‘Sacheen Littlefeather was no more Native American than I am’

Sacheen Littlefeather refused the Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando (Image: GETTY)No, it’s having to present an award – or even accept one – that gives me the heebie-jeebies. The possibilities for screwing up big-time are limitless. Verbal slip-ups, physical trip-ups, random mishappenings (Judy will roll her eyes at my mentioning it, but few who saw my wife’s wardrobe malfunction, ahem, unfolding, on live TV at the National Television Awards will forget it). And sometimes things are very far from being what they seem: this week, the astonishing truth behind that famous Apache Native American protest at the 1973 Oscars emerged. An eye-widening whammy of a revelation to be sure, but we’ll come to that.A trawl through websites devoted to awards ceremony howlers produces some real shockers. At the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, host Steve Harvey announced, to suitable fanfare and drum roll, that this year’s winner was… Miss Colombia! Out she joyfully stepped to be crowned and garlanded. Tumultuous applause. Tears of happiness.Except, er, she hadn’t won. Harvey had to return to the stage (‘the most gut-wrenching walk I’ve ever experienced in my entire life’ he later said) to confess that he’d got it wrong and the winner was in fact Miss Philippines. Miss Colombia sorrowfully dipped her head and her crown was briskly removed and transplanted to the true winner. Tears of joy were now tears of humiliation.Names can be tripwires to the unwary. All John Travolta had to do at the 2014 Oscars was welcome singer/actress Idina Menzel on stage to collect her statuette. Bizarrely, he summoned ‘Adele Dazeem’. (She got her own back the following year by inviting not ‘John Travolta’ but ‘Glom Gazingo’ to join her at the podium. He took it in good part).But back to Sacheen Littlefeather’s historic appearance at the 1973 Oscars. Dressed in traditional Native American woven clothes (and looking wonderful) she took to the stage on behalf of Marlon Brando to turn down his Best Actor award for his role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather. The sisters of Sacheen Littlefeather claimed the late activist was not Native at all (Image: GETTY)She seemed the perfect messenger for his statement condemning Hollywood and America’s treatment of indigenous people.An ‘Apache activist and actress’ Littlefeather gave the performance of a lifetime. She spoke calmly but so powerfully that western movie veteran John Wayne, sitting in the audience, had to be physically restrained from attacking her.She got a few cheers but was comprehensively booed and just before she died a few weeks ago at 75, the Academy of Motion Pictures finally and belatedly offered her a grovelling apology. Except… she wasn’t an apache.This week, her sisters came forward in a bombshell interview to reveal that ‘Littlefeather’ was born Marie Louise Cruz in California to Mexican parents.She was no more Native American than I am. Maybe Marie should have won Best Actress Oscar that night.I don’t know if I am more angry or sad at the news this week that Sir Salman Rushdie has been permanently blinded in one eye and lost the use of a hand after being stabbed by a frenzied attacker two months ago. Doctors had hoped to restore vision and reconnect severed nerves running down into the hand, but the damage is too severe.Rushdie is 75. The accused, who pounced as the writer came on stage in New York to talk about artistic freedom, is 24. The prosecution scenario is of a fit, well-armed young man versus a defenceless pensioner in his eighth decade. Very brave.Rushdie’s clever and humorous 1988 book The Satanic Verses was declared blasphemous by Muslim leaders. In 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill the author, and 10 years ago an Iranian religious foundation put a bounty on Rushdie worth $3million. Draw your own conclusions.The writer now faces his final years with only one functioning hand and eye. What a price to pay, in his old age, for upholding freedom of speech. If there’s a guilty verdict on the accused, they should throw away the key. Salman Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and use of one hand (Image: GETTY)Dr Who is to return soon with David Tennant reprising the title role and Russell T Davies writing the scripts. It’s only for three episodes but Judy and I cannot wait.The Tennant/Davies combo in the early noughties was probably the cleverest, funniest, sharpest and sassiest set of Dr Whos since the series launched on November 23, 1963 (I was seven and I remember it vividly).Almost 60 years on the show is a global phenomenon. Foreign sales last year alone earned a huge £1.6billion.That makes Dr Who worth three times as much the UK fishing industry. Yet another reason to send the TV licence fee into the past?