Entertainers Who Turned Down Major Awards

The Academy Gave Marlon Brando An Offer He Could Refuse

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Marlon Brando famously said, “I’m gonna make him an offer he won’t refuse.” He delivered the iconic line as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. Unfortunately, the Academy’s offer wasn’t very difficult for him to turn down — at least while Native Americans remained the butt of one-sided stereotypical portrayals in Hollywood.

Brando won a Best Actor Oscar for his work on The Godfather but ditched the awards ceremony completely. Instead, he sent actress Sacheen Littlefeather, who was the then-president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. She went up on stage and bravely told the audience that Brando refused to accept the award “in order to protest the stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans in film.”