they thought it was me. When I walked into their duty hut, they all looked like they saw a dead man.

hombre said...

All this had to wait until Democrats and their consorts were stupid enough to buy it.

Of course, John Wayne, all 6'4" of him, married at times to hispanic women, would jeopardize his own career by attacking this native woman for Brando's silliness.

Blaisy Ford, Ketanji "What is a woman?" Jackson, Cassidy Hutchinson, Sasheen Littlefeather. What's next?

Saint Croix said...

Howard, thanks for sharing that at 2:41!

Great story.

Michael K said...

I dropped out of college and enlisted in the Marines after Ronnie Rayguns defeated Jimma.

Boy, I'll bet you were a real patriotic Marine, Howard. Right up there with the guy who told that made up story about Iraq to Franklin Foer for the New Republic. Was "Jarhead" one of your books?

realestateacct said...

So the people who began to hijack our institutions 50 or 60 years ago now solidify their victory. I have my doubts their hegemony will last very since it's all about not liking the way things are and not about how things could be better. The institutions will sink of their own oppressive weight and be bypassed or replaced.

Saint Croix said...

In The Searchers, it is hard to tell Ethan's real feelings about the Natives, although many have been quick to label him racist. But it is rather understandable that he would not take too kindly to family members having been raped, tortured, massacred and kidnapped, only to be sexually abused by the band that took the women. Even when such women were rescued, they were often severely traumatized. So you need to factor all that into his psyche in what he felt about the Native Americans. Often in war people will treat the enemy as "other" and even find petty reasons to dislike them. Shooting the eyes out of the dead Indian was no different than the folks who say to add some pork to dead Islamic terrorists' graves.

Yeah, definitely. Ford is a genius and the anti-hero in The Searchers is complex. (Wayne also played an anti-hero in the Hawks film, Red River. Ford, upon seeing that film, is reputed to have said, "I didn't know the son of a bitch could act!")

Wayne wears a Confederate jacket in the movie, to symbolize the South. He knows the Indians very well and he hates them. He's not ignorant, just hateful.

It's always complicated.

William said...

I'm not sure but doesn't she deserve some kind of historical footnote as being the first person to present a politically charged protest speech at the Academy Awards. By definition, just about everyone in Hollywood who goes to the Academy Awards is a fame whore so she succeeded on her own terms. She achieved more fame than a most of the Oscar winners that night.....Someone above mentioned Vanessa Redgrave. She made some kind of speech denouncing Zionism in 1978. I don't support her cause, but to the best of my knowledge that's the only politically charged speech at the Oscars to actually damage an actor's career.....The Oscar audience is distinguished by the standing ovations that they gave Will Smith and Roman Polanski. In that tradition, I think it would be terrific if the Oscars bring on Littlefeather to receive an Oscar and a standing ovation for her lifetime achievement in portraying a Native American....I didn't think her layout in Playboy was all that hot, but we must applaud both Playboy and her for choosing that venue as well as the Oscars to bring the plight of Native Americans to the attention of America.

Robert Cook said...

"What a horrible smear of the great American John Wayne."

I have nothing against John Wayne and I have enjoyed many of his movies, but what makes him a "great American?"

CWJ said...

People are SO brave apologizing for fifty year old events with which they had nothing to do other than wait fifty years to take credit for imagining themselves being morally superior to those fifty years ago. This moral movie passion play is so old and played so often that I can't imagine that the celluloid can still thread through the projector.

Michael K said...

He knows the Indians very well and he hates them. He's not ignorant, just hateful.

Are you referring to "The Searchers?" That may well be true but "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" shows the opposite.

PM said...

Saint Croix:
"In The Searchers, it is hard to tell Ethan's real feelings about the Natives..."
It's a little easier to tell his feelings about his brother's wife.

n.n said...

1619 revisited. Post mortem cancel parties are progressive art.