Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) May 26, 1996 Sunday NATIVE SON BYLINE: By ANGELA ALEISS Contributing writer SECTION: LIVING; Pg. D1 LENGTH: 993 words He stole America's heart with his "Keep America Beautiful" television ads in the 1970s. His image was unforgettable: as careless citizens littered the country's lakes and forests, he turned toward us with a tear trickling down his cheek. Iron Eyes Cody, veteran Hollywood actor of more than 100 motion pictures, thus came to represent America's noble Indian hero. Long before the ad ran, he rode alongside cowboy stars Tim McCoy, Gary Cooper and Roy Rogers in countless Westerns. He even has his own star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame. But Iron Eyes, supposedly of Cherokee/Cree descent, is actually a second-generation Italian-American from Louisiana. His true heritage lies within the state's southwestern parish of Vermilion and its records of probates, deeds and baptisms. Today, Iron Eyes speaks of how his mother was a Cree Indian who married his Cherokee father and raised the children in Oklahoma. He recently suffered a stroke and still lives in the same modest home in Los Angeles that he purchased in 1936. His living room is a museum of his own photos and trophies, and his Hollywood memorabilia clutters the tables and chairs. In a telephone conversation last year, Iron Eyes denied his Louisiana origins. "You can't prove it," he said. Instead, he gave his own explanation: "All I know is that I'm just another Indian." But Iron Eyes' Indian guise, his Hollywood fame, was an escape from an early life of hardship and despair. Ultimately, he created his own Native American identity. May Abshire, 80, is half sister to Iron Eyes Cody. She explains that their mother was Francesca Salpietra, a short woman with long black hair and dark skin who grew up in Sicily among a family of winegrowers. Her traditional parents arranged her marriage to Antonio DeCorti, an Italian immigrant awaiting his bride-to-be in New Orleans. According to New Orleans' passenger lists, Iron Eyes' mother arrived in 1902, a decade after the notorious 1891 lynching of 11 Italian immigrants that nearly triggered a war between the United States and Italy. Widespread tensions erupted between the city's Italian and Irish residents, and by the turn of the century, New Orleans greeted its immigrant arrivals with suspicion and hostility. "We were known as 'Dagoes' (knives) when we got there," May recalls her mother telling the children. May says that the couple soon left New Orleans to work in Louisiana's sugar cane fields, where Sicilian immigrants commonly replaced black slave labor. Iron Eyes - or 'Oscar' as he was called - was born on April 3, 1904, in the small town of Kaplan. Baptismal records at Holy Rosary Catholic Church show that his sponsors christened him "Espera." Iron Eyes was the second of four children, with Joseph William the eldest (born in about 1902), and sister Victoria Delores (about 1907) and brother Frank Henry (about 1909) the younger siblings. Francesca and Antonio struggled to make ends meet with their small grocery store in Gueydan. But May explains that in 1909, Antonio ran afoul of the notorious "Black Hand Society" and its Mafia tactics. He fled to Texas and never returned. "He said he wanted to hide because he didn't want his family destroyed," she explains. Parish records indicate that Francesca soon faced seizure of her business by the store's suppliers. "She had a hard time. She washed at night and ran the store during the day," May adds. According to May, Antonio lived virtually incognito in Texas and communicated with his family only through his sister in Missouri. But mention her husband's name, and Francesca paled. The incident left 5-year-old Iron Eyes temporarily without a father. But Francesca soon remarried Alton Abshire, a native Louisianian whose ancestors had immigrated from Nova Scotia. She bore five more children, and May was the couple's second eldest. May recalls that even as a youth Iron Eyes would dress up as an Indian and lead neighborhood boys in outdoor games. "He always said he wanted to be an Indian. If he could find something that looked Indian, he'd put it on," she says. Meanwhile, Iron Eyes' struggling parents temporarily moved to Orange, Texas, to find work in the oil refineries. Within a year they returned to Gueydan, but the DeCorti boys stayed behind to join their biological father. Part of the family mystery is that no one appears to know what happened to Antonio. But Texas vital records show that he changed his name to Tony Corti and worked in Houston as a poolroom manager. He died in 1924 at the young age of 45. Following Antonio's death, the three boys journeyed to California to start a new life. They changed their names from Corti to Cody, and Iron Eyes "turned 100 percent Indian," as May puts it. "He had his mind all the time on movies," she says. For Iron Eyes, Hollywood became a comfortable escape from his unsettling past. He easily sympathized with an oppressed people and knew firsthand of hardship and persecution. He pledged his life to Native American causes, married an Indian woman (Bertha Parker), adopted two Indian boys (Robert and Arthur), and seldom left home without his beaded moccasins, buckskin jacket and braided wig. "He looks just like an Indian," May notes. For awhile, playing Indian seemed to run in the family. Iron Eyes' two brothers also portrayed Indian characters in the movies until they drifted into other careers. Frank was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1949, and Victoria worked as a seamstress in Los Angeles until her death in 1965. Joseph died in 1978, the same year Iron Eyes lost his wife of nearly 42 years. Last year, Hollywood's Native American community honored Iron Eyes for his longstanding contribution. Although he was no Indian, they pointed out, his charitable deeds were more important than this non-Indian heritage. For Iron Eyes, it seems that his Indian identity will become another movie legend. LOAD-DATE: May 27, 1996 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: Iron Eyes Cody with Fess Parker, center in a scene from a movie. 2 PHOTOS COURTSEY OF THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES Copyright 1996 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co.