CODY, Iron Eyes

(1907–1999)

   For years Iron Eyes Cody’s face was the most recognizable Native Americanface on television. During the 1960s, a long-running advertising campaign against littering ended its television commercials with a close-up of an aging Native American, Cody, looking over the countryside. Atear rolled down his cheek as he contemplated what humanity was doing to the environment. Cody’s film career began in Cecil B. DeMille silents and ended with over 200 films to his credit. He nearly always played stereotypical Native Americans, although, as in Perils of Nyoka (1942) where he played the “Arab,” he was also cast in other ethnic roles. By the 1940s and 1950s, Cody had assumed more substantial roles: Sitting Bull(1954), The Great Sioux Massacre(1965), Nevada Smith(1966), and A Man Called Horse (1970). Throughout his life, Cody maintained the fiction that he had been born in Oklahoma of Native American heritage. In fact, he was born Espera DeCorti, a second-generation Italian-American. Nevertheless, the U.S. Native American community embraced Cody fully for his lifetime devotion to Native causes.

   See also SILENT ERA CINEMA.