Iron Eyes Cody (born Espera Oscar de Corti, April 3, 1904 – January 4, 1999) was an Italian-American actor best known for playing Native American characters in Hollywood films, and in a famous PSA about littering by the group Keep America Beautiful.
While he was born in Louisiana to a family of Italian and Sicilian heritage, he came to insist that he was Native American and claimed membership in several tribes at various times. He began acting in film and television in the 1930s, and eventually adopted the accepted stereotypes of Native American culture off-set and in his private life—or at least when photographers were around.
Over his sixty-year career, Iron Eyes Cody appeared in more than 200 films and 100 television series. He died of mesothelioma at the age of 94.
Works
Film- Ace in the Hole (1951)
- The Big Trail
- Bowery Buckaroos
- Broken Arrow (1950)
- Cockeyed Cowboys Of Calico County
- El Condro
- Ernest Goes to Camp
- Fighting Caravans
- Grayeagle
- The Great Sioux Massacre
- Gun Fever
- Indian Agent
- Lost in Alaska
- A Man Called Horse
- Massacre River
- Montana Belle
- Nevada Smith
- Oklahoma Jim
- The Paleface (1948)
- The Rainbow Trail
- Ride 'em Cowboy
- The Senator Was Indiscreet
- Sitting Bull
- The Spirit of '76
- Texas Pioneers
- Unconquered
- The Viking
- White Feather
Television
- The A-Team
- Cavalcade Of America
- The Cisco Kid
- The Fastest Guitar Alive
- Gunsmoke
- The Lucy Desi Comedy Hour
- Mackenzies Raiders
- Mister Ed
- Newhart
- Rawhide
- The Rebel 1959
- Then Came Bronson
- The Virginian
Tropes:
- Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Generic Native outfits were part of his fake Native persona.
- Brownface: Cody carried his Native American stage persona into his personal life, claiming to descend from various tribes despite being of Sicilian descent.
- Crying Indian: The anti-littering commercials starring him as an indigenous man saddened by all the garbage were the Trope Maker.
- Fake Nationality: While Cody was well-known for playing various shades of Native Americans, in reality he was about as Native American as Tony Soprano.
- Plays Great Ethnics: Despite being Italian, he was a fairly convincing Native American to society of the day.
