Sacheen Littlefeather, who declined an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando was not Native American but Mexican, the recently deceased actor’s sisters told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The actress’s two sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi spoke to Jacqueline Keeler, herself a Native American and revealed the truth.”It’s a lie,” Orlandi told the Chronicle, saying that her father was “who he was” and that his family came from Mexico. She added that her father was born in Oxnard, a city in California. 

Her sister, Cruz agreed, calling it a “fraud.” She told the Chronicle, “It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just … insulting to my parents.”

According to the report, the two sisters say that they have no known Native American ancestry and that they have always identified as “Spanish” on their father’s side.

Sacheen Littlefeather was allegedly born Marie Louise Cruz with her sisters claiming that many of the actress’s tales of her youth were fabrications. In an interview with the Berkley Gazette in 1974, Littlefeather had claimed that she lived in Salinas, didn’t see a Native American reservation until she was 17 and they didn’t have a toilet for a long time. 

Her sisters say that all of it was lies. Orlandi contends that the family had a toilet and that she even had pictures of it. But why have they come forward now, after so long?

According to what they told the SF Chronicle, it was to restore the truth about their parents who the sisters say were good, hard-working people and not the alcoholic Apache father and white mother as Littlefeather made them out to be. 

Cruz said of her father, ” My father was deaf and he had lost his hearing at 9 years old through meningitis.” She said that George Cruz, her father’s father was a violent alcoholic and that Littlefeather used her father’s story as her own. 

Orlandi, the other sister, agreed, saying, “My father’s father, George, he was the alcoholic. My dad never drank. My dad never smoked. And you know, she also blasted him and said my father was mentally ill. My father was not mentally ill.”