He may be the man who “made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” but Marlon Brando was no stranger to turning down prestigious honors.

In perhaps one of the most controversial moments in Academy Award history, the legendary star rejected his Best Actor award at the March 27, 1973 ceremony for the gangster classic The Godfather.

The actor sent a 26-year-old aspiring actress named Sacheen Littlefeather to the show in his place. Littlefeather, decked out in full Apache dress, was armed with a 15-page letter penned by Brando. She wouldn’t get the chance to read it though, show producers threatened to arrest her if the speech ran over 60 seconds.

Instead the visibly nervous woman delivered a much shorter version. She introduced herself as the president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee and said Brando could not accept the award based on “the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.

There were audible boos and some encouraging cheers before she continued saying that recent events at Wounded Knee contributed to Brando’s decision to refuse the honor.

Wounded Knee was a hot topic in America at the time. A group of Oglala Lakota and their American Indian Movement supporters armed themselves and took over the historic town in February 1973. The group was protesting the treatment of their people, and a bloody 71-day standoff with federal agents would ensue. Brando was no stranger to political activism, even participating in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic March on Washington in 1963, and he wanted to make a statement to show his support for the Native American cause.

The actor’s full letter was later published in The New York Times. In it he lamented the Wounded Knee situation and also wrote, “The motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing him as savage, hostile and evil.”

While Brando certainly had the best of intentions and wanted the 85 million people watching the ceremony that night to learn about the plight of Native Americans, he was widely criticized for the bold move. However, it was Littlefeather that faced the brunt of the backlash. John Wayne reportedly became so agitated by the speech, that he had to be restrained from storming onstage and pulling her away from the microphone.

Propelled to fame overnight, Littlefeather was soon plagued by the press and rumors that she was not truly a Native American. The story would prove to be false, records show she was born Marie Cruz to a white mother and an Apache and Yaqui father in Salinas, California. She adopted the Littefeather name later when she became interested in her heritage.

Her dreams of becoming an actress sadly vanished. She was quickly blacklisted in Hollywood due to the incident, and previously unpublished 1972 nude photographs of Littlefeather were soon released by Playboy to capitalize on her overnight fame.

For the most part, though, she would fade from the public consciousness until comedian Dennis Miller referred to her as “that stripper chick Brando sent to pick up his Oscar” on an August 2012 episode of the Tonight Show.

In 2013, Entertainment Weekly tracked Littlefeather down to see what she’d been doing since the infamous speech. In the magazine, she opened up about her life and her recent battle with breast cancer. She’s been a health care advocate for Native Americans for decades, and even worked with Mother Teresa in the 1980s to help care for AIDS patients.

The interview gave her a chance to set the record straight and showed a brief brush with fame wouldn’t define her.

As she put it, “Now I am in a place of being a healer, if you will, of my own journey.”