Iron Eyes Cody

Iron Eyes Cody was a SicilianAmerican actor. He portrayed Native Americans in Hollywood films. He also played an Indian shedding a tear about litter in one of the countrys most wellknown television PSAs, Keep America Beautiful. In 1996, Codys halfsister said that he was actually of Italian ancestry, but he denied it.

Cody was born Espera Oscar de Corti on April 3, 1904, in Kaplan in Vermilion Parish, in southwestern Louisiana, a second son of Antonio de Corti and his wife, Francesca Salpietra, immigrants from Sicily. He had two brothers, Joseph and Frank, and a sister, Victoria. His parents had a local grocery store in Gueydan, Louisiana, where he grew up. His father left the family and moved to Texas, where he took the name Tony Corti. His mother married Alton Abshire and had five more children with him.

Source: Wikipedia