Oscars: Here are the 3 people who declined an Academy Award

Winning an Academy Award is the highlight in the career of an actor, director or screenwriter, and Sunday night’s ceremony will be no exception. But in the 93-year history of the award, three people have refused the Oscar after winning it.

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Two actors and one screenwriter have told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to take their statue and ... keep it.

Marlon Brando

Fifty years ago, Marlon Brando turned in a memorable performance as Mafia patriarch Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.” Brando would win the Best Actor Award in the 1973 ceremony, his first Oscar since he portrayed Terry Malloy in the 1954 film, “On the Waterfront.” Eighteen years after his first award, Brando did not attend the ceremony for what would be his second Oscar.

On March 27, 1973, a White Mountain Apache actress, Sacheen Littlefeather, came onstage as presenters believed she would accept the award. Littlefeather, the president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee, soon clarified that she was actually rejecting the statuette on Brando’s behalf, History.com reported.

Brando wanted to call attention to Hollywood’s misrepresentation of Native Americans, “Today” reported.

“(Brando) very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award,” Littlefeather told the audience. “And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry … and on television in movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded Knee.”

The federal government was then waging armed conflict against Native American activists in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, History.com reported.

“I beg at this time that I have not intruded on this evening, and that … in the future our hearts and our understandings will meet with love and generosity,” Littlefeather said.

Midway through Littlefeather’s speech, audience members booed.

“I later learned six security guards had to hold back John Wayne, who was in the wings and wanted to storm on the stage and drag me off,” Littlefeather said in a documentary called “Sacheen: Breaking The Silence.”

Wayne told The New York Times that Brando “should have appeared that night and stated his views instead of taking some little unknown girl and dressing her up in an Indian outfit.”

George C. Scott

Brando’s rejection of the Oscar was a surprise. George C. Scott, who won the Best Actor award for his portrayal of Gen. George S. Patton in 1970′s “Patton,” had said for years he would not accept the Oscar.

Scott had been nominated twice as Best Supporting Actor, in 1959′s “Anatomy of a Murder” and “The Hustler” two years later. Scott had told the Academy he did not want the nominations since he disagreed, on principle, with a competition that pitted actors against each other, History.com reported.

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Scott was nominated for Best Actor, but during the 1971 ceremony he turned down the award.

On the night of the ceremony, Goldie Hawn opened the envelope and cried, “Oh my God! The winner is George C. Scott.”

Scott was home on his farm in upstate New York, “Today” reported. “Patton” producer Frank McCarthy came on stage to accept the award.

Dudley Nichols

Screenwriter Dudley Nichols became the first person to decline an Oscar for the 1935 film, “The Informant.”

Nichols boycotted the Oscars to protest the Academy’s refusal to acknowledge the Screen Writers’ Guild and other unions, History.com reported. At the time, the Academy opposed independent unions on the grounds that the organization already served as a union for workers.

On two occasions, the Academy tried mailing Nichols the award, but he sent it back each time.

“As one of the founders of the Screen Writers’ Guild, which was conceived in revolt against the Academy, and born out of disappointment with the way it functioned against the employed talent in any emergency, I deeply regret I am unable to accept this award,” he wrote in a letter to the Academy that was reported by The Associated Press in 1936. “To accept it would be to turn my back on nearly 1,000 members of the Screen Writers’ Guild.”

Nichols’ boycott paid off. In 1938, the National Labor Relations Board certified the Screen Writers’ Guild as the representative of film industry writers, History.com reported. At that point, Nichols relented and accepted his Oscar.

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