On Monday, 8.15 Rebecca Sun posted a THR story about the Academy’s recent decision to apologize to Sacheen Littlefeather, 75, for the abuse she suffered after announcing to an audience of Academy members in the spring of 1973 that Marlon Brando was politely declining his Best Actor Oscar over the industry’s dismissive, disrespectful treatment of Native Americans.

As a result Littlefeather, an aspiring actress, was blackballed — one of the earliest cases of Hollywood cancel culture, albeit at the hands of mainstream centrists and conservatives. (The wokester left wouldn’t own cancel culture for another 45 years.)

Sun’s is a sturdy, well-written piece, and yet she waits until paragraph #13 to announce what may have been a deciding motive on the Academy’s part to publicly apologize and also announce a special Sacheen Littlefeather tribute in September.

Littlefeather, she writes, is coping with metastasized breast cancer. This may or may not indicate an imminent situation (I’m deeply sorry if that’s the case), but it was almost certainly read by the Academy as a timetable message — that if they wanted to make amends with Littlefeather, soon would be a better time than later.

As mentioned yesterday, Sacheen Littlefeather is an adopted, self-invented name — her original name is Marie Louise Cruz.

Another take on Littlefeather’s life is offered in Lisa Snell’s Native Times interview piece [10.26.10].