Iron Eyes Cody

Article abstract: Iron Eyes Cody was a film and television actor who was probably most familiar to Americans as the crying Indian looking at a polluted river in “Keep America Beautiful” television spots during the early 1970's.

With his omnipresent head feathers and braided wigs, Iron Eyes Cody was a living embodiment of popular images of the noble Indian. He claimed that his mother was a Cree from northern Canada and his father an Oklahoma Cherokee named Thomas Long Plume, a performer in circuses and wild west shows, but it is possible that he had no Native...

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