Iron Eyes Cody
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Image:CryingIndian.jpg Iron Eyes Cody (April 3, 1904 – January 4, 1999) was an actor born in Kaplan, Louisiana. He was born Espera DeCorti, the son of Sicilian immigrants Francesca Salpietra and Antonio DeCorti. He was not born a Native American, but he claimed to be part Cherokee and part Cree. Cody and his wife Bertha Parker adopted children that were Native American. Cody began his acting career at the age of 12 and continued to work until the time of his death. In 1996, the New Orleans Times-Picayune "exposed" his "true" heritage, but Cody denied it.
He appeared in more than 200 films including A Man Called Horse (1970) and Ernest Goes to Camp (his last film appearance in 1987). However, he's most famous for his Crying Indian role in the Keep America Beautiful public service announcement in the early 1970's, an ecology commercial in which he shows a tear after looking at a polluted river.
On his passing in 1999, Iron Eyes Cody was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. He is survived by his adopted son, the Native American flautist Robert "Tree" Cody.
The issue of Iron Eyes Cody's ancestry was featured as a minor plot device in a 2002 episode of The Sopranos. In that episode, members of the Mafia threaten to expose Cody's Sicilian ancestry in order to embarass Native American activists.